Building cultural studies for postcolonial Hong Kong : aspects of the postmodern ruins in between disciplines

Under the impact of post-Fordist globalism, scholars who consider themselves part of “a community of thinkers” would realize today that they dwell in none other than a “ruined institution”, where Culture no longer matters for the education they deliver. Without a guiding idea of human culture inside the university, understanding the multiplying perspectives and wide-ranging voices of dissent outside of it has become impossible. By outlining the institution of Cultural Studies in postcolonial Hong Kong, I discuss the educational project of the BA Cultural Studies launched by Lingnan University in 1999. The first such programme found in the Chinese-language world, the Lingnan case of critical Cultural Studies emerged in the context of the HKSAR where intellectual efforts are being driven to the matrix of sociohistorical factors shaping the reproduction of “thinking subjects” in universities. The problem is that postmodern institutional structures have not been adapting as much as they can to the processes of cross-fertilization and trans-disciplinary interaction of the new knowledge formations that affect them.