Backreading Hong Kong Symposium 2026
Between Filial Piety and Political Duty in Post-Handover Hong Kong
Book Talk by Dr. Ting Guo
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Time: 2:00-2:45pm
Venue: Auditorium, Asian Center, UBC
Address: 1871 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 | Map | Parking
In this talk, author Dr. Ting Guo (Assistant Professor of Language Studies, University of Toronto) will share her book Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China (2025), and reveal the linguistic role in the religious affects of modern politics, and accentuates affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today. Her book also challenges secular narratives of socialist modernity.
All are welcome. Registration required.
This is part of the special program of the Backreading Hong Kong 2026 Symposium at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Check out more public events from the program here.
The symposium is hosted by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, and the UBC Department of Asian Studies; and is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canada Research Chair Program of the Government of Canada, UBC Center for Chinese Research, the UBC Department of English, the UBC Pop Culture Cluster, the UBC Campus + Community Planning, and the Sustainability Initiative Committee of the UBC Department of Asian Studies, as well as the Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.
About the Speaker
Ting GUO (she/her) specialises in religion, politics, and gender in transnational Asia. She is Assistant Professor of Language Studies, University of Toronto, Honorary Researcher at the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library, University of Toronto, and Book Review Editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
Her first book, Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China (2025) challenges secular narratives of socialist modernity, reveals the linguistic role in the religious affects of modern politics, and accentuates affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today.
She is co-editor of the special forum “Religion and Social Movements in Hong Kong” in the Journal of Asian Studies and co-hosts a podcast called 時差 in-betweenness (@shichapodcast).
About the Book
In the era of intensifying nationalisms, it is high time to discuss the roots of modern nationalism and the political meaning of love. As the first systematic study to trace the evolution of ai 愛 (love) as a political discourse for modern Chinese nationalism, this book investigates the ways in which ai became a political discourse and reveal the religious influence on this discourse that has been hitherto overlooked including Christianity, Confucianism, and popular religion, even though modern China has been an atheist state since its founding and throughout the change of regimes.
This book challenges secular narratives of (socialist) modernity, demonstrates the linguistic role in the religious affects of modern politics, and contributes to the study of affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today.
Registration for [Backreading Hong Kong Symposium 2026] “Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China” Book Talk by Dr. Ting Guo
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