Previous Taiwan Matters Lecture Series

2024

Representation of Intersectional and Cultural Identities in Taiwanese-Language Port City Cinema with Dr. Ming-yeh Rawnsley

In this lecture, Dr. Ming-yeh Rawnsley will present and discuss Taiwanese-language films (taiyupian) and port city cinema.

Time and place: Apr. 24, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Physical meeting in PAM360, online option. Click here to sign up for Zoom.

This talk contributes to two relatively under-researched areas in the existing literature of Taiwan studies and film studies—Taiwanese-language films (taiyupian) and port city cinema. We compare five case studies in Taiwanese-language port city cinema: Nostalgic Song of Anping ([Anping zhuixiang qu], 1969, dir. Chen Yang), Back to Anping Harbor ([Huilai anping gang], 1972, dir. Wu Feijian), The Boys from Fengkuei ([Fenggui lai de ren], 1983, dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien), Cape No.7 (Haijiao qi hao, 2008, dir. Wei Te-sheng), and Gatau (角頭 [Jiao tou], 2015, dir. Li Yunjie). Across each case, we analyse how the cinematic representation of port cities may have reflected social and cultural developments, changing (and unchanged) Taiwanese intersectional and cultural identities from the 1960s to the twenty-first century.

About the lecturer:

Dr. Ming-yeh Rawnsley received her PhD (on the topic “Public Service Television in Taiwan”) from the Institute of Communications Studies (ICS), University of Leeds in 1998. Since then, she has worked as a researcher at the University of Nottingham (1999–2005) and became Head of Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC, 2005–2007). Before she joined SOAS as Research Associate, she researched and taught East Asian film industries at the ICS, University of Leeds (2007–2013).

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

Being and Becoming Taiwanese: Identity, Nation, and Education with Bi-yu Chang

In this lecture, Professor Bi-yu Chang discusses state policies and interventions in constructing ideas of identity and nationhood in Taiwan's educational system.

Time and place: Apr. 23, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom only, click here to sign up.

Although the majority of people have a limited personal experience of the state, the abstract concept of ‘nation’ can only be taught but also elevated into an object of passionate fervour, harnessed to induce patriotic action. This nationalist fervour is typically fostered through education, daily school routines, and exposure to national symbolism, with a particular emphasis on national identity.

The impact of mass education is extremely significant because it not only produces knowledge and reproduces values but also ‘creates’ individuals who see no viable alternative to the pre-existing condition (Apple 1979: 6). In the case of post-war Taiwan, the state only imposed compulsory mass education but also tightened its ideological grip during the formative years of childhood by extending the duration of compulsory education (from six to nine years in 1968) and standardizing textbooks. The ideological impact of education was particularly effective during the early post-war decades when resources were scarce and access to alternative information was almost impossible.

This lecture will investigate what kinds of geographical ‘knowledge’ and political ideology were systematically taught in school, and consider how the state’s involvement in education results in the China-centric identity among students. Moreover, the lecture will explore the state’s intervention in shaping students’ ideas of ‘homeland’ and ‘country.’

About the lecturer:

Dr. Bi-yu Chang is Deputy Director of the Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS, University of London. The central concern of her research has always been the politics of culture. It has led her to examine the complex interplay between knowledge and power, explore the relationship between culture, place, and identity, and investigate the thorny issues of recent decades, such as nation-building, independence, and cultural identity crisis in Taiwan. In the past few years, she has been focused on two dimensions of state involvement in identity construction, one is on Taiwan’s nation-branding project through post-war tourism, and the other on nation building via education reform. She has also extended her research interests into the issue of indigenous education.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

Cross-Strait Economic Relations - Can Money Buy People’s Hearts and Minds? With Dr. Chun-yi Lee

In this lecture, Dr. Chin-yi Lee will discuss the economic relations between mainland China and Taiwan.

Time and place: Apr. 17, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Physical meeting in PAM360, online option. Click here to sign up for Zoom.

This lecture will investigate cross-Strait economic interactions, including Taiwanese investment in China and Chinese investment in Taiwan. The lecture will apply theoretical framework, economic statecraft to explain why the bilateral economic investments cross-Strait, have not incentivised more Taiwanese people to align with mainland China, especially seeing the presidential and parliamentary election results in January 2024.

