The Faculty of Arts was founded in 1912 and is one of the oldest and largest in the University of Hong Kong. As one of the flagship faculties of the University, it has been the focus of academic life in the University and has continued to build on its tradition while meeting new educational and intellectual challenges. Teachers in the Faculty are committed to excellence in research which allows them to provide a broad and liberal education to students and the community. Arts Faculty graduates have established successful careers in both the public and private sectors, and have made significant contributions to the development of Hong Kong, the region and the world at large.

The mission of the Arts Faculty is to contribute to knowledge in four ways: building upon its traditional strengths while at the same time pushing the bounds of liberal arts scholarship; providing a comprehensive, humanistic and liberal research environment for its staff and students and lifelong learning opportunities for the community; producing graduates with highly developed analytical, linguistic, critical and creative skills, for leadership and success in their professional and life endeavours; and serving as an international gateway and forum for humanistic scholarship between China and the rest of the world. In recent years, Arts has developed a flexible curriculum which enables students to specialise in subject areas and to explore a wide range of interests. This will prepare students for a wide variety of career choices.

The Faculty is organised into the following Schools/Centre:

School of Chinese (Chinese Language and Literature, Chinese History and Culture, Chinese Studies, and Translation)

School of English (English Studies, Cross-Cultural Studies in English, and Language and Communication)

School of Humanities (Comparative Literature, Fine Arts, History, Linguistics, Music, Philosophy, and African Studies)

School of Modern Languages and Cultures (American Studies, European Studies, Japanese Studies, Modern China Studies, and Language Centre)

Centre for Applied English Studies

The African Studies Programme is the first and only one of its kind in Hong Kong and southern China. It is an interdisciplinary minor programme that explores aspects of Africa and its relations with other parts of the world, particularly China. Students will take courses that provide solid foundations on various aspects of African languages and linguistics, music, literature, and visual arts. In the second year, students will undertake an educational field trip to experience, first-hand, the landscape, people and culture of Africa. Africa is fast establishing itself as a major trading partner with China, so there is the need to nurture a new generation of Chinese graduates with a sound knowledge of the continent. Graduates of the African Studies programme can, therefore, expect to be in an advantageous position when seeking job opportunities in companies and establishments that deal with Africa-China trade relations.

American Studies

The American Studies Programme, the only one of its kind in Hong Kong, is designed as an interdisciplinary exploration of American culture, history, politics, business, the arts, film, and literature as an integrated whole. It also explores aspects of Asia-US cultural relationships, and the dynamics of American involvement in Asia. Students in this programme learn to recognise and critique the US presence and perspective, and have access to student exchanges and visiting scholars. The programme emphasizes student-centred learning, and multiple perspectives through team teaching, English proficiency in writing and speaking, and small-group discussion.

The School of Chinese offers a great variety of courses in Chinese language, literature, history and culture as well as in translation between Chinese and English. Students can opt to major in the following programmes: Chinese Language and Literature, Chinese History and Culture, Translation, and Chinese Studies (which is a combination of the first two programmes).

Each of the four major programmes is noted for the diversity of pedagogical approaches and the breadth of coverage, featuring a broad spectrum of subject matters that extend over the period from ancient times until the present century. The medium of instruction is normally Chinese, except in the Translation programme, where both Chinese and English are used. Experiential teaching with a view to provide some practical training sessions including site visits and workshops on top of weekly lectures are emphasized. The objective is to build up cross-disciplinary and global perspectives for students, as a life-long learning, to appreciate the diversity of Chinese culture and the Western civilization in a critical and creative approach. The training is particularly relevant in careers like education and commerce, press and publishing, civil and community services.

Comparative Literature

The Department offers courses in literary, film, theoretical, and cultural studies. We draw on cross-cultural materials and use inter-disciplinary approaches. Our main areas are Film and Visual Studies, Literature and Cultural theory, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Hong Kong and China Studies, and Postcolonial and Global Studies. Texts are studied in English, though texts in Chinese are used in cross-cultural studies and Hong Kong and Chinese cultural studies. Our courses survey a wide range of texts in terms of form, content, and context. Students learn to read culture and society by analyzing literature, films, paintings, theatre, and other forms of media and popular culture from a range of national and international contexts and places. Students also examine non-textual, social practices and phenomena, such as cities or China's cultural revolutions. A common emphasis in our courses is the significance of historical knowledge to the analysis of culture.

Our major and its emphases on critical thinking, writing, and clear communication provides excellent training for a range of future careers. Our graduates take up jobs in education, business, writing, government and civil service, journalism and the media, arts management, and civil society organizations. Others go on to pursue post-graduate degrees in the humanities and liberal arts in Hong Kong, as well as at prestigious universities abroad.

The School of English offers teaching in the areas of English Studies, Cross-Cultural Studies in English and Language and Communication.

English Studies (ES) includes both the study of literatures in English (English and American literatures; creative writing; women's writing; postcolonial and world literature in English; literary, cultural and film studies; and critical theory) and English language and linguistics (sociolinguistics; World Englishes; language and identity; critical linguistics; discourse analysis; literary linguistics).

Cross-Cultural Studies in English (CSIE) is a specialised programme which is designed to provide opportunities for students to study cross-cultural examples in literary and cultural history. Topics pursued include the relationship between culture and politics; the study of literature and culture beyond national, regional, and disciplinary boundaries; the politics of knowledge production, circulation, and institutionalization.

The interdisciplinary programme in Language and Communication (L&C) centres on the study and use of language in society in a multilingual, globalized world, with particular focus on the positioning of languages of global import, such as English, as well as those with local significance, in how they are appropriated in multilingual, cosmopolitan contexts of Asia. The programme equips students with transferable intellectual and practical tools to critically examine, intelligently reflect on, and competently participate in communicative situations, in real-world contexts, through both traditional and experiential learning.

