Prof. John Nguyet ERNI 陳錦榮
Dean, Faculty of Arts | Chair Professor of Cultural Research
Location: Room 131, Ho Sin Hang Building 何善衡樓131室
Phone: (852) 2616 7611
Fax: (852) 2572 5170
Email: [email protected]
Areas of Interest: International and Asia-based media and cultural studies; Critical legal theory centering on human rights philosophy, ethics and politics; Theories of care, ethics, and politics; Digital humanities for social diversity; Gender and sexuality studies related to media and visual culture; Youth studies in transnational contexts; Cultural politics of race/ethnicity/migration; Critical public health studies
John Nguyet Erni is Dean of Arts and Chair Professor of Cultural Research at Lingnan University. He previously served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Chair Professor of Cultural Studies at The Education University of Hong Kong, where he also directed the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies and co-directed the University Research Centre for Creative Arts and Public Value.
Until 2022, Erni was Fung Hon Chu Endowed Chair of Humanics, Chair Professor in Humanities, and Head of the Department of Humanities & Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2017, he was elected President of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, and in 2019, Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. A recipient of Gustafson, Rockefeller, Lincoln, and Annenberg research fellowships, along with other awards and grants, Erni has been listed among Stanford University’s World Top 2% Scientists.
Erni has published widely on international and Asia-based cultural studies, human rights legal criticism, Chinese consumption of transnational culture, youth popular consumption in Hong Kong and Asia, gender and sexuality in media culture, the cultural politics of race, ethnicity, and migration, and critical public health. He is the author or editor of twelve academic books, including The Dialectics of Care (forthcoming, 2027); Better Stories: Mapping Cultural Studies with Lawrence Grossberg (co-editor, 2025); The Cultural Politics of COVID-19 (co-edited with Ted Striphas, 2022); Law and Cultural Studies: A Critical Rearticulation of Human Rights (2019); Visuality, Emotions, and Minority Culture: Feeling Ethnic (2017); Understanding South Asian Minorities in Hong Kong (with Lisa Leung, 2014); Cultural Studies of Rights: Critical Articulations (2011); and Internationalizing Cultural Studies: An Anthology (with Ackbar Abbas, 2005).
Ph.D., 1992
Speech Communication (Specialization: Media & Cultural Studies); Certificate, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
M.A., 1987
Speech, Telecommunication and Film, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
LL.M., 2005
International Law (Specialization: Human Rights Law), The University of Hong Kong
B.A., 1985
English, Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington, USA
2026–2027 Principal Investigator, “Health Discourses from Below: Exploring a Citizen Self-Health Approach to Sustainable Care in Hong Kong,” RGC GRF (Project no.: 18604825; HKD525,996) (1/1/2026 – 31/12/2027).
2025–2027 Principal Project Supervisor, “Bridging Cultures: Integrative Approaches to OBOR Music and Culture: Youth Engagement and Innovation,” Central Reserve Allocation Committee (CRAC) Fund, EduHK (HKD2,510,000; USD322,042).
2024–2027 Principal Investigator, “Sustainable Humanities: Meeting the Challenges,” Central Reserve Allocation Committee (CRAC) Fund, EduHK (HKD5,007,397; USD641,974).
2024–2025 Principal Investigator, “Sustainable Humanities: Braiding Diversity, Interdependence, and Care,” Faculty Development Grant, EduHK (HKD250,000; USD32,051).
2023–2025 Principal Project Supervisor, “Promoting the Humanities through a Multi-purpose Chinese Culture Digital Playhouse: An Integrated Portal for Play-based R&D,” Central Reserve Allocation Committee (CRAC) Fund, EduHK (HKD3,996,022; USD512,310).
2023–2025 Principal Investigator, “Exploring a People-based Approach to Sustainable Self- and Social Care: Understanding the Health Common in Hong Kong,” Faculty Development Grant, EduHK (HKD250,000; USD32,051).
2022–2025 Principal Investigator, “Comparative Cultures of Care: A Converging Interdisciplinary Focus and Application,” Central Reserve Allocation Committee (CRAC) Fund, EduHK (HKD5,389,552; USD690,698).
2020–2022 Principal Investigator, “Human Rights Museums in the Transpacific: A Comparative Study of Cultural Institutions for the Histories of Difference and Resistance,” RGC Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (Project no. 32001019).
2019–2020 Principal Investigator, “A Cultural Study of Volunteer Traveling, Transnational Civic Participation and Youth Idealism: The Case of Voltra,” RGC GRF (Project no.: 12667618) (1/1/2019 – 31/12/2020).
