Harvard-Lingnan Symposium: “The Avant-Garde X Hong Kong and the New South”

700 scholars and students join Harvard-Lingnan Symposium exploring contemporary Chinese literature from a Hong Kong perspective

Lingnan University and Harvard University jointly hosted the Harvard-Lingnan Symposium: “The Avant-Garde X Hong Kong and the New South” at the Lingnan@WestKowloon at M+ Tower of West Kowloon Cultural District from 4 to 5 December 2023. The symposium brought together 18 distinguished scholars from top universities worldwide, along with three prominent Sinophone writers: Ban Yu from Northern China, Chen Chuncheng from Southern China, and Lee Wai-yi from Hong Kong. The symposium attracted an online audience of more than 600 and 100 scholars and students were present at the venue. Taking Hong Kong as both a physical nexus and symbolic vantage point, the symposium explored the theoretical prospects of the avant-garde in relation to the emerging discourse of the “New South”, a concept derived from recent studies in Chinese literature.