All Affiliates
Dr Jiaying Sim
Assistant Lecturer

Dr Jiaying Sim

BA, MA (Nanyang Technological University); PhD (University of Glasgow)

Contact Information

Phone

3917-5147

Email

simjy@hku.hk

Location

Room 846, 8/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus

Profile

Dr Sim Jiaying received her PhD in Film and Television Studies from the University of Glasgow in 2018 and her MA in English Literature from Nanyang Technological University in 2013. Her research and creative practice explore expanded cinema, decolonial aesthetics, and multisensory storytelling at the intersections of art, ecology, and technology. Working across film curation, immersive media, and arts education, her teaching and research interests include Southeast Asian cinema, transnational screen cultures, and creative-critical methodologies that bridge theory and practice.

Dr Sim is also the founder of Singapore Film Database (SGFilmDB), a digital resource documenting Singapore’s film ecosystem through information, images, posters, and critical information on local productions, funding opportunities and exhibition spaces. She has served as a film programmer for the 35th (2024) and 36th (2025) Singapore International Film Festival. In 2025, she was selected as one of two global fellows for the Hyundai Artlab Editorial Fellowship, producing a series of commissioned essays on contemporary art in Southeast Asia.

Prior to joining HKU, she taught at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore University of Social Sciences, and DigiPen Singapore @ Singapore Institute of Technology, where she designed interdisciplinary modules on storytelling, media, and cultural theory. Her academic writings have appeared in Film-Philosophy, Journal of Chinese Film Studies, Screen Ethics and Global Politics (Edinburgh University Press), and the Handbook of Queer Southeast Asia (Routledge). More at simjiaying.com

Research Expertise

Expanded cinema and immersive media

Film programming and curation as pedagogy

Decolonial aesthetics and sensory epistemologies

Singapore film history, archives and digital humanities

Transnational and Southeast Asian screen cultures

Assemblage and affect theory

Courses 

ENGL2190 Special topics in 19th-century literature 

ENGL7108 Imagining Asia

ENGL7994A Capstone experience: Final research project

PUBLICATIONS

Art Essays

Sim, Jiaying. (2025) “To See a Tembusu Tree: Yanyun Chen’s Veins, Grains, and Striae”,  Hyundai Editorial Artlab. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2025) “Softness as Method: Charmaine Poh’s Cinematic Language for  Queer Parenthood in Singapore”, Hyundai Editorial Artlab. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2024) “Where do these roads lead? Anthony Chen’s The Breaking Ice”,  Jom. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2025) “Fragile Loops: Failure as Possibility in Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen’s Expanded Cinema”, Hyundai Editorial Artlab : Read here.

Book Chapters

Sim, Jiaying. (2023) “Don’t look away: Production-assemblages of rape culture in Midi Z’s Nina Wu” in Screen Ethics and Global Politics, Edinburgh UP. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2022) “Shirkers: Lost and Found? – Tracing Transsensorial Trauma in a

True Crime Road Movie”. In Transnational Crime Cinema, Edinburgh UP. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2022) “Viddsee: Queer Affective Assemblages of Short Film Circulation, Distribution and Reception in Singapore”. In Handbook of Queer Southeast Asia,  Routledge. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2023) “Affective assemblages of material culture: Qi Pao, Mahjong and performance in Ang Lee’s lust, caution,” Film-Philosophy, 27(1), pp. 29–49. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2016) “The Embodiment of Eros: Making Sense of Wong Kar-wai’s ‘The Hand”. Transnational Chinese Cinema: Corporeality, Desire, and Ethics. Available here: [LINK]

Journal Articles

Sim, Jiaying. (2021) “Queering bodies: ‘becoming-unrecognisable’ in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together,” Journal of Chinese Film Studies, 1(2), pp. 415–434. Available here: [LNK]

Sim, Jiaying. (2020) “A land imagined: Transsensorial states of transmigration,” The Center for Asia and Diaspora, 10(1), pp. 37–67. Available here: [LINK].