About the lecturer:

Dr. Chun-Yi Lee is Associate Professor at school of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham. She is also the director of Taiwan Studies Program at Nottingham. Chun-Yi's first book was published by Routledge in 2011: Taiwanese Business or Chinese Security Asset. The book is under Leiden Series in Modern East Asia History and Politics. Currently, Chun-yi is working on a public policy research project, to compare Taiwan and UK government's strategies to counter Covid-19. Meanwhile Chun-yi is working her second monograph on the topic of 'Sticky Decoupling: Geopolitics and Semiconductor supply chain'.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

An Island Frontier or a Maritime Colony: Understanding Taiwan under the Manchurian Empire’s Rule with Dr. Hung-yi Chien

In this lecture, Dr. Hung-yi Chien will discuss China-Taiwan relations in a colonial perspective.

Time and place: Apr. 10, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Physical meeting in PAM360, online option. Click here to sign up for Zoom.

The Economist described Taiwan as the most dangerous place in the world, and everyone knows the danger is from the People’s Republic of China, commonly known as “China” now. China’s territorial claim of Taiwan is based on several historical facts, such as Sinitic languages spoken in Taiwan and Taiwanese people’s Chinese ancestry. It is true that more than 95% of the Taiwanese population have Chinese ancestors, and more than 80% of them migrated to Taiwan during the rule of the Manchurian Empire, also known as “China” at that time. Therefore, it is necessary to study historical Taiwan under the rule of the Qing Empire and the Manchurian regime to understand the PRC’s territorial claim over Taiwan today.

Traditionally, Taiwan between 1683 and 1895 was considered China’s maritime frontier, and early scholars used “migration,” “reclamation”, and “development” to describe the ethnic Han-Chinese’s expansion in Taiwan. To claim it as a settler colony like the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is a rather radical approach, even though Taiwan shares many characteristics with these classical settler colonies. However, we cannot ignore the dirty fact that the ethnic Han Chinese, whether they came before 1895 or after 1945, have colonised Taiwan for centuries.

This talk will be based on the two chapters from “Taiwan: A New History” and will discuss two critical issues. First, we will review how the ethnic Han Chinese migrated to Taiwan from Fujian and Guangdong to colonise Taiwan in the eighteenth century. This period was characterised by the expansion of colonisers' land ownership and the shrinking of indigenous power. Second, we will delve into the indigenisation of the ethnic Han-Chinese colonisers in the nineteenth century.

The discussions of these two chapters will help participants understand the basis of the PRC’s claim and how Taiwan is distinct from China’s mainstream national narratives.

About the lecturer:

Hung-yi Chien is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Her primary research interest is Taiwan’s early history (16th to 18th century). She obtained her doctoral degree from the Department of Taiwan Studies, National Taiwan Normal University (2017). Her PhD dissertation focuses on Taiwan’s role in the history of ethnography. She is now exploring the genealogy of Taiwan-related knowledge in early modern European books and the beginning of Taiwan studies in Europe. Besides the history of knowledge, she is also studying the Hokkien people’s expansion across East and Southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

The Making of a Language in Colonial Taiwan – Between Linguistics and Ideology with Dr. Henning Klöter

In this lecture, Henning Klöter will discuss whether Taiwanese is linguistically distinct from Mandarin as well as its history of ideological linguistic emancipation.

Time and place: Apr. 3, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Physical meeting in PAM360, online option. Click here to sign up for Zoom.

In academia and common parlance it is today costummary to speak of a Taiwanese language. Taiwanese, or Taiyu as it is known in Mandarin, is widely used as a collective term for different Southern Min dialects that were brought to Taiwan by Chinese migrants after the seventeenth century. But on what grounds can the existence of a Taiwanese language that is distinct from its Sinitic ancestor dialects spoken be claimed? Focusing on selected phonetic, syntactic, and lexical features, the first part of the lecture foregrounds some linguistic peculiarities of Taiwanese. It will be argued that although some of these features are unique to Taiwanese, linguistic analysis offers no support for claiming a linguistic distinctiveness of Taiwanese. Instead, the historical roots of Taiwanese as an independent language date back to the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). As I will point out in the second part of the presentation, the 1920s and 1930s mark a period when young intellectuals for the first time called for the linguistic emancipation and standardisation of Taiwanese. Their demands were a direct response to the national language policies of the Japanese colonial government.

