Upcoming Talks
From “Black-Clad Violence” to “Revolution of Our Times”: Mapping the Discursive Construction of Hong Kong’s Stateless Nationalism
Date: February 27, 2026
Time: 9 am Hong Kong Time (2/27) ; 7 pm Central Time; 8 pm Eastern Time; 5 pm Pacific Time
Speaker: Isaac Iu, Monash University
Discussant: Justin Ho, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
Registration Required
In the post-NSL era, the struggle for Hong Kong’s identity has migrated from physical space to the discursive realm. This seminar presents my recent study, Two Nationalisms, One City, to map the collision between two incompatible nationalisms: the state’s project of “organized forgetting” and the diaspora’s “radical remembrance.” I analyze how the government employs a lexicon of “securitization” and “rehabilitation” to pathologize dissent, reframing the 2019 protests as a social disease rather than a political awakening. In stark contrast, I demonstrate how the diaspora constructs a “stateless nation” through a “symbolic infrastructure” of resistance. By reclaiming terms like “comrades” (手足) and redefining “security” as human sanctuary rather than regime survival, the diaspora sustains a political community bound by affective solidarity. I contend that text has become the primary site of political agency, positioning the diaspora as the indispensable custodians of Hong Kong’s political soul.
Speaker
Isaac Iu is a PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in Chinese Studies at Monash University. His research interrogates the (digital) construction of stateless nationalism and collective memory within the global Hong Kong diaspora. Adopting a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) framework, his dissertation investigates how diasporic communities in the UK, Canada, and Australia construct a “stateless nation” through the symbolic infrastructure of language, memory, and cultural practice. His recent work includes “Two Nationalisms, One City: Official and Diasporic Framings of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests” and “‘Revolution of Our Times’: Stateless Nationalism and the Work of Slogans in the Hong Kong Diaspora,” both published in Nations and Nationalism.
Discussant
Justin Chun-ting Ho is an Assistant Professor at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Edinburgh, and worked at Academia Sinica, Sciences Po, and the Amsterdam School of Communication Research. His research focuses on computational methods and political communication.
More to Come
To Be Announced.