HKHC Speaker’s Series, History for All: Translating Research into Impact in Hong Kong History
History for All: Translating Research into Impact in Hong Kong History
Speaker:
Dr Florence Mok, Nanyang Technological University
Sahil Bhagat, Nanyang Technological University
Prof Kwong Chi Man, Hong Kong Baptist University
Date and Time: 21 Jan 2026, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Zoom
Language: English
Online event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
Zoom link:
https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/95002436586?pwd=rWpzbmgbGQXve89GEp72YET9s1uPCv.1
Meeting ID: 950 0243 6586
Passcode: 548179
—-
Across disciplines, scholars seek to translate their research into ‘impact’ through patents, businesses, exhibitions, and other collaborations. In turn, the Hong Kong public has grown increasingly interested in local history and heritage. How can scholars of Hong Kong history best bring our research into the public eye and conversation? Moderated by Peter Hamilton, this talk will feature two pioneers in this endeavor, Florence Mok (Nanyang University) and Chi Man Kwong (Hong Kong Baptist University). Dr. Mok with her colleague Sahil Bhagat will share insights and segments from her new documentary in her talk titled Making ‘A Water History of Hong Kong’, while Dr. Kwong will highlight his work in digital mapping and spatial history in his talk titled ‘What’s Underneath the Football Pitch? Reflecting on Doing Community History in Hong Kong’.
—-
Florence Mok is a Nanyang Assistant Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University. She is a historian of colonial Hong Kong and modern China, with an interest in environmental history, the Cold War and state-society relations. She is the founder of the Hong Kong Research Hub (HKRH)at NTU and an Executive Board member of the Society for Hong Kong Studies (SHKS). She is the author of Covert Colonialism: Governance, Surveillance and Political Culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966-97, published by Manchester University Press (Studies in Imperialism series) in 2023 and the co-editor of A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945-1997, published by Hong Kong University Press in 2025.
Sahil Bhagat is a Research Associate in the History Department at Nanyang Technological University. His research focuses on the environmental and labour histories of East and Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on plantation-based communities. His latest work, investigating the transnational networks of Malayan Indian plantation resistance movements, is currently under review for the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.
Kwong Chi Man is professor in the Department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University. He specialises in the military and naval history of modern East Asia, particularly from the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to the 1970s. He has published Eastern Fortress A Military History of Hong Kong, 1840–1970 (co-authored) and Hongkongers in the British Armed Forces. His works can also be found in Modern Asian Studies, War in History, and Journal of Military History. Recently, he released a number of Digital Humanities projects, such as the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong: A Spatial History Project: (https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/japanese_occupation_of_hongkong/)
