Tim Gruenewald is the director of the BA programme in Global Creative Industries and the founding director of the eXtended Humanities Research Lab. He researches and teaches popular culture, including virtual reality, film, television, graphic narrative, and public history. His current research focuses on foundational VR film theory. His longstanding research interest and creative practice concerns the intersection of contested memories with the imagination of collective identities in the present. In 24-25, he was a fellow at King’s College London. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong, he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr. Gruenewald is the author of Curating America’s Painful Past: Museums, Memory, and the National Imagination (University Press of Kansas, 2021), the co-editor of Imperial Benevolence: U.S. Foreign Policy and American Popular Culture Since 9/11(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2018) and the co-editor of Asian Cinema Journal special issue Cinematic Currents between China and the US (with George Wang). His research on public history and on VR film has been supported by two grants of the Hong Kong Research Council. His publications have won several awards, including the honorable mention of the Best Book award 2022 for the National Council on Public History (USA), the Carl Bode Award for outstanding article of the Popular Culture Association (USA), and the HKU Research Output Award 2022.

Dr. Gruenewald is also a documentary filmmaker. He is currently exploring and teaching the emerging medium of 360° and 180° VR filmmaking. His second feature documentary Dao – The Way (co-director, writer) about traditional Japanese martial arts and cultural transfer between East Asia and Europe is scheduled for release in 2026. His documentary feature Sacred Ground (co-director, writer) was selected for the competition at several international festivals in the United States and won the Independent Spirit Award at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema in 2015. The film explores painful national memories in the United States and establishes surprising connections between two iconic memory sites in the United States: Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Key Publications

Curating America’s Painful Past: Memory, Museums, and the National Imagination. Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas, 2021.

Awards

Honorable Mention, Best Book Award 2022, National Council on Public History (USA)
CHOICE Rating “Essential”, 2022, Association of College and Research Libraries (USA)
HKU Research Output Award 2022.

“Virtual Reality as a Memory Machine.” Co-authored with Cecilia Chen. Convergence: The Journal for the Research into New Media Technologies. Online first, March 2025.

“Feeling Good: Humanitarian Virtual Reality Film, Emotional Style and Global Citizenship.” Co-authored with Saskia Witteborn. Cultural Studies 36.1, 2022: 141-161.

“Progress versus Social Justice: Memory and the National Imagination at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.” Journal of American Culture 44 (2), 116-129, 2021.

Award

Carl Bode Award for outstanding article of the Popular Culture Association (USA)

KE projects

Remembering Painful Past: A Mobile Geolocation Application for Visitors of the National Mall in Washington, DC
This project creates and promotes a mobile geolocation application about painful history on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Using augmented virtual reality functionality, the app teaches site-specific national and local history such as the use of slave labor to build iconic sites.

Reframing the Kinsey Collection for Local Audiences and Raising Awareness of African American History and Culture in Hong Kong
This project brought the Kinsey Collection of African American History and Culture to Hong Kong and organized related public lectures and concerts.