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HKU weekly notice (from May 6 to May 13)

06 May 2011

 

International Conference on Healthy Longevity: The Emergence of Oldest-Old and Centenarians
The Department of Social Work and Social Administration of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), in collaboration with the University of Georgia, USA will hold an international conference "The Emergence of Oldest‐Old and Centenarians" on May 6 and 7 (Friday and Saturday). It will be the first conference ever held in Hong Kong to gather overseas scientists and local researchers for intellectual exchanges on issues including demography, psycho‐social, behavioral, functioning and geriatrics of the oldest‐old across Asian and Western countries.

Date: May 6 and 7, 2011 (Friday and Saturday)
Venue: Wang Gungwu Theatre, Graduate House, HKU
Time: (May 6) 8:45am to 6:15pm, (May 7) 9am to 12:30pm

The program rundown is available at http://socialwork.hku.hk/eventfiles/longevity/

For further information or arrangement of individual interviews, please contact Mr. Philip HUI at 2241 5582 or send an e‐mail at hkp7286@hku.hk.

Hong Kong Women's NGO Forum: Working with CEDAW
HKSAR Government is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). As part of its compliance, it will be submitting, together with the Mainland Chinese government, a Hong Kong report to the UN CEDAW committee in due course. This occasion is an opportunity to bring together frontline NGOs and researchers to HKU which has encouraged for some time, a policy for knowledge exchange and community outreach. The discussions, planned along themed panels, will involve local activists and researchers deliberating on current issues. It is hoped that such an engagement will stimulate the writing of alternative reports in Hong Kong in order to improve the lives of many women who still face discrimination.

The forum is jointly organized by the Women's Studies Research Centre (WSRC), the Emerging Strategic Research Theme (ESRT) on Diversity Studies, HKU Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL), and the Hong Kong Federation of Women's Centres (HKFWC).

Date: May 7, 2011 (Sat)
Time: 9:00 am - 6:15 pm
Venue: Council Chamber, 8/F, Meng Wah Complex, HKU

Registration required, please email diversity.hku@gmail.com to reserve a place.

For enquiries,, please contact Flora Leung by email at fkleung@hku.hk or by phone at 2859 2941.

Public lecture by Doctors without Borders former Vice President Professor Didier Fassin "When Humanitarianism Goes to War"
The Centre for the Humanities and Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) will hold a public lecture by Professor Didier Fassin, former Administrator then Vice-President of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) entitled "When Humanitarianism Goes to War" on May 11 (Wednesday). The public lecture will be moderated by Dr Robert Peckham, co-Director of the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine. The lecture will focus especially on the war scenes, from Kosovo to Iraq to Palestine, and on the role of non-governmental organizations, international agencies and the states in these contexts. It will explore the tensions and contradictions at work in the politics of humanitarianism, thus contributing to a history of the way in which contemporary societies deal with the intolerable.

Professor Didier Fassin is the James Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and until 2003, was vice president of Doctors without Borders. He has been appointed to a Visiting Research Professorship at the HKU Centre for the Humanities and Medicine. Professor Fassin has worked extensively on the trauma suffered by local people caught up in conflict in Palestine and Gaza, as well as the experiences of asylum seekers to Europe from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. In the lecture, he will share his personal experiences in the field and recent events, including the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the latest uprisings across the Arab world.

Date: 11 May 2011 (Wednesday)
Time: 18:30 - 19:30
Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, HKU
Moderator: Dr Robert Peckham, co-Director of the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine
Language: English

For further information of the lecture, please visit: http://www.chm.hku.hk/humanitarianism.html

For enquiries or arrangement of individual interviews with Professor Fassin, please contact Maria Sin by email at mariasin@hku.hk or by phone at 28592867.

Another lecture by Professor Didier Fassin"Global Health and Conspiracy Theories"
Professor Didier Fassin, former Administrator then Vice-President of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) will give a lecture on "Global Health and Conspiracy Theories". Conspiracy theories around health issues have a long history from the medieval plague and nineteenth century cholera in Europe to the recent contestation of the polio vaccines in Nigeria. The most dramatic episode in the past decades has concerned AIDS in the country which is the most severely affected worldwide: South Africa. Based on an ethnography conducted in the black townships as well as in the political arena, the lecture will propose an analysis of what is often thought to be not only irrational but also incomprehensible. The argument is that the study of counter-narratives can shed light on some of the crucial issues of contemporary societies. Conspiracy theories express social imaginaries and political anxieties that remain unspeakable or unheard.

Date: 13 May 2011 (Friday)
Time: 12:30pm to 1:45pm
Venue: Exhibition Area, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, HKU, Sassoon Road
Language: English

For further information, please visit: http://www.chm.hku.hk/global_health.html

For enquiries, please contact Maria Sin by email at mariasin@hku.hk

HKU weekly notice is sent to its subscribers on Friday afternoons. If you want to receive the event highlights, please regieter with Ms Helen Ho by email at hmsho@hku.hk.