About the lecturer:

Dr. Henning Klöter is Professor of Modern Chinese Languages and Literatures and Executive Director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research interests include multilingualism and society, language planning, Taiwan Studies (language, history, literature), history of Chinese linguistics in Europe, Sinophone Studies, Chinese writing, and Translation Studies.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

Women in the Writing of Religious and Social History – The Narrative of Female Protagonists in Taiwanese Buddhism with Dr. Stefania Travagnin

In this lecture, Dr. Stefania Travagnin will trace the role of women in Taiwan in crafting local history, discussing how listening to their voices and experiences will help us rethink agency in the discourse of Buddhism on the island.

Time and place: Mar. 20, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Physical meeting at PAM360, online option. Click here to sign up for Zoom.

Religion in Taiwan has been characterized by a constant narrative of female figures. The most worshipped goddesses are probably Mazu and Guanyin, two female deities that are associated with, respectively, Daoism and Buddhism, but are also found very often together in the same temple. And the most charismatic religious leader today is the nun Zhengyan (b.1937), founder and leader of the Buddhist transnational Tzu Chi Foundation. From the nuns who led women’s practice during the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) to the nuns who promoted women’s ordination in the early 1950s; from the Buddhist woman who introduce Vajrayana practice to Taiwan to pioneers in the development of education and social service: women in Taiwan have been writing important pages of local history, and listening to their voices and experiences will help us rethink agency in the discourse of Buddhism on the island

About the lecturer:

Stefania Travagnin is Reader in Chinese Buddhism at SOAS, University of London. Travagnin has done field research among Buddhist communities in Taiwan for more than twenty years, and has been visiting scholar in several Taiwanese institutes like Academia Sinica, National Cheng Chi University, and the National Central Library; she has active collaborations with Taiwanese Buddhist institutions like Tzu Chi Foundation and Foguangshan, and is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Buddhism in Taiwan in Hsuan-Chuang University. Her research and publications on religion in Taiwan have explored especially Buddhist women, the phenomenon of Humanistic Buddhism, religion and media, and life and works of the monk Yinshun. She has edited or co-edited several volumes, including Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (Routledge, 2016), and the three-volume publication Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions (De Gruyter, 2019-2020). She is also editor-in-chief of Review of Religion and Chinese Society.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

Thinking Like a Refrigerator: An Overview of Indigenous Peoples and Nature Conservation in Taiwan with Professor Yih-Ren Lin

In this lecture, Professor Yih-Ren Lin will address the issue related to the conflict between indigenous peoples’ natural resources rights and nature conservation in Taiwan.

Time and place: Mar. 13, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Physical meeting in PAM360, online option. Click here to sign up for Zoom.

Nature conservation, as a modernized and international concept, has been brought into Taiwan’s society in late 1970s. Since then, the concept has been institutionalized into regulations and government agencies such as EPA(environmental protection agencies), national parks and wildlife conservation law etc.. These measures by the state had been assumed by the government as progressive and attempts to catch up with international trends. However, it has cast an enormous impact to the indigenous peoples’ daily life, like the prohibition of their hunting activities. More seriously, it has neglected the hunting and gathering culture of indigenous peoples that might not contradict with the spirit of nature conservation. This talk will be divided into four parts: 1. A short history of indigenous peoples in Taiwan; 2. The events of the conflicts between the state and indigenous peoples in terms of their values and attitudes about nature; 3. the conflict resolution in terms of Taiwan’s social change related to democratic movement; 4. How the indigenous peoples’ ecological knowledge is recognized and institutionalized in the state’s governance. This talk will conclude with a glocalization viewpoint of nature in the social context of Taiwan and its critique.

