'Comparative Cultures of Care' Project Organising A Humanities Online Reading Course on 'Theorizing Care'

Since February 2023, every second Thursday of each month scholars from around the world meet online for a Humanities Online Reading Course on Theorize Care, which is one of the working packages of ‘Comparative Cultures of Care: An Interdisciplinary Project’ under the Faculty of Humanities (FHM).

‘Theorizing Care’ is an online Humanities Reading Course that aims to understand the various notions of care as they are theorised and practised in different academic fields. For this purpose, every month scholars from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Mainland China meet online and discuss the readings prepared by the discussion leader of the month. Among the prominent scholars who joined and led the previous sessions include: Prof Ellen Seiter (HKBU), Prof Mette Hjort (University of Lincoln), Prof Yiu Fai Chow (HKBU), Dr Bidisha Banerjee (EdUHK), Dr Adam Muller (University of Manitoba), Dr Daisy Tam (HKBU), and Prof Liz Jackson (EdUHK).

The discussion in ‘Theorizing Care’ has covered various disciplines, including film studies, gender studies, peace and conflict studies, ecocriticism, sociology, education philosophy and literary studies. The works discussed include: Prof Ellen Seiter’s Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture (1995); Prof YF Chow’s Caring in Times of Precarity (2018); Prof Roberto Esposito’s Immunitas (2011); and Prof Liz Jackson’s Beyond Virtue: The Politics of Educating Emotions (2020).

Since February, more than a hundred scholars and researchers have participated in the group discussions. The transcript of the discussions, including the readings and summaries, are available on the website of the Comparative Cultures of Care (https://www.culturesofcare.net).

In September, Dr Jeffrey Clapp, former Head of the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities, will lead a discussion on care and literature: how readers’ emotions of fictional characters influence their social relationships in real life.

Poster of ‘Theorizing Care: A Humanities Online Reading Course’

Event Posters for the series of ‘Theorizing Care’.

A glimpse of past courses