Established in 1956, and part of the University of Hong Kong, Asia’s most prominent English-speaking university, we publish about 3/4 of our books in English and 1/4 in Chinese. Building on our unique position in Asia, works published by the Press examine, critique, and celebrate Asia’s place in the world.
While academics from every area of Asian Studies are represented on our list, we have gained particular renown for publications in cultural studies, film and media studies, Chinese history and culture, art and law.
Key Subject Areas:
HKU Press is particularly renowned for its titles in Asian Studies, including cultural studies, film and media studies, history, art, architecture, literary studies, and anthropology.
HKU has strong lists in social sciences and professional fields such as law, education, social work, medicine, linguistics, and construction.
One of our key strengths is our bilingual publishing in both Chinese and English, reflecting our roots in Hong Kong while maintaining a global perspective.
Hong Kong University Press Highlights
Travels and Revelations
Travels and Revelations: 23 Essays by Zhang Chengzhi is about cultures which the author knows intimately. With sophisticated sensibility, he describes the tangible cultures of Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang in recent decades – the landscapes and cityscapes, the roads and waterways, the rural and urban dwellings, the working and living habits, and the outstanding symbols and totems.
Like a traveller pausing before stunning scenery – the Mongolian grasslands, the yellow-earth plateaus, the Yellow River’s mighty gorges – he reflects on the intangible cultures that have made the Han, the Hui, the Mongolian and the Uyghur peoples who they are, and contemplates on their language usages, socio-political dilemmas, philosophical traditions, beliefs and biases and their religious aspirations.
The Empress and the Dragon Throne: Imperial Women of the Early Ming Dynasty
The rulers of the Ming dynasty enacted paradigms of hierarchical order. Like imperial families, households, and courts in earlier Chinese dynasties, they articulated patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal organizational principles as exemplars for families and institutions throughout the empire. Women made indispensable contributions to the development of these paradigms and principles and to the social, cultural, and political fabric of the family and the state. And yet, in the existing literature in Chinese and English women are often burdened with stereotypes, positioned as peripheral, or rendered almost invisible. Reading available texts “against the grain,” and drawing on a trove of evidence from material culture, Soulliere shows how women defined a place for themselves in the multigenerational Ming imperial family, imperial household, and court. The Empress and the Dragon Throne spans the first Ming century from just before the founding of the dynasty in 1368 to the end of the Tianshun reign in 1465. This richly illustrated volume is a must-read for scholars, students, and anyone interested in learning about women’s lives during the Ming dynasty.
The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai: Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance, Second Edition
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how form, music, narration, characterization, genre, and other artistic elements work together to produce certain effects on audiences. Bettinson argues that Wong’s films are permeated by an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” achieved through techniques such as narrative interruptions, facial masking, opaque cuts, and other complex strategies. The effect is to jolt the viewer out of complete aesthetic absorption. Each of the chapters focuses on a single aspect of Wong’s filmmaking. The book also discusses Wong’s influence on other filmmakers in Hong Kong and around the world. The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai will appeal to all who are interested in authorship and aesthetics in film studies, to scholars in Asian studies, media and cultural studies, and to anyone with an interest in Hong Kong cinema in general, and Wong’s films in particular.
Our authors are among the most accomplished in their fields, whether an expert practitioner sharing current best practices or an academic from one of the world’s top universities reporting cutting-edge research. With authors in North America, Europe, Asia, and beyond, our list has been global in its outlook long before globalism became a 21st-century buzzword.
Hong Kong University Press Copyright Year Collections