About the lecturer

Yih-Ren Lin is a Taiwanese scholar of ecological humanities and an environmental activist for indigenous peoples’ natural resources rights. He is now the professor of the Graduate Institute of Museum Studies, Taipei National University of the Arts. Professor Yih-Ren Lin gained his “nature conservation” master degree in the Department of Biology, UCL. He finished the PhD at the Department of Geography, UCL at 1999 and the thesis titled “The Environmental Beliefs and Practices of Taiwanese Buddhists”. By employing participatory action research methodology, he has worked with Taiwan’s indigenous peoples on the issues of co-management of natural resources, land rights, traditional territory, participatory mapping, eco-spirituality, climate justice and traditional ecological knowledge. He has written professional papers and popular critique articles extensively and interdisciplinary. Currently, he is engaging with the discourse and practices of eco-museum and issues related to natural heritage and indigenous artifacts repatriation.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild/Taiwan Matters

How Taiwan became Asia's Leader in Women's Political Representation with Dr. Chang-Ling Huang

With a proportion of 43 percent of women in its national legislature since 2020, Taiwan has arguably become Asia's leader in women's political representation. Dr. Chang-Ling Huang offers some perspectives on how and why that is.

Time and place: Mar. 6, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom only, click here to sign up.

How Taiwan became Asia's Leader in Women's Political Representation with Dr. Chang-Ling Huang

With a proportion of 43 percent of women in its national legislature since 2020, Taiwan has arguably become Asia's leader in women's political representation. Dr. Chang-Ling Huang offers some perspectives on how and why that is.

Time and place: Mar. 6, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom only, click here to sign up.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

Taiwan’s Foreign Policy and International Space with Dr. Saša Istenič Kotar (Zoom only)

In this lecture, Dr. Saša Istenič Kotar will provide an overview of Taiwan’s foreign relations and the key factors influencing the formulation of Taiwan’s foreign policy.

Time and place: Feb. 14, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom only, click here to sign up.

Taiwan has long sought international acceptance as a full member of the international community. As the “one-China” set-up imposed by Beijing continues to weaken Taiwan’s sovereign position and limits its international room for manoeuvre, Taipei must invest enormous energy in its foreign policy to advance its national interests. This lecture will provide an overview of Taiwan’s foreign relations and the key factors influencing the formulation of Taiwan’s foreign policy.

About the lecturer:

Saša Istenič Kotar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Ljubljana and Director of the Taiwan Study Center in Slovenia. She is also an Executive Board Member of the Slovene East Asia Resource Library (EARL), an Associate Board Member of the International Journal of Taiwan Studies (IJTS) and a former Executive Board Member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS). For her research, she has received a number of scholarships and awards, including the National Sun Yat-sen University award for an outstanding doctoral dissertation. She has presented papers in many national and international conferences worldwide and published various articles on topics related to Taiwan and China studies.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

Sustaining Transnational Political Ties: Taiwanese Political Parties and Overseas Constituencies with Julia Christine Marinaccio (Zoom only)

In this lecture, Dr. Julia Christine Marinaccio will discuss transnational ties between Taiwanese political parties and overseas communities and other constituencies abroad.

Time and place: Feb. 7, 2024 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom only, click here to sign up.

Chinese migrants, often also referred to as overseas Chinese, have been crucial to the economic development of China and Taiwan as well as their major national political movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. The competition between the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over overseas Chinese people’s support for their respective regimes grew particularly fierce during the Cold War.

Concurrently, exiles from the Republic of China (ROC) formed a resistance movement against the KMT’s brutal authoritarian regime in Taiwan, supporting democratic forces on the island and eventually helping the historic establishment of an opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party. Today, overseas communities are split over their formal membership in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the ROC—albeit this distinction is not recognized by the PRC—and their emotional ties regarding their ancestry. So-called “overseas Taiwanese” (i.e., people of Taiwanese ancestry or descent who live or were born outside of Taiwan), on the other hand, are further divided over their differences on nationalist ideas, as well as on the concrete steps Taiwan should undertake for securing its political future as a democratic country. For political parties in Taiwan, the overseas communities remain an important—yet often overlooked—constituency.

In this lecture, students will gain advanced theoretical and empirical knowledge about transnational ties between political parties and constituencies abroad and learn why political parties in Taiwan continue sustaining close relationships with overseas communities across the globe. Through dynamic and student-centered teaching methods, students will be prompted into critical thinking about various conceptualizations in the study of Chinese migration and political transnationalism in contemporary Taiwan.

About the speaker:

Julia Marinaccio is a political scientist with a focus on China and Taiwan. She has work experience at several European universities and is currently employed as EU project manager at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences. Her research interests lie in political representation and mobilization, ideology politics, cross-Strait relations, climate and environmental governance.

