Our world is full of events. Some are dramatic and instantaneously transformative. Others are mundane and saturate our everyday lives. In this conference, we explore "events" as both phenomena and methods to imagine, understand and represent the worlds and lives in action and in flux. Our topics include: How are events lived, remembered, and represented? How do technology, power and hierarchies affect the ways events are structured and believed? While mainstream media often shape the meaning and truth of events, social media and independent journalism also contest and dispute the dominant construction of the real. With a focus on events, we examine a wide range of topics of pressing concern: environment (s), pandemics, inequalities and justices all of which demand nuanced and critical ways of understanding and accessing their details.

9:15 Opening Remarks
Profs. Kaming Wu (CUHK) and Mei Zhan (UCI)

9:30 – 12:00 Panel 1: Pandemics and the Politics of the Body
Chair: Mei Zhan

Building National Identity via Immunity: The Politics of the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in China
Xuanxuan TAN, CUHK

Feeling Alive while Staying Inside: Virtual Concerts in Digital Games during the Pandemic
Samson S. S. TANG, CUHK

Ignored consequences: China's Zero-COVID policy and medical waste
Liyuan DENG, CUHK

From Waste to Visibility: Representing Pneumoconiosis and Wasted Lungs in Chinese Documentary
Wenxi HU, CUHK

Trans-Engendering KuaXingBie Subjectivity: Medicine, Kinship, and Vulnerabilities Under US-China Geopolitics
Jianmin SHAO, UCI

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 16:00 Panel 2: Media and Arts through Events
Chair: Kaming Wu

Toward Chinese Disability cinema under late liberalism
Clayton LO, CUHK

Epic in the Everyday: Film references and Cultural Revolution in Jin Yucheng’s Blossoms (2012)
Yeekwan “Vanessa” WONG, UCI

Remembering White Terror: Documentary Representation of the Taiwan’s Trauma since the 2000s
Lucas L.H. WONG, CUHK

A comparative study of the artistic responses to the national events of hydropower dam projects in the Three Gorges and Mekong River Basin since the 2000s.
TAM Wai Fung, Jeff, CUHK

It almost feels like home: The (Re)imagination and (Re)construction of Community in the Post-2019 Hong Kong Cinema
Ella Mei Ting LI, CUHK

Queering the event: The 4th World Conference on Women revisited
Yiping CAI, UCI

12 May 2023 (Room: SBSG 3323)

9:30 – 12:00 Panel 3: Reimaginings and Enactments
Chairs: Kaming Wu and Mei Zhan

Evolving Emotion, Situated Context, and Movement Activism: The Case of Grieved Families in South Korea
Minyoung KIM, UCI

The Myth of Lion Rock Spirit: How Official and Local Narratives Compete for the Discourse of Hong Kong Spirit during Social Movements
Jingxuan CHANG, CUHK

Xinjiang Cotton Controversy: Fashion Labour Issues, Populism, and the Shaping of Public Opinion
Yawen ZHU, CUHK

Fashioning Politics? Mamianqun, Han-centrism, and the Cultural Politics of Authenticity
Ke ZHU, CUHK

How the class discourse dilutes and fades in China: a case study of the emergence of “dagongren” meme
Yi MIAO, CUHK

The Complete Absence of The Audience - Social Media and Self-Reflexive Performances
Benny LIM, CUHK

12:15 Closing discussions