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Carmen C M Tsui

City University of Hong Kong
Participates in 1 Session
Dr. Carmen C. M. Tsui is an architect and urban historian. She obtained her Ph.D. in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Tsui is interested in housing history, Chinese urbanism, and the history and theory of city planning in twentieth-century China. Her research and teaching agendas focus on the historical processes which created the present-day urban environment and the social, cultural, and political meanings behind the production of urban space. Tsui is involved in three research projects funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. The first project, Finding a Model for Urban Living: The Origins of Public Housing in China, 1920s–1940s, traces the origins of public housing in China to the Nationalist era of the 1920s and examines the state’s efforts to bring housing into the government sphere. The second project, Welfare Housing Before the Shek Kip Mei Fire: A Study of Four Philanthropic Housing Organizations in Hong Kong, 1950s–1960s, seeks to advance understanding of the position and role of nongovernment organizations in housing provision. The third project, Building a Culture of Homeownership: A History of Condominiums in Hong Kong, 1950s–1980s, explores how a homeownership culture was created in Hong Kong and has affected residential landscape and condominium design in the city. Tsui is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Urban History.

Sessions in which Carmen C M Tsui participates

Monday 6 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Sessions in which Carmen C M Tsui attends

Saturday 4 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
13:30
13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Local Societies
Heritage changes the local societiesheritage and mobilityPost-colonial heritageGlobal vs local

Many people are actively using working class heritage as a resource to reflect on the past and the present, and there is a growing tendency for the heritage of working class people to be interpreted and presented to the public in museums and heritage sites—see for example the Worklab network of museums. Working class communities and organizations also play active roles in creating a memory of their own past, and mobilizing this to sustain political action in the present. Drawing on scho...

13:30 - 17:00 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Living EnvironmentIndustrial HeritageUrban HeritageArchitecture and Urbanism
Heritage changes the environmentHeritage values

In many parts of Europe and North America, but also in Australia, Japan and parts of China, regions of heavy industry, in particular regions of coal and steel industries, have been in decline since the 1960s. In many of these regions, the transition to post-industrial landscapes has provoked discussions surrounding industrial heritage, what to do with it and for which purposes. One of the most ambitious industrial heritage projects was initiated in the Ruhr region of Germany from the 1960s on...

15:30
15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes Politics
Heritage changes politicsPolitical uses of heritageUses of heritageHeritage and conflicts

In recent decades, the growth of the World Heritage industry has necessitated the reconsideration of scale. Formerly dominated by nation-states, some influential international organizations such as UNESCO and its advisory bodies (ICOMOS and IUCN) are now taking a strong role in decision-making through policy-making and implementation. Despite the power of the transnational organization and its relation with states parties, there is a growth of regionalism and “localism” in the heritage indust...

17:00
17:00 - 18:00 | 1 hour
Festive Event

This festive event will offer delegates a taste of one of the iconic dishes of Montreal, the smoked meat sandwich, imported by Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. In particular, the tasting will allow a discovery of the products of the renowned international institution Schwartz's, the Hebrew Delicatessen for which Montrealers and tourists alike are willing to wait in long line-ups. During the tasting, “Chez Schwartz,” a documentary produced by Garry B...

18:30
18:30 - 20:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Public event
Simultaneous translation - Traduction simultanée

Most of what we experience as heritage emerges into conscious recognition through a complex mixture of political and ideological filters, including nationalism.  In these processes, through a variety of devices (museums, scholarly research, consumer reproduction, etc.), dualistic classifications articulate a powerful hierarchy of value and significance.  In particular, the tangible-intangible pair, given legitimacy by such international bodies as UNESCO, reproduces a selective ordering of cul...

Sunday 5 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00
9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Living EnvironmentUrban HeritageTourismActivists and ExpertsArchitecture and Urbanism
Heritage changes the environmentHeritage values

With his expression "ceci tuera cela," Hugo established almost two centuries ago a strong link between words and stones as transmission vehicles of human memory. We heritage experts would be inclined to consider stones as more reliable than words, what semiology seems to confirm: stones are clues, and clues are, according to Roland Barthes, tangible proofs of “what has been.” But the inspector Columbo has often shown how we can play with these clues, and Umberto Eco would easily forgive us th...

Monday 6 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00
9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage as an Agent of Change (Epistemologies, Ontologies, Teaching)Activists and Experts
Heritage as an agent of changeEpistemologiesOntologiesTeaching

The field of heritage has emerged as a key site of reflection. Influenced by shifts in the academy (e.g., post-colonial, post-structural and feminist theories), heritage scholars are bringing increased attention to the deployment of heritage as both a conceptual category and a contested field of power and discourse. Nevertheless, significant challenges remain in communicating what comprises the theoretical and methodological toolkit of heritage studies. Scholars are still mapping out the nuan...

13:30
13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Social OrderHeritage Changes PoliticsIndustrial HeritageActivists and ExpertsArchitecture and Urbanism
Heritage changes politicsPolitical uses of heritageUses of heritageHeritage and conflicts

This session discusses the ways in which early public housing from the 1950s to 1960s in Hong Kong, China, and Singapore have emerged recently as an arena for the critique of national, elite or dominant notions of heritage and history. The contexts of the development of public housing in the early post-Second World War era and the background to their recent reappraisal as significant sites for the edification of cultural identity or socio-political struggle provide grounds for exploration of ...

Tuesday 7 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00
9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Notions of HeritageHeritage Changes Itself (Geographical and Linguistic Processes of Transformation)
Heritage changes itselfHeritage and geographyLinguistic transformation of heritageNotions of heritage

As the interface between past and present, heritage is deeply involved in articulations of personal and group identity, working to unite and harmonize group relations, and, simultaneously causing frictions, fractions, and violence. Critical heritage theory reveals that values and approaches to heritage are articulated both within and across regions (such as Asia, or Europe). A vital, and as yet unanswered, question centres on the degree to which heritage in Asia fundamentally differs from ...

9:00 - 17:00 | 8 hours
Notions of HeritageHeritage Changes Itself (Geographical and Linguistic Processes of Transformation)TourismActivists and Experts
Heritage changes itselfHeritage and geographyLinguistic transformation of heritageNotions of heritage

To date, there has been much scholarly discussion and critique about how ideas and policies of "heritage" may be operating globally. There have also been ethnographic studies providing "on the ground" perspectives. In this session, we aim to establish a bridge between local-level empirical study and global heritage discourse. By addressing "heritage" in relation to processes of modernization and globalization in East Asia, we seek to investigate the dynamic communication between global herita...