Organiser

Ingrid Eskild

2023

Contested Timescape of the Offshore Wind Development in Taiwan's Nearshore Waters

In this lecture Dr. Lu will discuss the impact and conflicts arising from the development of offshore windfarms on Taiwan's western coastline among local fishing communities.

Time and place: Aug. 31, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:30 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom

Starting from the year 2013, Taiwan has been vigorously advancing the development of offshore wind power, positioning it as a crucial cornerstone for the nation's transition towards low-carbon energy. However, this process has significantly impacted the small-scale coastal fishing industry along the western coastline. This talk discusses the disputes between fishing communities and offshore wind farm developers in the nearshore marine space from the temporal perspective. I argue that the fishermen’s fight for defending their fishing grounds can be understood as a battle over their temporal sovereignty.

About the author

Dr. Lu is a professor of anthropology at National Taiwan University. Her research interests include political ecology, energy politics, anthropology of time, and artisan fishery practices in Taiwan.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Audible and Visible Multilingualism in Taiwan with Dr. Henning Klöter (Zoom)

In this lecture, Dr. Henning Klöter discusses the many facets of languages on Taiwan.

Time and place: Apr. 25, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Only digital participation, click here to sign up on ZOOM

In the first part of his presentation, Dr. Klöter will provide an overview of Taiwan’s language situation by taking stock of the languages that are currently spoken, their sociolinguistic status and their social and geographical distribution. Special attention will be given to the phenomenon of language shift, i.e. the exclusive use of Mandarin and the discontinuation of regional language use among younger speakers. In the second part of the presentation, he will look at the visible manifestation of different languages in the linguistic landscape of Taipei city. Taking street name signs as an example, he will show that until today, official signage strictly reflects language norms and official standards of the post-1949 period and excludes non-standard linguistic alternatives such as Southern Min or Hakka. The profound ideological shift towards ‘nativisation’ that gathered momentum at the turn of the 21st century has left almost no visible traces on street signage.

About the lecturer

Dr. Henning Klöter is Professor of Modern Chinese Languages and Literatures and Executive Director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research interests include multilingualism and society, language planning, Taiwan Studies (language, history, literature), history of Chinese linguistics in Europe, Sinophone Studies, Chinese writing, and Translation Studies.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording

How Do Movement Parties Learn Lessons of Defeat in Taiwan? The Case of the Green Party Taiwan with Dr. Dafydd Fell

Electoral defeat is often viewed as the mother of party change. However, studies show that parties do not necessary learn the right lessons of defeat. In this lecture, Dr. Dafydd Fell reflects on this using the case of the Green Party Taiwan

Time and place: Apr. 18, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

The way that parties react to electoral setbacks is often closely tied to the internal power structure and power struggles in the aftermath of the election. Parties also need to face the demands of competing goals, and the way they react to electoral defeat may be affected by whether the party prioritises goals such as winning votes or office, party ideals or representing members’ interests.

While much of the literature on the way parties deal with electoral defeat relies on cases in European party systems, a number of studies have also been conducted on mainstream parties in Taiwan. In this paper we have chosen to focus on the case of one of the oldest movement parties in Taiwan, the Green Party Taiwan. We examine how the party has dealt with electoral defeat and if it can be said to have learnt the right lessons of defeat. Since movement parties are generally seen as prioritising policy or ideological goals over electoral success, we are interested to see whether the Green Party’s responses to defeat differ from earlier studies of Taiwan’s mainstream parties.

We address these questions by looking at the party’s response to three national election campaigns in 2012, 2016 and 2020. In order to operationalise the way the party reacted to the electoral setbacks, we look at the following indicators of post-election change: (1) leadership change, (2) internal balance of power, (3) organizational change, (4) change in the alliance strategies, (5) programmatic change. We plot how the party has changed on these indicators by examining the nature of the party in the next rounds of elections. This then allows us to make a judgement on whether the party had learnt the right or wrong lessons of defeat. The analysis relies on a series of interviews with Green Party Taiwan figures over the last ten years, party political communication material, as well as participant observation data.

