IRCCS Working Paper Series
April, 2025 | Issue #1
Preface
The International Research Centre for Cultural Studies (IRCCS) is pleased to announce thelaunch of the inaugural issue of the IRCCS Working Papers Series in Cultural Studies. Thisissue features contributions from esteemed scholars and emerging voices from Hong Kong,Southeast Asia, and the United Kingdom.
The Working Papers Series aims to publicize and inspire, fostering a vibrant exchange of ideas that invigorates cultural research. By circulating these working papers, we encourage the exploration of innovative concepts and methodologies, including pilot studies that test new hypotheses. This initiative is designed to inspire early-career researchers—PhD, EdD, and MA students—by supporting them in the publication process and refining their work forsubmission to professional peer-reviewed journals.
Through a collegial review process facilitated by an editorial board and the Centre's members, we provide authors with constructive feedback that paves the way for the successful publication of their research. In doing so, we cultivate an environment where new thoughts and concepts can flourish within the field of cultural studies.
On behalf of the IRCCS, we invite scholars to engage with the thought-provoking abstractspresented in our inaugural issue, which traverse a rich tapestry of themes from care tocultural health, literary criticism, and digital humanities.
In his paper, Erni advocates for a citizen-centric health paradigm, emphasizing the empowerment of individuals and communities through diverse health discourse. Bagulaya explores how narratives of care intertwine with the calamities depicted in Delgado's disaster novel, revealing the intricate layers of human experience in crisis. Guan applies Bourdieu’s theory to analyze how Chinese students navigate digital landscapes for language acquisition, highlighting disparities in access and engagement. Tabunan extends the notion of “righting” within the framework of radical human rights, examining how Ilokano literature reflects on the traumatic memories of martial law in the Philippines. Li revisits critical concepts of self-representation among Asian writers, interrogating the dynamics of appeal to Western audiences. Finally, Cheung delves into the cultural implications of prompting as a form of artistic expression.
These abstracts serve as an intellectual appetizer, inviting readers to delve deeper into the full texts. We encourage curious minds to reach out to the authors for a more enriching exploration of these vital topics.
Jose Duke Bagulaya, PhD
Editor
Working Paper #1
Citizen Self-Health for Sustainable Care in Hong Kong:
Exploring Health Discourses from Below
by John Nguyet Erni (johnerni@eduhk.hk)
The Education University of Hong Kong
Abstract: In Hong Kong, the phenomenon of ordinary citizens managing their health through community engagement has emerged as a significant social phenomenon that predates the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis has catalyzed an explosion of health information and discourses, reshaping cultural meanings of “good health,” physical and mental vigor, resilience, health competency, and community well-being. This transformation has led to vibrant discussions about health issues occurring both online and offline, in workplaces, and among family, friends, and social media acquaintances. These interactions have created a unique de facto public health culture that operates alongside formal medical establishments, often revolving around word-of-mouth information and knowledge sharing.
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Keywords: Cultural Health Discourses; Community Health Practices; Citizen Self-Health Narratives; Health Literacy in Culture; Socio-Cultural Health Inequalities
Working Paper #2
The Narrative Structure of the Archipelagic Disaster Unconscious: Disaster and Care in Daryll Delgado’s novel, Remains
by Jose Duke Bagulaya (jdbagulaya@eduhk.hk)
The Education University of Hong Kong
Abstract: Humanity has just witnessed and experienced a real world-wide disaster— the COVID Pandemic. Images of medical personnel in masks and medical suits are still fresh in the mind. The wailing of ambulance sirens still reverberates in the ears. News of the deaths of family members and friends still bring pain and regret in the heart. The experience of the pandemic brought home the idea that disaster is not something that happens in some remote world and only to people we hardly know. This time disaster was no longer simply imagined. Disaster was something we had to live through, a condition that we had to endure and survive.
