GE2113 - Reading Colonialism and The Modern Experience - 細讀殖民地摩登

Hong Kong inherited many of its institutions, values, and practices from the era of British colonialism, which enables it to better connect with the modern world than any other city in Mainland China. What is the relationship between the colonial experience and the experience of learning to be modern, and cosmopolitan for that matter? What are the characteristics and limitations of modernity in a colonial context? This course is a study of colonial modernity through a critical reading of selected writings by colonizers and colonized, mainly in colonial Hong Kong, but also in colonial Taiwan for comparison. Agendas, desires, and repressions will be explored in light of historical contexts and easy-to-understand references to postcolonial theory and Marxist criticism, where appropriate.