About the speaker

DAFYDD J. FELL is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is also the Director of the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies. In 2004 he helped establish the European Association of Taiwan Studies. He has published numerous articles on political parties and electioneering in Taiwan. His first book was Party Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2005), which analyzed party change in the first fifteen years of multi-party competition. His second book was Government and Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2011) and the second edition was published in early 2018. He has edited a number of volumes on Taiwan, with the most recent Taiwan Studies Revisited, published in 2019, Taiwan’s Economic and Diplomatic Challenges and Opportunities (2021) and Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples (2021). His latest single authored book is Taiwan’s Green Parties (Routledge 2021) and is currently working with three co-authors on a Chinese version of the book. He is also the book series editor for the Routledge Research on Taiwan Series.

Lecture recording

Landscaping the Nation: Place, Identity and Nation-branding in Taiwan with Dr. Bi-yu Chang

Alongside the democratic development and the rise of Taiwanese consciousness over the last three decades, the dominant China-centric discourse has given way to a Taiwan-first mindset. This lecture discusses the making of Taiwan identity.

Time and place: Apr. 11, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

There has been an increased sense of local pride, the development of a distinctive indigenous culture, and a growing awareness of Taiwanese subjectivity, each contributing to a Taiwan-centric sentiment. Part of this identity transformation was achieved via a transformation of ‘place identity.’

This lecture will investigate the state’s involvement in the place-making process and identify the crucial junctures at which Taiwan came to mean ‘home.’ Thus, Dr. Chang will give a comprehensive overview of how this island has evolved as a ‘meaningful place’ and explore how and the reasons why the idea of ‘Taiwan’ has changed so dramatically (from a ‘temporary residing place’ to ‘home’). By investigating the genealogy of post-war state spatiality (i.e. spatial strategies, construction, policy, and behaviour), this lecture will discuss the intricate relationship between culture, space, and identity.

About the lecturer

Dr. Bi-yu Chang is Deputy Director of the Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS, University of London. The central concern of her research has always been the politics of culture. It has led her to examine the complex interplay between knowledge and power, explore the relationship between culture, place, and identity, and investigate the thorny issues of recent decades, such as nation-building, independence, and cultural identity crisis in Taiwan. In the past few years, she has been focused on two dimensions of state involvement in identity construction, one is on Taiwan’s nation-branding project through post-war tourism, and the other on nation building via education reform. She has also extended her research interests into the issue of indigenous education.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording

How Taiwan became Asia's Leader in Women's Political Representation with Dr. Chang-Ling Huang

With a proportion of 43 percent of women in its national legislature since 2020, Taiwan has arguably become Asia's leader in women's political representation. Dr. Chang-Ling Huang offers some perspectives on how and why that is.

Time and place: Mar. 28, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

This lecture illustrates the long-term accumulative effects of gender quotas in Taiwan's elections, especially in comparison with Taiwan's neighboring democracies like Japan and South Korea. The lecture also explains why women's significant presence in the national legislature has not led to more gender-balanced cabinets.

About the speaker

Chang-Ling Huang is Professor of Political Science at the National Taiwan University. She is currently working on a comparative study of quota politics in East Asia. She has works that have appeared in various Chinese and English academic journals and recently has authored chapters on gender politics in two handbooks. Huang received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She is a recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Social Service Award from the National Taiwan University. Besides teaching and research, Huang has been involved in Taiwan’s feminist movement. She was a board member and president of the Awakening Foundation, the earliest established feminist organization in post-war Taiwan, and a member of various government gender commissions.

Lecture recording

An Overview of Taiwan Cinema with Dr. Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley

Democratisation is arguably Taiwan’s most significant achievement since 1945. This lecture addresses the impact of cultural democratisation by using Taiwan cinema as a case study.

Time and place: Mar. 21, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Digital participation only, click here to sign up for Zoom.

In this lecture, Dr. Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley takes Taiwan New Cinema (TNC) as a turning point and first offer a broad overview of Taiwan cinema prior to the appearance of TNC in the early 1980s, including the rise and fall of the Taiwanese-language film industry (1950s–1970s), Healthy Realism (1960s), and Literary Romance and a variety of genre films (1970s). She then introduces the 1st wave (1980s) and the 2nd wave (1990s) of the TNC in order to highlight in what way Taiwan New Cinema is ‘new’. She discusses three representative filmmakers—Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang—in more detail in order to illuminate how they challenged different boundaries and broadened the cultural horizon of a society under authoritarian rule for over four decades. Finally, she focuses on Wei Te-sheng’s Cape No.7 (Haijiao qihao, 2008), which became the all-time best-selling locally produced movie in Taiwan, second only to the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster Titanic (dir. James Cameron). This film signals the arrival of Post-New Cinema in Taiwan.

