Chinese Culture: Tradition

Dr Lang Chen’s research interests focus on the religious ideas, praxis, and pursuits of urban, educated Chinese from the late imperial period on. Her book project aims to uncover the often-neglected history of Tiantai Buddhism in the 16th to 17th century. It examines the lay and clerical networks centering on the leading Tiantai monk Youxi Chuandeng (1554-1628) and their interactions with Chan Buddhism. Contrary to the widespread impression of Tiantai as a school for detached pundits, her research shows that it was supported by many liberal literati to be an alternative approach to Chan, seeking to make Buddhist doctrines and practices comprehensible for average people. Dr Chen’s side projects explore how the religious tradition of Chinese literati seen in the 16-17th century has been influencing and adapted in modern and contemporary China. For example, in her journal articles, she situates contemporary writer Shi Tiesheng (1951-2010)’s “syncretic,” non-institutional religious thought within this historical context, showing the continuity of Chinese literati's religious life.

Dr Silvia Fok received her B.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong. Her primary research is contemporary Chinese art. She taught courses of modern and contemporary art history in the Hong Kong Art School and participated in the Hong Kong Art Archive project https://arthistory.hku.hk/hkaa/revamp2011 as the project coordinator from 2002 to 2004. She worked as part-time Lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts, HKU, and the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, CUHK in 2009 before joining the General Education Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in January 2010. She has joined the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University since 1 July 2020.

Dr Mark Meulenbeld earned degrees from Leiden University (MA) and Princeton University (PhD). Currently he is Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese Culture and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is interested in Chinese religious phenomena, especially the interplay between Daoism and popular religion. Within that field he concretely focuses on demons and gods, ritual lore, and related narrative traditions such as traditional novels, local legends, and theatre.

Dr Wicky Tse is interested in the military and social history of China in the period between the third century BC and the sixth century AD. His research mainly follows five tracks. The first asks the question of what violence meant and how notions of violence competed with one another. The second focuses on how warfare shaped, and was being shaped by, various social, cultural, and political factors. The third explores how real and imagined frontiers formed and the factors determined their shifting. The four examines the emergence of regional cultures and identities under the façade of a unified empire. The fifth concerns how the above four aspects associated with the development of political culture in early and early medieval China.

An awardee of teaching awards, Dr David Wan was formerly a teaching fellow in the Department of Chinese Culture. His academic interests include Comparative Religious Studies, Neo-Confucianism, the theory of self-cultivation, metaphysics, and ethics. He is also a certified Philosophical Counsellor.