Graduates from the School of English have established successful careers in both the public and private sectors (civil servants, editors, journalists, teachers, as well as various positions in business and financial industries), and have made significant contributions to the development of Hong Kong, the region, and the world at large.

European Studies

This programme provides an interdisciplinary approach to the study of European civilisation and at least one European language. Courses in the programme explore the diversity of European thought, politics, history and culture. Students who take European Studies as a major will visit Europe in the summer of their second year to appreciate its varied and rich heritage. Graduates of the programme can often contribute to the future dialogue between Europe and Asia and can expect to find employment in European-based companies or firms engaged in business in Europe.

The Department teaches the history of art and explores the roles of images in the world today. Art history invites students to reach out across different cultures, regions and time frames. Courses are offered in the art of Europe, the United States, China, Japan, India, and Hong Kong. Here students can examine the processes of human creativity, as they are manifested in almost any media, from painting, sculpture, calligraphy, ceramics and jades, architecture, and gardens to performance art, photography, and mass media. Museum studies training is provided by means of a course and internships for selected students. No artistic ability or previous knowledge of art history is required. Art history is a comfortable partner to other humanities subjects which develop abilities in creative and critical thinking. Students will learn to develop a command of analytical writing, visual analysis, and critical interpretation, and will become familiar with different modes of cross-cultural communication.

The Department believes that the study of history provides valuable training both for general students and specialist historians. Students may take courses in Asian and Western history, and in the history of Hong Kong. Small-group teaching is the hallmark of the history programme, and students are also encouraged to use information technology in their historical studies. Field trips have increasingly become an important feature of the History curriculum in recent years.

The Department also teaches in the interdisciplinary programmes in American Studies, European Studies and Japanese Studies.

Japanese Studies

The Department teaches Japanese language in its social and cultural context, translation, and advanced courses in Japanese culture and society. The interdisciplinary Japanese Studies programme offers courses in communication and media, anthropology, business, literature, history, linguistics, popular culture and China-Japan relations. Most of these courses are taught in English.

The Department helps to arrange student exchanges with Japanese universities, either as summer courses or for longer stays. The Department also arranges summer internships for students in Japanese or Japan-related companies in Hong Kong.

The Language Centre focuses on the teaching of Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Thai, progressing from beginner to advanced levels. Programmes of studies include majors in French, German and Spanish, as well as minors in all languages. Intensive training in building up students' language skills is combined with the chance to explore the culture of the society in which the language is used. At the advanced level, students can focus on specific projects as part of their coursework.

Through exchange programmes with universities overseas, students can participate in summer programmes in Europe and other continents, usually at the end of the second year. Students who have successfully completed these overseas language training programmes may apply for credit transfer. Alternatively, students may also apply for one or two semester exchange programmes to the HKU Worldwide Student Exchange Programme or individual language sections.

The Language Centre is equipped with three teaching language laboratories and two Multi-media Learning Centres (MMLCs) for language teaching. There is also a Practice Laboratory and a Language Resource Centre where individualised language instruction packages are available for self-access learning.

The Centre also teaches in the interdisciplinary European Studies and the Language and Communication programmes.

For information concerning certificate courses in Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Thai, please refer to the School of Modern Languages and Cultures.

The aim of linguistics is to understand the structure and use of human language. A better knowledge of how languages work is both interesting and useful, enabling the student to learn languages more effectively, and providing insights into spoken and written communication (a very important skill in today's complex society).

The Major in Linguistics is taught by staff with wide-ranging linguistic backgrounds, interests and expertise. They offer a broad perspective on the world's languages as well as in-depth analysis of those of particular interest in Hong Kong. Courses include Phonetics, Grammar, Discourse and Conversation, Computational Linguistics, Language and Information Technology, Typology, Child Language, and Bilingualism.

The Linguistics programme brings students into contact with the rich variety of human languages. It contains a wide choice of topics which vary from the theoretical to the practical, and from the technical to the descriptive. The skills students learn and practise will be of immediate and lasting value in their university career. Students learn to collect and deal with data, to present findings clearly and rationally, and to argue cogently and make good use of supporting evidence.

Modern China Studies

This new interdisciplinary programme offers a broad-based education on modern China - its language, culture, history, society, economy, governance, environment, and people. Students take a set of core courses in the programme and choose from an extensive list of China-themed courses in literature, linguistics, fine arts, history, philosophy, religion, anthropology, sociology, geography, politics, economics, journalism and communications. Graduates are poised to enter a wide range of careers in the public and private sectors in which a comprehensive and sophisticated understanding of China is essential to success.

The Department provides a comprehensive music education that integrates the activities of music scholarship, composition, and performance. Courses are offered in the history and analysis of Western music, Chinese music, world music and popular music, as well as composition and performance. Students learn how to think critically about music and to examine its historical and cultural context. An electronic music studio and a computer music laboratory provide students with the opportunity to learn about and use the latest music technology. A collection of musical instruments is available for student rehearsals and performances. A vigorous programme of visiting musicians and scholars contributes to a stimulating and challenging environment that emphasizes creativity and participation.

The Department also promotes music activities on campus through its lively concert series and the production of a series of internationally acclaimed CDs.

The Department aims to help students develop their critical thinking and analytical skills. It also provides them with a basic understanding of interesting and important philosophical issues. It offers courses in Chinese philosophy, philosophy of mind and language, philosophy of science, ethics and political philosophy. Courses are taught in the form of lectures and seminars, as well as small-group tutorials. In the first year students may choose a variety of introductory courses, each with a different focus.

The Department's areas of instruction include logic and critical scientific thinking, the nature of mind and thought, and ethical and political norms. These issues are approached from analytic, comparative (Chinese-Western), and historical points of view.