Films for discussion

• (Healthy Realism) Beautiful Duckling (Yangya renjia, 1965, dir. Li Xing);
• (TNC) A Time to Live, A Time to Die (Tongnian wangshi, 1985, dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien);
• (TNC) A Brighter Summer Day (Gulingjie shaonian sharen shijian, 1991, dir. Edward Yang);
• (Post-TNC) Cape No.7 (Haijiao qihao, 2008, dir. Wei Te-sheng) (available on Disney+).

About the speaker

Dr. Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley is a Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She is also a Research Associate at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Dr. Rawnsley was Secretary-General, European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS, 2012–2018), and is the founding Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Taiwan Studies (2018–present), co-sponsored by EATS and Academia Sinica. She worked as a researcher at the University of Nottingham (1999–2005) and became Head of Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (2005–2007). Before she joined SOAS in 2013 and Academia Sinica in 2018, Dr. Rawnsley researched and taught East Asian film industries at the University of Leeds (2007–2013). She has published widely in both English and Chinese on Chinese-language cinema and media and democratisation in Taiwan.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording

Religion in Taiwan with Dr. Stefania Travagnin

The religious landscape of Taiwan is made of a large variety of denominations. Buddhism, Daoism, Yiguandao, and also Christianity, Islam, aboriginal religions: These are just some of the faces of Taiwanese religion. These beliefs and practices also appear in society in different forms and on several platforms.

Time and place: Mar. 14, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

This lecture will explore visibility and societal significance of religion in Taiwan today, while also unveiling their earlier roots and connections with the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945).

Throughout the lecture, we will also analyze the contribution of religions to the debated issue of Taiwanese identity, and highlight both their localism and more recent transnational nature.

About the lecturer

Stefania Travagnin is a lecturer in Chinese Buddhism at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. Her research has addressed religion (mostly Buddhist doctrine, institutions, and communities) in the twentieth and twenty-first century mainland China and Taiwan, and under the three main areas of (1) religion and Chinese society; (2) textual studies; (3) concepts and methods for the study of Chinese religions. Buddhist education has been a recurrent topic in her work; she has looked at the development of Sangha education vis-à-vis the historical and political changes in early twentieth-century China; Buddhist education for the militaries during the second Sino-Japanese conflict (1937-1945); elementary non-religious education organized and delivered by the Sangha in the Republican era. Finally, she is the director of the multi-year research project ‘Mapping Religious Diversity in Modern Sichuan’, which is funded by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording

Taiwan as Ocean with Dr. Niki Alsford

Taiwan as the cradle of Austronesian expansion is a widely accepted hypothesis. This lecture discusses the significance of Taiwan as an island.

Time and place: Mar. 7, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

Taiwan is home to nine languages in the Austronesian language family, one of which is widely acknowledged to be the progenitor of all the subsequent spread. Yet as with all settler-colonial nations, its history is framed in reference to land—who oversaw and cultivated the land, who invaded it, stole it, and how it become commodified, broken into pieces, and sold.

Taiwan is an island with a long history of colonisation layered both by Europeans and non-Europeans since first contact in the seventeenth century. Narrating Taiwan from an indigenous peoples’ perspective requires rethinking a consensual national narrative. That narrative is deficient not in its facts, dates or details, but rather in its essence. Instead, the historical narrative has been informed by an inherent myth that urges Taiwanese to accept and embrace their settler, colonial past. This narrative persists solely to prevent challenges to the orthodoxy, and not from a desire to nativise the past.

This discussion is not the first to confront this phenomenon, but rather it aims to contribute to a continued effort to reframe the narrative of Taiwan perched on the edge of continent, to instead focus on Taiwan on the edge of ocean. This new lens emphasises its islandness and highlights its importance as the cradle of Austronesian expansion. Attention to this is important. Like all Pacific islands, the colonial layering of Taiwan’s environment needs to be understood, to wit: the predominant narrative houses indigenous identities and languages (island ecologies) beneath coloniser identities and languages (continental ecologies).

