Tsang, Michael Yat Him (2015) At interregnum : Hong Kong and its English writing. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The recent Umbrella Revolution has drawn the world's attention to Hong Kong's neo-colonial situation, where it is sandwiched in a number of interregna, such as between the postcolonial and the neo-colonial, or between ex-coloniser Britain and current coloniser China. This unique postcoloaniality of Hong Kong - that it has money but no independence - is seldom addressed in postcolonial (literary) studies. The situation is further complicated when one considers the state English writing, given the invisibility and neglect it receives worldwide and among the Hong Kong population, who only recognises the pragmatic value of English. Nevertheless, the Umbrella Revolution has also provided a crucial opportunity to reconsider how Hong Kong culture can contemplate the past and articulate the future of the city, a project undertaken in this dissertation. Believing that it is high time Hong Kong English writing emerged as a distinct literary voice, this dissertation asks how English writing should be positioned amidst, and help to move forward, Hong Kong's various interregna. It evaluates the opportunities and the challenges facing the formation of an English writing community in Hong Kong, drawing inspirations from Pascale Cassanova's vision of a world literary space that is fraught with struggles and competition, and Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of cultural, symbolic and other forms of capital. The recommendations made in this dissertation to develop English writing further share the common idea that Hong Kong English writing should "turn and look inwards" as much as it should present itself as international and cosmopolitan. The main recommendations are: the need to develop committed and dedicated publication avenues for emerging English-language writers and students from Hong Kong, and the need to develop new analytical paradigms that represent the rich layers of social reality and lived experiences across fault lines and geographical segregation in Hong Kong.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	English language -- Writing
Official Date:	July 2015
Dates:	Date Event July 2015 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Varma, Rashmi
Extent:	xi, 368 leaves : illustrations (colour), map
Language:	eng

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