- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2023-24
The module begins in 1945, after Britain took back Hong Kong from occupying Japanese forces and ends in 1984, when the British and Chinese governments fixed 1997 as the date for the transfer of power from Britain to China. The module focuses on explaining a pattern of peaceful ‘decolonisation’– relative that is to territories such as Kenya and Malaya. It also accounts for Hong Kong’s path of ‘development’—that is, how the living standards for ordinary Chinese people improved steadily but unevenly post-1945. It examines crises: such as Hong Kong becoming a destination for refugees fleeing communist China; strikes and violence on the streets; riots in 1956 and 1966; a severe drought in 1963; the Cultural Revolution in 1967; Sino-British diplomacy in the 1980s. It examines slower processes of change: how the most densely populated city in the world became high-rise, how employment expanded, how pollution worsened, how the state taxed people and spent the dividends, how Chinese mentalities ‘modernised’.
The primary sources used range from telegrams, newspaper reportage, minutes of meetings, academic reports, social surveys, government statistics and autobiographies/oral testimonies. The module debates source biases, source skews and the impact of British, Hong Kong and Chinese state secrecy on the retelling of Hong Kong history. Semester 1 debates ‘decolonisation’ from a Hong Kong perspective. Semester 2 engages with ‘development’ from the perspective of Hong Kong.
Students taking this module must also take the first part in Semester 1.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Semester 2 2023-24 |
The aims of this module are:
Students who complete this module successfully will:
Students will attend a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 2. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight three-hour seminars in all. A one-to-one meeting between tutor and students will also be held to discuss assessments.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
For formative assessment, students submit an essay draft of 2000-words.
For summative assessment, students complete a 4000-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This comprises 100% of the overall module mark. Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive a one-to-one meeting with the tutor to discuss the essay and their plans for the assessed essay.
Work will be returned to students with written comments in their tutorial and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to make use of their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For summative assessment tasks, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
For semester time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading: