Dr Michael Tsang
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Michael Tsang joined Birkbeck in 2021 as Lecturer in Japanese Studies. He has previous academic experiences in Newcastle University - where he was Leverhulme Early Career Fellow based at the School of Modern Languages - the University of Warwick, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
His research interests lie in world and postcolonial literatures with an East Asian focus, specialising in Japanese, Hong Kong, and Chinese literatures. He also conducts research in Asian popular cultures at large.
He is the co-editor of Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage (with Gitte Marianne Hansen, Routledge, 2021), and has been published in various journals and volumes such as Japan Forum, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Wasafiri, Sanglap, and others. He is a founding co-editor of Hong Kong Studies (Chinese University Press), the world's only bilingual academic journal specifically devoted to Hong Kong. He is also staff reviewer at Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, where he has established an extensive profile of reviews of Asian literature.
He is also a writer, publishing poetry and prose with Asian themes.
Highlights
Invited Speaker for READ@PolyU, campus-wide reading programme of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 4 November 2022.
Talk title: A Magical and Critical Journey to Haruki Murakami's Literature
Co-edited volume, Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage (Routledge, 2021)
This is one of the first edited volumes on the iconic Japanese writer Murakami Haruki, combining cutting-edge research from scholars around the world and taking stock of Murakami's literary career in the past four decades.
Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow, 2018-2021
I was awarded the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for my research project, 'World Literature and 20th Century East Asia: A Bibliomigrancy Approach'.
Keynote Speaker, (Re)defining the Intersection: Hong Kong Textuality conference, University of Sheffield, 25 January 2019.
Speech title: A Minor Literature(?) at Interregnum: Whither Hong Kong’s English Writing?
Co-founder and managing editor, Hong Kong Studies
Published bi-annually by the Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Studies is the world's first bilingual academic journal devoted to academic research on Hong Kong's culture, society, and politics.
Qualifications
- PhD in English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick
- MPhil in Gender Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong
- BA in English, Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Associate Fellow, Higher Education Academy
Web profiles
Administrative responsibilities
- Home and International Recruitment and Admissions Lead, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
- Programme Director, BA in Japanese Studies, Graduate Diploma in Japanese Studies
- Japanese Language Coordinator
Professional activities
Advisory Board, Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry
Managing editor, Hong Kong Studies journal
Professional memberships
Member, Modern Languages Association
Member, British Association of Japanese Studies
Member, British Comparative Literature Association
Member, American Comparative Literature Association
Honours and awards
- Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, Leverhulme Trust, September 2018
- 'Eyes on Murakami Haruki' project, with Dr Gitte Marianne Hansen. The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Grant, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, September 2018
- Summer Research Fund, Humanities Research Centre, University of Warwick, September 2017
ORCID
0000-0002-7313-5673 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- East Asian literatures
- East Asian popular cultures
- World literature
- Postcolonial theory
- Gender studies
- Critical theory
Research clusters and groups
- Steering Group (2019-2021), Newcastle Postcolonial Research Group
Research projects
World Literature Influences in 20th-century Japanese and Chinese Literary Circles: A Bibliomigrancy Approach
At Interregnum: Hong Kong and its English Writing
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
I welcome prospective PhD applicants in these areas:
- Modern and contemporary Japanese literature
- Popular culture in Japan/East Asia
- Contemporary East Asian literatures (e.g. Chinese, Korean, diasporic)
- Hong Kong society/culture/literature
- Gender and East Asia
- Theories of postcolonial and/or world literature
- World literature with an Asian focus
Current doctoral researchers
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ANDREA GUALERZI
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ZHUI NING CHANG
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SERENA CENICCOLA
Teaching
I have more than 10 years of teaching experience in higher education settings in multiple countries. My main areas of teaching are in Japanese and East Asian literatures, popular culture, society; postcolonial literatures, world literature, and literary theory and criticism; East Asian languages (Japanese and Chinese) and academic writing in English. Here is a list of modules I have taught previously:
School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University
- Surveying East Asian Literatures
- Introduction to Japanese History and Society
- Contemporary Japanese Popular Culture
- Literary and Cultural Expressions in Contemporary Japan
- Japanese-English translation
Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, The University of Warwick
- Modern World Literatures
- Global City Literature
- New Literatures in English
- Modes of Reading
Department of English, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Gender and Literature
- Introduction to Literature
- Renaissance to Enlightenment
The following are the Birkbeck modules I convene and/or teach:
Teaching modules
- Studying Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies in Modern Languages (ARCL059S7)
- Imagining the Nation (ARCL064S7)
- Japanese 3 (Level 4) (ARCL101S4)
- Film and Politics (Level 5) (AREL094S5)
- Creative Arts, Culture and Communication Postgraduate Research (AREN060Z8)
- Doing Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics (ARLL004S4)
- Culture and Text (ARLL010S4)
- Comparative Themes in the Novel (ARLL012S5)
- Advanced Seminar in Japanese Linguistics and Translation (ARLL027H6)
- Manga and Anime (Level 6) (ARMC187S6)
- Rethinking Japan: Introduction to Modern Japanese Society and Culture (Level 4) (LNLN023S4)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael (2020) Politics in/of transmediality in Murakami Haruki’s bakery attack stories. Japan Forum 32 (3), pp. 404-431. ISSN 0955-5803.
- Tsang, Michael and Fung, D. (2019) Beyond the spoon-feeding classroom: a Jesuit Priest’s use of outings as holistic education. Education About Asia 24 (1), pp. 22-27. ISSN 1090-6851.
- Tsang, Michael (2017) Hong Kong as a test case for world literature. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry 4 (1), pp. 9-23. ISSN 2349-8064.
- O'Sullivan, M. and Tsang, Michael (2015) Educational inequalities in higher education in Hong Kong. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16 (3), pp. 454-469. ISSN 1469-8447.
- Tsang, Michael (2014) English writing as neo-colonial resistance: an exchange of English poetry in Hong Kong. Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature 8 (2), pp. 36-56. ISSN 1985-3106.
- Tsang, Michael (2011) 楊逸の作品における在日中国人の異文化適応について――文化変容を中心に. 日本學刊 14, pp. 224-238.
Book
- Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael, eds. (2021) Murakami Haruki and our years of pilgrimage. Routledge. ISBN 9780367181413.
Book Review
- Tsang, Michael (2022) Book Review - Sari Kawana, The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan.
Book Section
- Tsang, Michael (2022) World-weaving in Nineteenth-Century East Asia: the case of Hong Kong's earliest Chinese newspaper, gems from near and afar. In: Bhattacharya, A. and Hibbitt, R. and Scuriatti, L. (eds.) Literary Capitals in the Long Nineteenth Century: Spaces beyond the Centres. Literary Urban Studies. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 61-86. ISBN 9783031130595.
- Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael (2021) Yes, Murakami Haruki is a challenge. In: Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael (eds.) Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage. Routledge. pp. 1-9. ISSN 9780367181413. ISBN 9780367181413.
- Tsang, Michael (2021) Voyeuristic gaze, narratological construction, and the gender problem in Murakami Haruki’s After Dark. In: Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael (eds.) Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage. Routledge. pp. 109-126. ISBN 9780367181413.
- Tsang, Michael (2019) Teaching Manga as a phenomenon of global commodity production and consumption. In: Holca, I. and Tămaş, C.S. (eds.) Japan in the World, The World in Japan: A Methodological Approach. Editura Pro Universitaria. pp. 78-100. ISBN 9786062610876.
- Tsang, Michael (2018) Who’s the Egg? Who’s the Wall? – Appropriating Murakami Haruki’s ‘Always on the Side of the Egg’ speech in Hong Kong. In: Rösch, F. and Watanabe, A. (eds.) Japanese Political Thought and International Relations: Encounters of Difference in Japan since the Meiji Restoration. Global Dialogues: Non Eurocentric Visions of the Global. Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 221-251. ISBN 9781786603678.
- Tsang, Michael (2018) Hong Kong handover to China. In: Doyle, M. (ed.) The British Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 33-35. ISBN 9781440841972.
- O'Sullivan, M. and Tsang, Michael (2016) Academic barbarism and the Asian university: the case of Hong Kong. In: O'Sullivan, M. (ed.) Academic Barbarism, Universities and Inequality. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 120-142. ISBN 9781137547606.
- Tsang, Michael (2015) In dialogue: contesting the politics of globalization in Hong Kong literature in English. In: O'Sullivan, M. and Huddart, D. and Lee, C. (eds.) The Future of English in Asia: Perspectives on Language and Literature. Routledge Studies in World Englishes. Routledge. pp. 173-189. ISBN 9781138805071.
Conference Item
- Tsang, Michael (2022) A magical and critical journey to Haruki Murakami's literature. READ@PolyU, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2022, Online
- Tsang, Michael (2022) Hong Kong in the World; the World in Hong Kong; Reading Dung Kai-cheung’s Hong Kong Type Allegorically. Unknown Futures: A Seminar on Hong Kong, 2022, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Tsang, Michael (2021) Queering Hong Kong’s 1997 Handover in Japanese Boys’ Love Comics. Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention 2021, 2021, Online
- Tsang, Michael (2020) Gender and national image: representations of figure skating in Japanese Anime. Centre of for Japanese Studies Seminar, 2020, University of East Anglia
- Tsang, Michael (2019) Might the translated not travel? The case of Chang Hsi-kuo and his The City Trilogy. American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Convention, 2019, Washington DC, U.S.
- Tsang, Michael (2019) A minor literature(?) at interregnum: whither Hong Kong’s English writing?. (Re)defining the Intersection: Hong Kong Textuality, 2019, Sheffield, UK
- Tsang, Michael (2018) The world at the East’s fingertips: world literature in East Asia. World Literature as Crisis: Subalternity and Urbanity, 2018, London, UK
- Tsang, Michael (2018) Politics of Transmediality in Murakami Haruki. Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2018, Sydney, Australia
- Tsang, Michael (2018) Politics of Transmediality in Murakami Haruki. Asian Studies Conference Japan 2018, 2018, Mitaka, Japan
- Tsang, Michael (2018) Politics of Transmediality in Murakami Haruki’s Bakery Attack Stories. Global Japanese Studies Seminar, 2018, Tokyo, Japan
- Tsang, Michael (2017) The peripherality of Hong Kong in Postcolonial Studies and World-Systems Theory. Peripheral Postcolonialities, 2017, Warwick, UK
- Tsang, Michael (2017) The ‘Child’ in the world city of Omelas: foreign domestic helpers and their rights in Hong Kong. World Literature and Crisis: Subalternity and Urbanity, 2017, Singapore
- Tsang, Michael (2016) Who’s the Egg? Who’s the Wall? – Appropriating Murakami Haruki’s ‘Always on the Side of the Egg’ Speech in Hong Kong. International Studies Association (ISA) Asia-Pacific Conference 2016, 2016, Hong Kong
- Tsang, Michael (2016) Localisation in Xu Xi’s ‘The Yellow Line’. Invited Guest Lecture for Hong Kong Stories in English, 2016, Hong Kong
- Tsang, Michael (2016) Whither Hong Kong English poetry?. Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention, 2016, Austin, U.S.
- Tsang, Michael (2015) Multiculturalism and English literary history: Xu Xi’s History’s Fiction. International Conference on the History of Hong Kong, 2015, Hong Kong
- Tsang, Michael (2014) Politics in Hong Kong literature: language, canon and translation. British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA) Postgraduate Conference: Alternatives, 2014, Glasgow, UK
- Tsang, Michael (2013) A ‘Chinese’ city: racism and its discourse in post-colonial Hong Kong. Race. Migration. Citizenship: Postcolonial and Decolonial Perspectives, 2013, Birmingham, UK
- Tsang, Michael (2011) Postmodern sex and love in Murakami Haruki’s Norwegian Wood. The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies 2011, 2011, Osaka, Japan
- Tsang, Michael (2011) The system VS the individual – postmodern sex and love in Murakami Haruki’s Norwegian Wood. Wednesday Gender Seminar Series, 2011, Hong Kong
Editorial
- Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael (2020) 40 years with Murakami Haruki. Japan Forum 32 (3), pp. 311-315. Taylor and Francis. ISSN 0955-5803.
- Hansen, G.M. and Tsang, Michael (2020) Katō Norihiro: introduction and tribute. Japan Forum 32 (3), pp. 316-317. Taylor and Francis. ISSN 0955-5803.
Other
- Tsang, Michael (2023) Reading Louise Ho on the MTR. WHERE ELSE: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology. Verve Poetry Press. [Poem].
- Tsang, Michael (2021) Decolonial? Postcolonial? What does it mean to ‘decolonise ourselves’?. Newcastle University [Essay].
- Katō, N. and Tsang, Michael (2020) The problem of tatemashi in Murakami Haruki’s work: comparing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and 1Q84. Japan Forum. [Academic translation].
- Tsang, Michael (2016) Whither the Incipience; Or, the Beauty of Schisms. Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. [Essay].
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Business and community
Business and community
Media
I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:
- Murakami Haruki
- Japanese literature
- Hong Kong literature, politics, culture and society
- Japanese popular culture - manga and anime
- East Asian popular culture
- East Asian literature
- Korean pop culture
Outreach
OUTREACH ON JAPANESE LITERATURE/CULTURE
-In 2023 I was quoted in this BBC article on the popularity of Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki.
-An earlier publication of mine on the influence of Murakami Haruki's egg-versus-wall metaphor on the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests has generated several outreach opportunities.
- I wrote a blogpost entitled 'Murakami Haruki's Egg-Versus-Wall Metaphor and Hong Kong's Pro-democracy Movements' on the blog Hong Kong Insight, hosted by the Hong Kong Studies Association, in December 2019. In this post I revisited and updated the earlier publication on the latest happenings in the Hong Kong protests.
- In collaboration with 'Beyond Japan', a podcast series hosted by the Centre for Japanese Studies, University of East Anglia, I talked about Murakami and the Hong Kong protests in this episode.
OUTREACH ON HONG KONG
-I was recently interviewed for my poem 'Reading Louise Ho on the MTR', published in Where Else - An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology (2023). The interview was conducted by Elizabeth E. Chung and was published in the 'Writing Hong Kong' special issue of Writing Chinese: A Journal of Contemporary Sinophone Literature (Volume 2, Issue 1).
-In tandem with my book chapter on Hong Kong's earliest Chinese newspaper, Gems from Near and Afar, I published a blogpost in October 2023 for 'Hong Kong Insight', the blog of Hong Kong Studies Association.
-I have been quoted in the Bloomberg article ‘Guardians of Hong Kong Culture Spring Up From California to Singapore’ on 28 January 2022.
OTHER OUTREACH / RESEARCH COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (Postcolonial; Comparative; East Asian)
-I am a staff reviewer at the online, Hong Kong-based literary magazine Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. A complete list of my extensive profile of literary reviews can be found on my Cha profile page.
-I was interviewed by the British Comparative Literature Association 'Comparatively Speaking' series, which can be read here.
-I am a co-editor on Decolonising Modern Languages and Cultures, a blog that I started with colleagues at School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University. The blog runs public-facing posts that discuss decolonial issues and examine different decolonial contexts.
- I also wrote a post for the blog, titled 'Decolonial? Postcolonial? What Does It Mean to Decolonise Ourselves?' on 21 January 2021.