Upcoming Events

A Hundred Sinology Fortnightly (2026 Fall)

To celebrate the essence of traditional culture and deepen academic dialogue on campus, the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology has introduced the “Sinology Fortnightly” series. This academic event invites emerging scholars of Chinese and Sinological studies worldwide to collaboratively explore classic texts and share scholarly insights, thereby igniting intellectual creativity and expanding perspectives. With 95 forums already held, the series is set to host its 96th to 100th sessions in person during the Fall Semester of 2026. Themed "A Hundred Sinology Fortnightly" this milestone coincides with our University's 70th anniversary celebrations. We look forward to welcoming you to the Academy!

Venue: SWT 702, Level 7, Shaw Tower, Shaw campus, Hong Kong Baptist University

Below are details of the seminars in the 2026 Fall:

Session 1 (Overall No. 96)
2026/9/8 | 10:30–12:00 | Cantonese
From Text to Image: The Application of Food Literature and AI-Assisted Teaching
SIU Yan Ho, Lecturer I, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Academy of Chinese, History, Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University

Summary: Dr Siu Yan Ho began by examining the historical background to the formation of Hong Kong’s food culture in the post-war period. He pointed out that local cuisine has not only inherited the traditions of Cantonese cuisine, but has also evolved through interaction with imported foods and local ways of life. Drawing on ancient texts such as Qingbai Leichao, Zhuyu Shanfang Zabu, and Shilin Guangji, he compared food names, culinary methods, seasonal customs, and concepts of dietary nourishment recorded in these sources into dialogue with the preservation of Hong Kong’s modern intangible cultural heritage. This offered the audience a comparative perspective on antiquity and modernity.

Dr Siu then used AI-generated technologies to create visualizations of scenes related to ancient agriculture, the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, materia medica, and ecological knowledge. These visualizations enabled the audience to gain a clearer understanding of the knowledge of things and material culture embedded in the textual records of ancient classics. Dr Siu demonstrated the complementary relationship between the “written records” of historical sources and the “images” of food generated by artificial intelligence, highlighting their significance for both learning and practical applications.

He emphasized that educators may follow principles such as multiple representations, contiguity, split attention, and individual differences when designing courses to reduce students’ cognitive load and help them establish connections between textual and visual information. Dr Siu then used dried oysters, oyster sauce, and char siu, all familiar foods in Hong Kong, as examples to illustrate that while artificial intelligence can make ancient culinary texts more accessible for presentation and teaching, it can never replace the original sources themselves. We must still first understand the historical materials and situate them within their historical context to truly appreciate how food culture reflects both the continuities and transformations of social life.

Lecture review: HKBUTube; Bilibili

Session 2 (Overall No. 97)
2026/9/16 | 14:30–16:00 | Putonghua
Is Mohism a Religion? Reflection on “Mohist Education” in Mohist Studies
HUANG Jiaofeng, Associate Professor, School of General Education, Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University

Abstract: Since modern times, many scholars have said that Mohism was the representative of materialism and science and technology school in the pre-Qin period. Therefore, it has become the mainstream of academic circles to expound the materialist thoughts of Mohism, such as “natural”, “forceful engagement” and “economical use”, and to belittle the idealistic religious dimensions (religious thoughts and religious forms) of Mohism, such as “respecting heaven” and “doing ghosts”, “Political correctness” and path dependence of Mohist studies for hundreds of years. This is the defect of Mohist study. Is Mohism a “Mohism religion”? This is also a big problem in the study of Mohism. The author thinks that it is necessary to speculate on the basis of existing relevant literature and interdisciplinary knowledge in order to approach the true features of Mohist religious thought and religious form to the maximum extent, and expand the dimension of Mohism in the field of civilization dialogue. Relevant research should balance “historical materials”, “Mohist classics” and “reasonable speculation”.

Lecture review: TBC

Session 3 (Overall No. 98)
2026/10/13 | 10:30–12:00 | Cantonese
Omissions and Implications: Reading Jin Yong's New Revised Edition Creative Mindset from Manuscript Castoffs
YAU Clarence, Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Literature, Hong Kong Chu Hai College

Abstract: From 1999 to 2006, Jin Yong spent more than seven years revising his novels with repeated amendments, accumulating over 80,000 pages of precious manuscripts that record the entire lengthy revision process. A careful study of these highly confidential original manuscripts reveals that the standard New Revised Edition available to the public does not fully reflect Jin Yong's original vision and creative intent. A large number of elaborately designed plots originally added in the first draft were ultimately deleted and abandoned. This lecture selects part of the planned yet discarded plots from the first draft. By comparing them with the final published version and referring to correspondence between the author and the publisher, it conducts in-depth analysis to restore the authentic revision logic and process of Jin Yong’s New Revised Edition, and interpret the underlying original creative thoughts behind those deleted chapters.

Registration: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/9drVkXxaib

Session 4 (Overall No. 99)
2026/12/4 | TBC | Putonghua
Digital Simulation of Social Landscape Recorded in Tang and Song Poetry: From Data Interpretation to Social Perspective
SONG Yao, Assistant Professor, Academy of Chinese, History, Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University

Abstract: Tang and Song poetry records the social hierarchical features, people’s daily activities, folk customs, rituals and social contradictions in medieval China, which constitutes first-hand literary historical materials for reconstructing the social ecology of commoners and scholar-officials in the Tang and Song dynasties. Traditional research on ancient poetry is confined to qualitative textual appreciation and historical philology, making it impossible to reproduce the dynamic social operational logic behind diverse interpersonal interactions of ancient people. Meanwhile, research relying on static social landscapes fails to reflect the real evolutionary laws of ancient social operation. Adopting the cutting-edge paradigm of digital humanities, this paper takes Large Language Models (LLMs) as the core tool for textual processing to realize semantic analysis, social entity extraction, scene classification and historical knowledge calibration of massive unstructured texts of Tang and Song poetry. Besides, it introduces Agent-based Simulation technology to construct differentiated intelligent agents, restore the behavioral logic, social interaction modes and survival decision-making rules of different social groups, and establish a micro simulation environment for Tang-Song society fitting poetic contexts to dynamically restore real ancient social scenarios. The research proves that the integration of large language models and agent-based simulation bridges the gap from static textual research on poetry to dynamic social evolutionary simulation. It compensates for the deficiency of insufficient dynamic deduction in traditional literary and historical studies, and provides an innovative intelligent and dynamic research paradigm for the study of social history in classical literature.

Registration: TBC

Session 5 (Overall No. 100) —— Please stay tuned!

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