The School of Humanities and Social Science (SHSS) and the Centre for Greater China Studies (CGCS) jointly organised the Distinguished Professorial Lecture on “Prognostication in Chinese Culture” on 28 May 2021, with the great honour to have invited Professor Michael Lackner as the speaker. Professor Lackner is the Director of the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany. The event was well attended online or in person by students and teachers of the Friedrich-Alexander University and the HSUHK as well as scholars from other universities.
Professor Lackner lecture discussed the cultural significance of prognostication in Chinese history and presented objects from an exhibition that he organised at the German National Museum in Nürnberg. He also shared some general ideas of fate and prognostication in East Asia and Europe. A book launch for the new book, Fate and Prognostication in the Chinese Literary Imagination (Brill, 2020) edited by Professor Lackner, Professor Kwok-kan Tam, Professor Monika Gänssbauer and Professor Terry Yip, was held after the lecture. Colleagues who contributed to the book were invited to present their chapters at the book launch. Professor Kwok-kan Tam, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science, expressed his hope to invite Professor Lackner to visit SHSS when the pandemic is over.