Staying in Trouble

2026 Workshop for Graduate Student Scholars of Hong Kong and its Diasporas

Thursday, 01 October 2026 | 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. | Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library, University of Toronto

Laikwan Pang, the Choh Ming Li Professor of Cultural Studies and Head of the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, will lead this year's workshop.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have left Hong Kong in the last few years due primarily to political reasons. There have been numerous scholarly discussions on the formation of this new Hong Kong Diaspora. But the position of staying is much more difficult to theorize. Worse, there is also an increasing set of tensions observed between those who choose to migrate and those who stay. We can explore the relationship, rather than antagonism, between “staying” and “leaving.” Analyzing the experiences and ontology of staying might reconnect the two groups of Hongkongers via their common search for courage and wisdom to live with dignity and responsibility.

Professor Laikwan Pang received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, and she has taught at CUHK since 2002. She is now Choh-Ming Li Professor of Cultural & Religious Studies. She specializes in critical theories, and her research spans a broad spectrum of issues related to culture in Modern and Contemporary China and Hong Kong. One of her central philosophical projects is the exploration of the dynamics between “many” and “one,” manifested in the intersections between culture and politics, copies and models, plurality and unity, as well as democracy and sovereignty. She is the author of a few books, and her scholarship has been recognized internationally. Creativity and Its Discontents received the Chiang King-Kuo Foundation Publication Award, The Appearing Demos received the American Library Association Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and One and All was shortlisted for the Political Studies Association W.J.M. Mackenzie Book Prize. She also received the Discovery International Award offered by the Australian Research Council, the Research Excellence Award, and the Young Research Award from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 

Participants will be asked to read three required short texts before the workshop, identify connections among the texts, and generate two strong questions for discussion during the workshop.

Refreshment will follow the discussion. 

Advance registration is required at this link before 29 September 2026.

This event is organized by the York Centre for Asian Research and the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library.

This workshop is held in conjunction with the Ninth Bernard H.K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies, which will be held on 30 September 2026.

For more information: hongkong[at]yorku.ca