Recently, the 2022 Humanities and Social Science General Programs sponsored by the Ministry of Education of China has been announced. Three projects from the School of Humanities and Social Science were on the list, including “Allocation of Scarce Critical Care Resources During Major Public Health Emergencies” from Dr WANG Xueshi, “Phonological Research on the Huang-Xiao Subgroup of Jiang-Huai Guanhua” from Dr YU Peng, and “Relation Between Literati Association and the Development of Chinese Dramas in Late Ming” from Dr LI Yingyu.

About Humanities and Social Science General Programs sponsored by the Ministry of Education of China

This is a high-level program of humanities and social sciences established for universities in China, aiming at supporting research on humanities and social sciences through special funds, thus improving higher education and meeting the needs of economic and social development.

Project from Dr WANG Xueshi

Title

Allocation of Scarce Critical Care Resources During Major Public Health Emergencies

Abstract

In public health emergencies likes COVID-19, the demand for critical care resources may surpass its supply. The shortage of ventilators, ICU beds and intensive care staff worldwide asks for a reform in healthcare systems or triage protocols, thus allocating scarce medical resources fairly when needed. There is ongoing debate on how to fairly allocate scarce critical care resources to patients with COVID-19. The debate revolves around two views: those who believe that priority for scarce resources should primarily aim at saving the most lives (SML) or at saving the most life-years, and those who believe that public health should focus on health equity to address health disparities and social determinants of health. In this case, it is still a dilemma whether to save the greatest number of patients or to give each patient eligible chance of being saved during a pandemic. This Project focuses on the allocation of ventilators, trying to find a proper way for medical workers and healthcare institutes to allocate scarce medical resources during public health emergencies from the prospective of the debate between fairness and equality. Three major problems are discussed: 1) Is fairness really important during allocation; 2) In what situation is fairness important; and 3) How to balance fairness and other moral values? Previous research with regard to this topic have been published in philosophy journals as below:

Biography of Dr WANG Xueshi

Dr WANG Xueshi obtained his joint doctorate from Tsinghua University and Harvard University, and worked as a fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University from 2018 to 2020. He joined HSS in 2021 as a lecturer with research interests concerning axiology, normative ethics, applied ethics, and political philosophy.

Personal Website:

https://myweb.cuhk.edu.cn/wangxueshi

Project from Dr YU Peng

Title

Phonological Research on the Huang-Xiao Subgroup of Jiang-Huai Guanhua

Abstract

This is a basic research on phonology, the dialectology category under Chinese linguistics. Huang-Xiao subgroup of Jiang-Huai Guanhua is mainly used in Huanggang and Xiaogan, two cities in the northeast of Hubei Province; name of the subgroup, “Huang-Xiao,” also derives from the two cities. Located at the border between North and South China, Huang-Xiao subgroup integrates the feature of Guanhua, Gan dialects and Xiang Dialects. Historically, the Huang-Xiao subgroup is an offspring of Gan dialects in Jiangxi as a result of the immigration from Raozhou Fu in the period of the early Ming Dynasty. This research focuses on history of the Huang-Xiao subgroup of Jiang-Huai Guanhua and discusses its definitional phonological features.

Biography of Dr YU Peng

Dr YU Peng was born in Ezhou, Hubei Province. He got a bachelor’s degree in arts from Wuhan University, a master’s degree in Chinese from Peking University, and graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong after obtained a doctorate in Chinese. He was a visit scholar at the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Iowa; and conducted postdoctoral research at the Department of Chinese, Sun Yat-sen University.

Dr YU specializes in Chinese linguistics, especially in phonology and phonetics of Chinese dialects. He has published papers on Studies of the Chinese Language (Zhongguo Yuwen), Language Sciences (Yuyan Kexue), Essays on Linguistics (Yuyanxue Luncong) and Bulletin of linguistic studies (Yuyan Yanjiu Jikan), and has lead and completed a project sponsored by the National Language Commission with the title “A Survey of Chinese Dialects in Guangdong Province: Take Yangshan as an Example.” Dr YU is teaching Chinese and Dialects and Chinese Culture as an Assistant Professor at CUHKSZ.

Personal Website:

https://myweb.cuhk.edu.cn/marcoyu

Project from Dr LI Yingyu

Title

Relation Between Literati Association and the Development of Chinese Dramas in Late Ming Abstract

The project digs up complex relations between literati associations and Chinese dramas in Late Ming. During that period, literati associations were extremely popular and showed many new features, including its integration with Chinese dramas. Previous research only focused on the performance history and roles of the dramas to explore the reason of organizing performances in the associations. However, this research discovers a deeper relation between literati associations and Chinese dramas with a combination of drama history and culture history; it studies how literati associations influenced styles and development of dramas in late Ming from the prospective of composing, performances on the stage, theatrical troupes, aesthetics, publishing, and types of local dramas. Moreover, drama was a container of Chinese culture that recorded and reflected the trend of establishing literati associations. Therefore, the study also discusses how literati in Late Ming thought of their trends of organizing associations compared with literati in the past, and how the dramas reflected features of these literati. To sum up, this research tries to break through limited discussions between dramas and arts, and reveal a complex and comprehensive interaction between features of art pieces and the era behind.

Biography of Dr LI Yingyu

Dr LI Yingyu won Zhilan Scholarship for the Study of Chinese Culture 2020-21, and received her Ph.D. degree in Chinese from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She joined HSS of CUHKSZ in August, 2021. Dr LI specializes in Ming-Qing fiction and drama, dramatic criticism and literati culture in Ming Dynasty; she published papers in journals like Traditional Chinese Drama Research, Journal of Traditional Drama and Vernacular Literature and Journal of Literature and Document in Ming and Qing, and made presentations at conferences such as “Second Annual University of Oxford China Humanities Graduate Conference” and “the 23rd Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS).”

Personal Website:

https://myweb.cuhk.edu.cn/liyingyu