Sim, Jiaying. “Embodiment, Curation, Exhibition: Report on Douglas Gordon’s Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now. (Television, Video, Installation)” Screen Bodies, Vol 1.1 (2015). Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. “An Olfactory Cinema: Smelling Perfume” ACTA UNIV. SAPIENTIAE, FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES, 8 (2014), 113–127. Available here: [LINK]

Reviews

Sim, Jiaying. “Book Review: Negative Geographies Exploring the Politics of Limits.” Sage Journals: Cultural Geographies, 2022, 29.1: 159-168. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. “ Terence Chong, The State and the Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions.” SARE:Southeast Asian Review of English [Online], 56.2 (2019): 141-143. Available here: [LINK]

Sim, Jiaying. ‘An Omnivorous Family’s Dilemma: A Humanist Reflection of Meat Consumption and Production Culture’ Asian Film Archive. 10 Jan. 2017. Available here: [LINK]

Creative Works/research

Singapore Film Database [LINK]

  • A digital resource of information, images, posters, film synopsis, and critical analyses, on Singapore feature and short films, actors, production crew personnel.

Imagine the Fire (Experimental Short Film, 2022, Producer)

Batas Langit (Animated Short, 2022, Producer)

We Carry On (Narrative Short Film, MCCY Harmony Fund, 2022, Producer)

GRANTS AND AWARDS

Hyundai Artlab Editorial Fellowship (2025)
Selected as 1 of 2 fellows globally from over 600 applicants to produce a series of essays on contemporary art.

Principal’s Early Career Mobility Fund, University of Glasgow (2015)
Competitive university-wide award supporting a research residency at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Film Archive.

Research Support Awards, University of Glasgow (2015–2016)
Merit-based funding for doctoral research and conference participation in Seoul and Deleuze Studies.

Collaborative Research Award, University of Glasgow (2015)
Granted for co-organising the Affect in Asian Cinemas conference between the University of Glasgow and The University of Hong Kong .

Research Scholarship, Nanyang Technological University (2011–2013)
 

All Affiliates
Dr Vincent Pak
Assistant Lecturer

Dr Vincent Pak

BA(Hons) NUS, PhD NUS/KCL

Contact Information

Phone

3917-7281

Email

vpak@hku.hk

Location

Room 863, 8/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus

Profile

Vincent Pak works between linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, with research interests in gender, sexuality, and race. His work examines linguistic expressions of sex and sexuality in a variety of contexts, with the most recent project investigating corrective discourses and non-normative sexualities in Singapore. Elsewhere, Vincent has also written about race, citizen-state relations, and the politics of listening. He earned his Joint PhD in English Language and Linguistics from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and King’s College London, and a BA (Hons, First Class) in English Language and Gender Studies from NUS. His first monograph, Queer Correctives, will be published in summer 2025 with Bloomsbury Academic (Advances in Sociolinguistics book series). Vincent’s articles have also been published in journals including Language in Society, Journal of Sociolinguistics, and Gender and Language.

PUBLICATIONS

Monograph

Queer Correctives: Discursive neo-homophobia, sexuality, and Christianity in Singapore. (Under contract with Bloomsbury Academic, Advances in Sociolinguistics book series; expected summer 2025)

 

Articles

Pak, Vincent and Hiramoto, Mie (2023). Sticky Raciolinguistics. Signs and Society 11(1), 45-67. https://doi.org/10.1086/722622

Pak, Vincent (2023). Lighting, signing, showing: The circulability of Pink Dot’s counterpublic discourse in Singapore. Journal of Sociolinguistics 27(1), 24–41. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/josl.12568

Pak, Vincent (2023). (De)coupling race and language: The state listening subject and its rearticulation of antiracism as racism in Singapore. Language in Society 52(1), 151-172. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404521000373

Starr, Rebecca Lurie, Go, Christian and Pak, Vincent (2022). ‘Keep calm, stay safe, and drink bubble tea’: Commodifying the crisis of Covid-19 in Singapore advertising. Language in Society 51(2), 333-359. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404521000567

Pak, Vincent and Hiramoto, Mie (2022). “Itching to make an impact”: Constructing the mobile Singaporean voluntourist in Instagram travel narratives. Social Semiotics 32(3), 332-354. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2020.1766263

Pak, Vincent (2021). Coming out ‘softly’: Metapragmatic reflections of gay men in illiberal pragmatic Singapore. Gender & Language 15(3), 301-323. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.20008

Pak, Vincent and Hiramoto, Mie (2021). For family, for friends, for (true) love: Negotiating discourses of love within the LGBTQ community in Singapore. Journal of Language & Sexuality 10(2), 105–128. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.20009.hir 2021

Pak, Vincent (forthcoming). Language, gender and sexuality in 2023: Writing from the thorny place. Gender & Language.

