Internship Research Project for the University of Chicago Hong Kong Campus Heritage Interpretation Center

Project Summary:

The Heritage Interpretation Center (HIC) at the UChicago Hong Kong campus is looking for a research assistant to help both with expanding its permanent exhibits and with preparing one of our upcoming rotating exhibits. For the work on the permanent exhibit, they need an intern who spoke Cantonese; for the work on the rotating exhibit, English would suffice. Prof Pomeranz, would serve as the main supervisor for these projects, though we could also arrange consultations with HK historians based in Hong Kong and (via Zoom) elsewhere.

One of our rotating exhibits will highlight the life of Dr. Solomon Bard (1916-2014) who lived in Hong Kong from roughly 1938- 1998. Bard was a faculty member at the HKU Medical School (and designed its student health system) as well as the chairman, first violinist, and occasional conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, which he helped found. He was also involved in setting up Hong Kong’s system for the preservation of historic sites and other civic activities. We would like an intern to conduct interviews with people who knew Bard (we have a few names, and will gather more), and to conduct some library research as well, focusing on certain key moments that we already know about. (For instance, Bard led a musical group that, in 1956, became the first Hong Kong cultural organization to officially visit the mainland after the Revolution; we would like somebody to gather as many press accounts of that tour as possible.) Bard was interned as a POW during the Japanese Occupation of HK (having served as a medical volunteer for the British forces, and having been captured on Mt. Davis, immediately adjacent to where our campus now stands); a number of local historians are very interested in this period, and the intern could also interview some of them. Depending on timing and interests, the intern could also potentially participate in meetings to plan the set-up of the exhibit, which will be more elaborate than most of the temporary exhibits we do; for instance, we hope to include a performance of an orchestral piece composed in Bard’s honor, written by a man who got to know him after he moved to Sydney late in his life. We hope to have this exhibit up by sometime late in 2024.

Deliverables:

Once we had collected some interviews, the intern could then participate in creating materials based on them, to be posted to the HIC website as a supplement to the existing exhibit. There are also some possibilities for doing interviews and library/archival research to add to other sections of the HIC. A literature review or a data analysis report might be required.

Preferred discipline(s):

Social Sciences

Project Essential Skills:

Require somebody who spoke Cantonese

Other Selection Criteria (if any):

N/A

Details of supervision arrangements:

Students are required to meet their project supervisors at least three times for progress update. The progress meetings are expected to conduct in person. For projects that are supervised by University of Chicago, the supervisors are either based in Hong Kong campus of University of Chicago or are planning to visit HK during the period of the research projects.