2017–2018 Principal Investigator, “Toward an Ethnic Cultural Citizenship: A Cultural Indicator and Mapping Study of Popular Arts Participation among South and South East Asian Youth in Hong Kong,” (Co-I: Audrey Yue), RGC GRF (Project no.: 12660516) (1/1/2017 – 31/12/2018).
2012–2014 Principal Investigator, “Visual Narratives and the Making of Ethnic Feelings: A Cultural Study of Affect, Ethnicity, and Practices of Social Recognition among South Asians in Hong Kong,” RGC GRF (Project no.: 340411) (HKD936,406; USD120,052 (including on-costs)) (1/1/2012 – 31/12/2014).
Erni, J.N. (ed) (forthcoming 2027) The Dialectics of Care: Interdisciplinary Thinking on Culture and Ethics of Relationality. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Erni, J.N. (2026) ‘Theory, culture, care’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 29(3), pp. 475–488.
Erni, J.N. (2026) ‘Precarious memory in the post-axial age: The structures of feeling in human rights museums’, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, 19(1), pp. 25–60.
Davis, A., Erni, J.N., Hardin, C., Rodman, G.B. & Slack, J.D. (eds) (2025) Better Stories: Mapping Cultural Studies with Lawrence Grossberg. Philadelphia: Imbricate! Press.
Pun, N. & Erni, J.N. (2025) ‘Commoning as unthinkable politics: Hong Kong against hard times’, Cultural Studies, 39(3), pp. 305–315.
Erni, J.N. (2025) ‘Between consciousness and conscience: On restorative commoning among moderate youth’, Cultural Studies, 39(3), pp. 334–357.
Erni, J.N. (2025) ‘Re-articulating care and carelessness in precarious times’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 57(3), pp. 205–211.
Erni, J.N. (2025) ‘Negative justice: The case of the human rights museum’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 28(2), pp. 647–654.
Erni, J.N. & Striphas, T. (eds) (2022) The Cultural Politics of COVID-19. New York & London: Routledge.
Erni, J.N. (2022) ‘Discerning the human rights museum’, European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(4), pp. 1–9.
Zhang, Y. & Erni, J.N. (2022) ‘Wild hopes: Sourcing the political vocabulary of digital citizenship from the LIHKG forum’, International Communication Gazette, 84(4), pp. 349–375.
Erni, J.N. (2022) ‘Color charts: A cultural chronicle of non-Chinese ethnic images in Hong Kong cinema’, in Hjort, M. & Nannicelli, T. (eds) A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value. London: Routledge, pp. 357–381.
Erni, J.N. (2020) Law and Cultural Studies: A Critical Rearticulation of Human Rights. New York & London: Routledge.
Zhang, Y. & Erni, J.N. (2020) ‘Ethnic minority youth as digital cultural participants: Toward a critical indicator study’, in Lam, L.M. (ed.) New Media Spectacles and Multimodal Creativity in a Globalised Asia. Singapore: Springer, pp. 3–24.
Martin, F., Yue, A. & Erni, J.N. (2019) ‘Immobile precarity in the Asia-Pacific’, Cultural Studies, 33(6), pp. 895–914.
Leung, D. & Erni, J.N. (2019) ‘The dilemma of mobility: On the question of youth voluntourism in times of precarity’, Cultural Studies, 33(6), pp. 915–943.
Erni, J.N. (2019) ‘The anti-ecstasy of human rights: A foray into queer cinema on homophobic Africa’, in Hjort, M. & Jørholt, E. (eds) African Cinema and Human Rights. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 256–279.
Erni, J.N. (2019) ‘Racialism’, in Chu, S. (ed.) Hong Kong Keywords. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. 233–244.
Erni, J.N. (ed.) (2017) Visuality, Emotions, and Minority Culture: Feeling Ethnic. Heidelberg: Springer.
Erni, J.N. (2017) ‘Disrupting the colonial transgender–law nexus: Reading the case of W in Hong Kong’, Cultural Studies–Critical Methodologies, 16(4), pp. 351–360.
Erni, J.N. (2016) ‘Internet sex chatting and vernacular masculinity among Hong Kong youth’, in Coffey, J. et al. (eds) Learning Bodies: The Politics of the Physical in Formal and Informal Education. Singapore: Springer, pp. 105–122.
Erni, J.N. (2016) ‘Citizenship management: On the politics of being included-out’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(3), pp. 323–340.
Erni, J.N. & Ho, L. (eds) (2016) Invisible Colors: Images of Non-Chinese in Hong Kong Cinema, 1970s–2010s. Hong Kong: Cinezen Publishing (in Chinese).