Pak, Vincent (forthcoming). Bundling multiracialism, Ontologising racism: State media reflections and deflections. Journal of Asian Studies.

Book Chapters

Pak, Vincent and Hiramoto, Mie (forthcoming). Declassifying the racialised inhabitant: Stories from ‘Other’ women. In Wu Mingdan, Sibo Rugwiza Kanobana, and Jaspal Singh (eds.), Subverting Space and Race: Towards a Geopolitically Conscious and Antiracist Epistemology in the Sociology of Language. Mouton de Gruyter.

Hiramoto, Mie and Pak, Vincent (forthcoming). Mediatization of misogyny: female impersonation characters in Singapore’s public announcements. In Chen Li-Chi and Lu Wei-lun (eds.), Signs of Conflict: Multimodal Dimensions. John Benjamins.

Pak, Vincent (forthcoming). Inflammatory semiotics. In Kira Hall, Rodrigo Borba, and Mie Hiramoto (eds.), Language, Gender, and Sexuality: An Anticipatory Retrospective. Equinox Publishing.

Go, Christian, Hiramoto, Mie, and Pak, Vincent (in preparation). Gender variation in linguistic landscapes. In Quentin Williams, Amiena Peck, and David Malinowski (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes. Oxford University Press.

 

Reviews

2021: Pak, Vincent. “Scott F. Kiesling (2019). Language, Gender, and Sexuality: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 188pp.” Gender & Language. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.19531

2021: Pak, Vincent. “Robert Phillips. 2020. Virtual Activism: Sexuality, the Internet, and a Social Movement in Singapore. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.” Journal of Language and Sexuality. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.00020.pa
2020: Pak, Vincent. “Heiko Motschenbacher, Language, Normativity and Europeanisation: Discursive Evidence from the Eurovision Song Contest. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. 369. Hb. £74.99.” Language in Society 49 (1), 162-163. doi:10.1017/ S0047404519000927

All Faculty
Mr Nathan Bridgeman
Assistant Lecturer

Mr Nathan Bridgeman

Master of Fine Arts, Writing. Pacific University (Oregon)

Contact Information

Phone

3917-5147

Email

nathanb@hku.hk

Profile

Nathan is an American writer who has been living in Hong Kong since 2014. His work was awarded the Hong Kong’s Top Story 2017 Creative Prize by RTHK, Hong Kong Free Press, and PEN Hong Kong. He received his MFA in 2019 from Pacific University, where he was awarded the Pearl Scholarship. In addition to writing fiction, Nathan has worked as an ancillary health care specialist in clinical and hospital settings since 1998. 

Publications

Published as Author:

(publishing as Nathan Lauer)

“The First Noble Truth.” Asia Literary Review, no. 27, Spring 2015.

“Versus.” Buffalo Almanack, no. 10, December 2015.

“The Conqueroh Wohm.” Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, vol. 10, no. 2, June 2016.

“We’re All As Mad As Hatters Here.” The Eloquent Orifice, vol. 4, no. 1, July 2016.

“Colony.” Hong Kong Future Perfect, edited by Peter Humphreys, Hong Kong Writers Circle, December 2016.

“Eighteen Hundred and Forty Six on March the Eighteenth Day.” Of Zoos, vol. 5, no. 1, January 2017.

“Live! With A Ceramic Kitchen Knife And Kathie Lee.” The Five-Two Crime Poetry Weekly, June 26, 2017.

“This formulaic dreck will be the death of us all, John.” Big Echo Critical SF, no. 5, August 2017.

“Xunxin Zishi Zui.” Published as winner of the Creative Prize Hong Kong Top Story 2017, Hong Kong Free Press, January 2018.

“The Hard Problem; Chapters 1-4.” Lovecraftiana: The Magazine of Eldritch Horror. vol. 11, no. 1-4, April-Dec 2026 (no. 3-4 forthcoming).

 

Edited Anthologies:

“HK24: Twenty-four hours of Hong Kong stories”. McKay, Stewart, Ed., Joy Al-Sofi and Nathan Lauer, Assistant Editors. Hong Kong Writers Circle, December 2017.

