Editor’s note: This is a play in response to the photograph above by Alex Webb, for the ENG Department’s course Genremorphosis. A girl and an old woman, inside a screened porch. The girl is standing, the woman is next to her, sitting and staring at the ground. They seem to be both thinking. They are facing…
Category: Courses
“Umbrellas and Bottles” by Stuart Christie
Foreword I’m delighted to announce the publication of an important volume from the University of Mississippi Press, Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty Twenty-First-Century Approaches, which includes an essay of mine about teaching Eudora Welty in Hong Kong, with direct and attributed input (discourse, photos, storyboards, and images) from some remarkable young people who helped me…
“The Fishy Return of Richard Strickland” by Daisy Lam and Eadgyth Lui
I don’t know why I am here. But I guess I have been summoned by the recent release of a film which happens to be an appropriation of my life—and which I do not like. The film, a take on a Beauty and the Beast-kind of love story between a gill-god fishman amphibious creature and…
“She Waits” by Pamela Wong
It is a Tuesday in the blue winter. As she walks in and sits down, as usual, on this maroon seat in this shadowless corner, the barista, knowing that she stays for a whole afternoon, has served her an espresso, and she knows it’s her last one today. She never gives a careful look…
“The Broken One” by Naterlie Ip, by Christy Leung, Leo Lau and Charis Yeung
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a longer adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944). . (Laura stands at the centre of the stage. Tom and Amanda enter the stage and stand at either sides of Laura. All three solemnly face the audience. Amanda is spotlit.) Amanda: It was the first and last time…
“Comics and Graphic Narratives; or, The Art of the Matter” by Jason S Polley
The fourth-year English course “Comics and Graphic Narratives”, a title as ambiguous as, say, “Short Stories and Novels”, and even the more equivocal “Prose Fiction”, is organised into several unstable thematic groupings: underground comics (or comix), revisionist narratives within the mainstream, memoirs & confessionals, new journalism, and auteur comics. The texts most recently selected for…
“Mu Dan and Ambiguity” by Candy Wang
Mu Dan’s (1918-1977) poems, while incorporating elements and sentiments of classical Chinese poetry, also exhibit characteristics of Western modernist aesthetics and thoughts. For example, his poetry was influenced by William Empson (1906-1984), and this influence partially ushered Mu Dan’s shift towards Modernism. Perhaps the most significant impact of Empson on Mu Dan’s poetry was the…
“The Song of Green Snake” by Isabella Dong
I seek you everywhere On the land once torn by war, The city overwhelmed By the flood you summoned People’s grief cried aloud When you threatened The wicked, bald hypocrite To let go of your husband. On the Broken Bridge You and I tempted fate. I sneaked into town by moonlight, Consumed by agony. The…
“The Salesman Sleeps His Way to Death” by Jeff Chow
“Morning Light” by Tammy Ho Today is a Wednesday. A horseracing day for my father but just an ordinary Wednesday for me. Waking up to another dull day, the air is humid and suffocating. I am holding a cup of chamomile tea, sipping, watching my father in his deep sleep. My father used to wake…
“(Selected) Notes on the Imaginary Creatures in City W” by Paulina Lee
EDITOR’S PREFACE Fan Te Xi (範特西) died while I was studying his book on endangered species in the Amazon. Ten years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Fan in the City of Water Alley (禾日水巷, also known as City W). Mr. Fan was an enthusiastic traveller and learner. I was (and I…
“Intersection Collaborative Learning Project” — A Showcase of the Best Works (with an introduction by Heidi Huang and Holden Liang Qichao)
This month, students from the English Department’s Master’s programme in Literary and Comparative Studies (MALCS) joined the students from the undergraduate course Hong Kong Stories (taught by Heidi Huang) in an “Intersection Collaborative Learning Project”. The collaborative field trip which they undertook throughout Hong Kong was inspired by local modernist writer Liu Yichang’s short story…
