[URBANTH-L] CFP: Globalization: Cultures, Institutions and Socioeconomics (Hong Kong)

[Angela Jancius]

International Conference on "Globalization: Cultures, Institutions and 
Socioeconomics"
To be held in Hong Kong, December 12-13, 2008

Co-Sponsored by The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Washington 
University in St. Louis

Along the recent trend of globalization, perhaps one of the most significant 
focal points is the study on issues related to "Greater China," a notion 
that originally entails potential economic integration of China, Taiwan, and 
Hong Kong (including Macau) and has lately been broadened to include 
Singapore, Southeast Asian Chinese communities, and overseas Chinese in 
other countries. Despite some political repercussions, Greater China has 
become an indisputable economic reality today. But economy is not the 
strongest element at play; rather, a more prevalent and consequential factor 
is culture and the underlying formal institutions and informal social 
customs.

This conference is designed to study the causes and consequences of 
globalization from cultural, institutional and socioeconomic perspectives, 
focusing more on topics related to Greater China. It invites scholars to 
investigate:

. What perspectives can we deploy to investigate the different and yet 
similar cosmopolitan cultures of Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, 
Singapore, Macau, Shenzhen, and others?
. How do cultures of these cities work in practice and how are they embedded 
in everyday-life situations as locatable phenomena?
. What approaches can we use to explore the experience of place and space, 
the dynamics between local and global, culture and economy, and the dilemmas 
of knowledge?
. How do states, empires and nations, corporations, shops and goods, 
literature, music, film, etc., figure in our examination of the cultures of 
consumption and production?
. How do places develop meanings for people? What are the struggles over 
defining who belongs in a place?
. What role do travel, information technology, and other means of 
communication play in shaping a global city network among these three cities 
and beyond?

The conference will feature several distinguished keynote and 
plenary-session speakers, including Nobel Laureate Douglass North and 
Professors Frank Dikotter, Robert Hegel, Chang-Tai Hsien, Gordon Mathews, 
Hui Wang, and Shaoguang Wang. All sessions will be held on the Chinese 
University of Hong Kong campus, while the conference dinner will be housed 
at the world-known Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Although we prefer complete papers, submissions of long abstracts will be 
considered. Submissions of organized sessions are also welcome. All 
submissions must be made through e-mail to all the co-chairs of the program 
committee no later than May 31, 2008: Lingchei Letty Chen 
(llchen at artsci.wustl.edu), Ann Louise Huss (ahuss at cuhk.edu.hk), Laikwan Pang 
(crsdept at cuhk.edu.hk), and Ping Wang (pingwang at artsci.wustl.edu). We 
anticipate having the preliminary program posted by June 15, 2008.

Dept. of Cultural & Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Email: crsdept at cuhk.edu.hk
Visit the website at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/crs