“Masking the City: Hong Kong in Allegory”. Lauer, Nathan, Ed., Winnie el Chingon, Assistant Editor. Hong Kong Writers Circle, October 2020.

“After the Storm”. Corrigan, Paul, Ed., Nathan Lauer and Kristina C. Wilson, Associate Editors. Hong Kong Writers Circle, October 2021.

(publishing as Alan Smithee)

“A Book of Changes”. Alan Smithee, Ed., Dominic Sargent, Associate Editor. Hong Kong Writers Circle, November 2022.

All Faculty
Ms Emma Chen
Assistant Lecturer

Ms Emma Chen

BS SUTD, MA (with Distinction) HKU

Contact Information

Phone

3917-5147

Email

emmasei@hku.hk

Profile

Emma Chen holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Sustainable Design and a Master of Arts in Creative Communications. Her interests encompass architecture, mathematics, physics, psychology, literature, music, and multilingualism, with a dedicated focus on exploring and researching these related interdisciplinary fields.

Emma's teaching experience spans advanced mathematics, music, multimedia design, and related subjects, reflecting her interdisciplinary methodology in teaching and research. Her current academic and creative pursuits are focused on Guqin research, music composition, short film production, traditional Chinese opera performance, and interdisciplinary works. Her music-themed animated short film has received several international awards and was screened at the Honolulu Museum of Art. It also received media attention at the 2024 Tokyo International Short Film Festival.

Dedicated to bridging diverse fields, Emma is committed to enhancing the understanding and practice of the interactions between various artistic and scientific domains.

Research Expertise

Interdisciplinary creativity; Artistic-scientific synthesis; Guqin and classical music; Multimedia storytelling

Courses Taught

ENGL7995 Capstone Experience: The Happiness Project

ENGL7606 Interdisciplinary Multimedia Narratives

ENGL7611 Artistic Creativity and Narrative in Music Design

Publications

Chen, E. (2025, February 10). 中國古典音樂的「DNA」初探 [Exploring the "DNA" of Chinese classical music]. 文匯報. https://www.wenweipo.com/a/202502/10/AP67a97294e4b04edba9414ad7.html

All Faculty
Mr Felix Wong
Assistant Lecturer

Mr Felix Wong

MFA University of Guelph

Contact Information

Phone

3917-5147

Email

felixw23@hku.hk

Profile

Felix Wong is a Chinese Canadian writer. He has lived half his life in Vancouver and half in Hong Kong. His stories, often exploring the themes of identity and Chinese traditions and values, can be found in North American literary journals like The Ex-Puritan, PRISM International, and Ricepaper Magazine.

His debut memoir, Shall We Talk, is slated to be published in Canada by ECW Press in Fall 2027. It is about his journey to Thailand and Hong Kong to learn about the death of his aunt in the 1991 Lauda Air plane crash and the silence, contractions, and stonewalling he must overcome in his search for the truth and for a place to belong. 

Felix is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. He specializes in creative nonfiction, particularly in the forms of memoir and personal essay. More details about him can be found at koolkatfelixwong.com

Publications

Wong, Felix. Shall We Talk. ECW Press, 2027.

Wong, Felix. “Why Don’t Chinese People Talk About the Dead?” The Tyee, 30 Aug 2022, https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2022/08/30/Death-And-Chinese-Culture/

Wong, Felix. “Throwing Bricks.” The Ex-Puritan, Sep 2021, https://ex-puritan.ca/throwing-bricks-2021

Wong, Felix. “Shall We Talk.” PRISM International, issue 59.3, Jul 2021.

Wong, Felix. “King Dick.” Belief: Ricepaper Magazine Books Anthology #3, edited by J.F. Garrard, Dark Helix Press, 2021.

Wong, Felix. “Edmonton Is All Highways.” The Sun, issue 531, Mar 2020.

Wong, Felix. “The Lego Teacher.” Ricepaper Magazine, Mar 2020, https://ricepapermagazine.ca/2020/03/the-lego-teacher-by-felix-wong/

Wong, Felix. “Chinese Funerals Are Weird.” emerge 18: The Writer’s Studio Anthology, SFU Publications, 2018, pp. 112-116.