Office: 1.38, 13 Woodland Road, Arts Complex

Email: vivian.kong@bristol.ac.uk

X: @viviankonghk

Bluesky: @viviankonghk.bsky.social

Research

I am a historian of Hong Kong, and I am most interested in how its global connections and multi-ethnic urban setting shaped identities and social dynamics there. I have published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of British Studies, the Historical Journal, and the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, on the diasporas, civil society, and public debates in interwar Hong Kong.

My first book Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong 1910-45 (Cambridge University Press) uses Hong Kong as a case study to highlight the diversity of ‘races’ that lived in the British Empire, and how such diversity enriched and complicated notions of Britishness. It explores the negotiations that multiracial inhabitants of colonial Hong Kong made with Britishness, and explains how the global dispersal of cosmopolitan ideals and rising nationalism shaped the development of Britishness in the interwar years. 

I am working on a new book about an Anglo-Chinese Eurasian woman, and the web of family relationships she had in Hong Kong, Cornwall, London, China, and Singapore, 1887-1943. The book explores her and her family’s connections to colonial policing, Christianity in Republican China, overseas Chinese diasporas, and the illicit sex industry in London.

Publications

Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong 1910-45 (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

‘Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multiethnic Civil Society in Interwar Hong Kong’, The Historical Journal, 63.5 (2020). 

‘Whiteness, Imperial Anxiety, and the “Global 1930s”: the White British League Debate in Hong Kong’, Journal of British Studies, 59.2 (2020).

‘“Hong Kong is my Home”: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47.3 (2019).

Hong Kong History Centre

Since my PhD I have worked closely with the University's Hong Kong History Project, and now I'm the co-director the Hong Kong History Centre at Bristol. I am also the founder and administrator of the Hong Kong History Postgrads/ECRs Network. 

Public engagement has been an integral part of my work. I am keen in exploring ways to work with research partners and community groups to further my commitment to the public outreach of history and academia.

Research Supervision

I would be interested in supervising students who wish to work on topics relating to my research interests. These include: the social history of Hong Kong; urban life of Asian port cities; and diasporas and race in modern Britain and the British Empire.

I am supervising students working on nationality and citizenship of British subjects of Chinese descent, c.1880-1960; working class migrants' experience in Hong Kong, c.1900-41; Chinese and Eurasian elite networks in colonial Hong Kong; and youth management in post-WW2 Hong Kong. 

I encourage prospective MPhil and/or PhD students to email me before making a formal application to discuss project ideas. Early contact is especially important if the applicant wishes to apply for funding. 

Teaching

I have taught across our undergraduate and MA programs, including the first year ‘Modern Revolution’ unit, the second year ‘Global History’ and ‘Decolonisation’ units, the third year ‘Global Empires’ and ‘Internationalising Modern China’ units, and the MA unit ‘Oceans and Globalisation’. I have also designed and taught units on modern Hong Kong in the past, including the Special Field Unit 'Hong Kong and the World' that I introduced to our second-year History curriculum.