Cross-Cultural Studies in English (CSIE) is a specialised programme in the School of English. It is designed to provide opportunities for students to study cross-cultural examples in literary and cultural history. Topics pursued include the relationship between culture and politics; the study of literature and culture beyond national, regional, and disciplinary boundaries; the politics of knowledge production, circulation, and institutionalization.

CSIE equips students with new ways of thinking about literature and culture and encourages them to engage with the challenges created by the emergence and proliferation of new literatures and literary subjects. The programme allows students to investigate traditional modes of literary studies as a discipline organized by and around concepts of the "nation" or the "national." It encourages them to critically reflect upon the relation between literature and such issues as colonization, decolonization, and globalization, and invites them to analyse the literary products and cultural politics that arise from these issues. It offers students opportunities to explore literature and culture not only in terms of the effects of globality but also in terms of their potential for innovation, both within the national and as part of the global. Students will acquire the theoretical and historical knowledge and the analytical skills necessary to undertake critical and culturally sensitive readings and construct clear and coherent argument in both writing and speaking.

One particular strand within the CSIE programme is the China-West axis, which aims to provide students with an understanding of specifically, but not exclusively, Hong Kong's cross-cultural history and its literary products. CSIE is thus unique in giving students a critical awareness of how to approach and navigate today's multicultural world.

Students who declare a major or minor in Cross-Cultural Studies in English will:

Demonstrate an understanding of the culture and literature in English as a site of encounters, fusions, conflicts, and transformations between people and ideas of different cultures;
Respond critically, theoretically, and intellectually to cross-cultural literary manifestations;
Develop a cultural awareness and sensitivity that bring about an informed and intelligent understanding of today's globalised world;
Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of the implications of the interconnectedness between different cultures and eras;
Understand Hong Kong as an important site of cross-cultural contacts.

First Semester Courses

ENGL2002 Language in society
ENGL2022 Women, feminism and writing I
ENGL2030 World Englishes
ENGL2039 Language and gender
ENGL2075 The idea of China
ENGL2089 Making Americans: Literature as ritual and renewal
ENGL2093 Literary Islands
ENGL2095 The East

Second Semester Courses