About Us

The Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC), Department of Comparative Literature, and School of Chinese present:

Testing the Canon: Digital Scholarship and Early Cinema in Hong Kong

Speaker:

Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, Lam Wong Yiu Wah Chair Professor of Visual Studies, Lingnan University

Moderator:

Jean Ma, Mr. and Mrs. Hung Hing-Ying Professor in the Arts, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Time: 4:30 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: CRT-7.30, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU

All are welcome.

Registration requires HKU Portal ID.

https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?ueid=103486

How do we investigate the reception of existing film canons a century ago? For instance, which of the most prestigious silent films were shown in Hong Kong? How were these films exhibited and received locally? What role does digital scholarship play in such an investigation? Noting the inclusion and exclusion of films that were once popular (or not) into our current film canons, a list of “classic” silent titles from Europe, America, and China was made to test the canon in the Hong Kong context. The list was subsequently checked/verified by the aggregated data from the two digital archives on early Hong Kong film exhibition. The findings show that early films screened in Hong Kong did not match, to a large extent, the canonical history of either global or Chinese cinemas. The gap might be related to stars, the track records of directors and studios, the colonial distribution circuits, and choices of the exhibitors. In closing, I will consider other likely gaps in digital archives and the limitations of digital historiography.

Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh is Lam Wong Yiu Wah Chair Professor of Visual Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Her work examines the aesthetic, institutional, and economic dimensions of cinema, film culture, and media industry. In the past decade, she focused on producing new materials for the study of early cinema and has published two online databases, several articles, and three edited volumes: “Early Film Culture in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Republican China” (University of Michigan Press, 2018); “Beyond Shanghai: New Perspectives on Early Chinese Cinema” (Beijing UP, 2016); and “Rethinking Chinese Film Industry: New Methods, New Histories” (Beijing UP, 2010). Her most recent works are “32 New Takes on Taiwan Cinema” (University of Michigan Press, 2022, with Darrell Davis and Wenchi Lin) and “The Colonial Screen: Early Cinema in Hong Kong” (Oxford University Press, 2025).