PROFESSOR TIMOTHY O’LEARY – UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

 

 

I am Head of the School of Humanities,

Professor in the Department of Philosophy,

Member of HKU Council

at the University of Hong Kong.

Email: teoleary [at] hku [dot] hk

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PROFILE

My major research interests are in the fields of ethics, politics, and the philosophy of literature and art, with a particular focus on 20th century European philosophy. I have published extensively on the work of Michel Foucault.

I am currently working on a project entitled “Philosophy and the History of Experience”. This 3-year project is funded by a GRF grant from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. It will lead to completion of a monograph, provisionally titled “The Conduct of Moral Sensibility”.

I am an International Participant of the International Network for the Critical Humanities, hosted at the University of Utrecht – Terra Critica.

Before taking on my current project on “moral sensibility”, I published in the area of the philosophy of literature, especially in relation to the works of modern and contemporary Irish writers. I also worked on comparative (East-West) philosophical approaches to happiness – an area in which I established a major collaborative research project at HKU (now completed).

At HKU, I have taught courses on Foucault, Nietzsche, happiness, contemporary European philosophy, philosophy of art and literature, Plato, and the philosophical problems of modernity. I also teach a postgraduate course on “Thesis Writing for the Critical Humanities”.

I supervise post-graduate students in the fields of 20th century European philosophy, ethics in the continental tradition, and aesthetics.

 

CURRENT & RECENT ACTIVITIES

 

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My essay “On Anger and Love, in Post-Occupy Hong Kong” has just been published in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Issue 33, Sep 2016.

 

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I am co-organising a major inter-disciplinary humanities conference at HKU on December 17-18, 2015:

“CRITICAL TRANSACTIONS: ENGAGING THE HUMANITIES EAST & WEST”

Facebook Page Here

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My Review Essay of some new works ‘by’ Foucault will be published in Foucault Studies in vol. 21, Spring 2016.

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An article, “Critique, Ethics, and the Apparatus of Experience: a Foucauldian Framework”, will be published in Frontiers of Philosophy in China (international, refereed journal), forthcoming (in press).

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Along with co-editor Dr Liz Jackson, Faculty of Education at HKU, I am co-editing a Special Issue of the Journal Educational Philosophy and Theory on “Education and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement”. The Special Issue will be published in 2016.

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In an attempt to begin the task of understanding Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, I organised and Chaired two Forums for the School of Humanities:

• Umbrella Forum #1: “Understanding Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement” on Oct 31st, 2014. Poster.    Video. 
• Umbrella Forum #2: “Women Occupying” on Jan 27th, 2015. Poster. Video.

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Along with co-editor (and post-doctoral fellow) Dr Edoardo Zamuner, I co-edited a Special Issue of the journal Philosophical Topics on the theme “Happiness”. Published in Feb 2015 (with official date of Vol. 41, No. 1, Spring 2013).

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I presented a Keynote talk at a Critical Theory conference at Nanjing University (April 2014);

I gave an Invited “Theory Lab” talk at the Centre for the Humanities, University of Utrecht (May 28 2014)

& a graduate student Masterclass on the Foucauldian concept of critique at the same University (May 28 2014).

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I presented papers at the SPEP annual conference in Eugene, Oregon (Oct 2013); at the Terra Critica ‘Expert Seminar‘ at Utrecht University (Nov 2013); and at the ASCP annual conference in Sydney (Dec 2013).

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Along with co-editors Jana Sawicki and Chris Falzon, I published the Blackwell A Companion to Foucault (2013).

Part of my own contribution is a translation of Daniel Defert’s “Chronologie”, an 80-page outline of Foucault’s life and work, originally published in Dits et Ecrits, vol.1, 1994.

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On May 9, 2013 I gave a paper entitled “The Critique of Ethical Experience” at the Department of Philosophy Seminar, HKU.

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On April 26, 2013 I took part in a Workshop on “Intuitions” in the Department of Philosophy, HKU. My paper: “Go Watch TV!”: Mad Men’s Moral Intuitions.

 

HKU COUNCIL CONTROVERSY

• On Nov 19th 2015, I was elected to HKU Council.
• Facebook page of  HKU Vigilance 港大警覺
• I co-organised a campus Silent Protest March in defence of institutional autonomy and academic freedom at HKU, Tuesday Oct 6th 2015. Video HERE.
• I spoke at a protest rally on HKU campus on Friday Oct 9th 2015: video HERE.
• I took part in a discussion of the threat to academic freedom at HKU: RTHK Radio 3 “Backchat” on Oct 7, 2015. HERE

• I took part in a discussion of the HKU Council controversy on RTHK Radio 3 “Backchat” on Sept 2, 2015. HERE

• I published an Opinion piece in the South China Morning Post (August 19, 2015) discussing recent events at HKU.

 

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