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Keywords: Care; Archipelagic Disaster Unconscious; Daryll Delgado; Novel and Disaster; Typhoon Haiyan/ Yolanda; Philippine Literature
Working Paper #3
Cultural Capital’s Impact on International Students’ Informal Digital Learning of English: The Contrasting Cases of Two Chinese Students
by Lihang Guan (S1136696@s.eduhk.hk)
The Education University of Hong Kong
Abstract: Chinese international students (CISs) comprises one of the largest cohort of international students in English medium instruction (EMI) in international higher education, and their academic and cultural transitions in English-speaking countries present unique challenges. This study responds to the growing theoretical and practical need to understand how digital technology mediates the language learning processes of these students. While technologies such as mobile apps, Generative AI, and online platforms are integral to their informal digital learning of English (IDLE) for EMI courses, the specific ways in which cultural capital influences students’ engagement with these tools are underexplored. To address this gap, the study draws on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, which includes educational, skill-based, and economic dimensions, to ethnographically examine the IDLE commonalities and differences of two students—Alice and Sean—who differ significantly in their family, learning and English backgrounds, for cultural capital’s impacts on learners. This comparison provides a nuanced understanding regarding similarities and differences manifested in their attitudes and behaviors toward IDLE and how cultural capital moderates their engagement with digital technologies.
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Keywords: Informal Digital Learning of English; Artificial Intelligence; Chinese International Students; Technology Acceptance Model; Cultural Capital; School Culture
Working Paper #4
Resistance, Righting, and an Ilokano Novel
by Mark Louie Tabunan (mtabunan@up.edu.ph)
University of the Philippines Diliman and University of Northern Philippines
Abstract: The Marcos dictatorship (1972-1981) in the Philippines, despite the sheer magnitude of evidence of human rights violations and plunder of government coffers, is a contested time for Filipinos’ history and memory. Contrary to the Holocaust, there is no consensus on these atrocities. In this work, I aim to demonstrate how one novel in the Ilokano language of northern Philippines, the origin of Marcos Sr., shows the ways of resisting through literature the legacies and atrocities of the Marcoses and how it envisions more emancipatory politics and futures beyond cleaving to ethnolinguistic-based loyalist sentiments.
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Keywords: Personification; Dictatorship Novel; Philippine Literature; Resistance; Memory
Working Paper #5
Reverse Self-Orientalism in Yiyun Li’s Short Stories: Analyzing “Immortality” and “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl”
by Li Jiaoyang (s1143985@s.eduhk.hk)
The Education University of Hong Kong
Abstract: As a celebrity author in America, Yiyun Li’s writings about China in English usually receive both comments of “realistic” and “self-Orientalism”. In Khoo’s (2007) view, since the success of Jung Chang’s Wild Swans (1991), diasporic Chinese female authors, who write about China in English after going abroad, generate a genre of “fictional autobiography” selling Chinese exotics, which “becomes a form of consumption of spectacularized images of Chinese femininity.” Similar views appear in other scholars, who argue that diasporic Chinese female intellectuals take a superficial logic of “before and after”, which constructs a binary model of their misery China’s past and heavenly overseas new lives, to invite the western readers to gaze at their Eastern others from the vantage point of human rights. However, for later authors like Annie Wang and Yiyun Li (as discussed in this essay), although they are likely aware of the popularity of Chinese diasporic female narratives, they use the exoticism as a method towards visibility in their writing, which may still offer a portrayal of “realistic” China. Through Li’s short stories “Immortality” and “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl”, this essay argues that through performing seemingly exotic China and Chinese people, Li’s writing transcends the “self-exotic action” or “self-victimization” of self-Orientalism, and constructs subjectivity based on human commonalities.
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Keywords: Self-orientalism; Autoethnography; Yiyun Li; Cultural Revolution; Short Fiction
Working Paper #6
Dreams Rendered, Context Erased:
Generative Aesthetics, Pseudo-Agency, and the Politics of Prompting
by Manni Cheung (man.cheung.24@ucl.ac.uk)
University College London
Abstract: This paper interrogates the cultural, aesthetic, and ideological implications of generative AI systems that enable users to produce stylised images through natural language prompts. Using “Ghibli-style” image generation as a case study, I examine how these systems simulate aesthetic traditions without reference to context, authorship, or narrative coherence. Such systems do not merely mimic artworks. Rather, they produce emotionally resonant, yet epistemically shallow outputs designed to feel familiar. The result is a stylised surface untethered from cultural and historical meaning: a style detached from world.
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Keywords: Aesthetic Simulation; Prompting as Cultural Practice; Pseudo-Agency; Human–Computer Interaction (HCI); Speculative Counter-Interfaces
*Copyright: The author of the working paper shall retain the copyright of the work and the abstract. He orshe shall have the sole authority to share the original paper to any person who may want toavail of the complete text.