About the lecturer

Niki Alsford is Professor in Asia Pacific Studies and Head of Asia Pacific Institutes at the University of Central Lancashire (UClan). He is also Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS, University of London His research focuses mainly on Taiwan comparative ethno-histories and the historical anthropology of Austronesian migration and maritime Asia Pacific.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording

Can Money Buy Hearts and Minds?: Observations from the Cross-Strait relationship with Dr. Chun-yi Lee

This lecture will address Taiwan’s relations with mainland China and Taiwan’s domestic developments since 1949.

Time and place: Feb. 21, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Digital participation only, click here to sign up for Zoom.

The lecture has three sub-sections. The first section starts from the role of Taiwan businesses in China and will provide perspectives on Taiwan's economic ties with China in general and the role of Taiwan businesses in particular. The second part of the lecture will address Chinese investments in Taiwan and, more specifically, why the scale of Chinese investment has been rather small in Taiwan. The third part of the lecture will discuss why the long-term economic integration between China and Taiwan has not increased the willingness of the majority of Taiwanese to be under Chinese governance.

About the lecturer

Dr. Chun-yi Lee is an Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, and Director of the Taiwan Studies Program at the University of Nottingham. Her first book, Taiwanese Business or Chinese Security Asset?, was published by Routledge in 2011. She is currently working on her second monograph, on semiconductor manufacturing and geopolitics. She is editor-in-chief of the online academic magazine Taiwan Insight and co-editor of the ‘Taiwan and World Affairs’ book series with Palgrave.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording

Taiwan Film Screening: Wei Te-sheng's Cape No. 7 海角七號

The 2008 Taiwanese film Cape No. 7 海角七號, directed by Wei Te-sheng, will be shown on Tuesday 14 Feb from 12.00 (NOT 12.15!) in seminar room 2, P. A. Munchs hus. This is one of the films Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley will discuss in her lecture on 21 March.

Time and place: Feb. 14, 2023 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM, P. A. Munch building room 2

Some of the other films for Dr. Rawnsley's lecture on the 21st of March can be viewed on YouTube: 

• (Healthy Realism) Beautiful Duckling (Yangya renjia, 1965, dir. Li Xing);
• (TNC) A Time to Live, A Time to Die (Tongnian wangshi, 1985, dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien);
• (TNC) A Brighter Summer Day (Gulingjie shaonian sharen shijian, 1991, dir. Edward Yang).

Island of Memories: Critical Overview of Contemporary Taiwanese Historiography with Dr. Lung-chih Chang

This lecture will discuss the key issues and debates in post-Martial Law Taiwan by reviewing recent scholarship and representative works by local historians.

Time and place: Feb. 8, 2023 2:15 PM – 3:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

The lecture aims to provide an overview of Taiwan history and highlight multiple and diverse historical narratives surrounding modern and contemporary Taiwan. Based on museum exhibitions and recent scholarship, the lectures will introduce major themes and issues such as Taiwan’s modernization, democratization, the multi-ethnic society and national identity, post-colonial memories and transitional justice. No prior knowledge of Taiwan or proficiency in Chinese are required.

About the lecturer

Dr. Lung-chih Chang is director of National Museum of Taiwan History and Associate Research Fellow and former deputy Director of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He obtained his PhD from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His area of expertise includes Taiwan's social and cultural history, ethnic relationship history, comparative colonialism, Taiwan history and public history.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Recording of the lecture

Island of Encounters: Excursion of Taiwan History through Museum Exhibitions with Dr. Lung-chih Chang

This lecture will introduce the major trends and development of Taiwan history using the collections and exhibitions of National Museum of Taiwan History as examples.

Time and place: Feb. 7, 2023 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Physically at PAM360; for digital participation, click here to sign up for Zoom.

The lecture aims to provide an overview of Taiwan history and highlight multiple and diverse historical narratives surrounding modern and contemporary Taiwan. Based on museum exhibitions and recent scholarship, the lectures will introduce major themes and issues such as Taiwan’s modernization, democratization, the multi-ethnic society and national identity, post-colonial memories and transitional justice. No prior knowledge of Taiwan or proficiency in Chinese are required.

About the lecturer

Dr. Lung-chih Chang is director of National Museum of Taiwan History and Associate Research Fellow and former deputy Director of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He obtained his PhD from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His area of expertise includes Taiwan's social and cultural history, ethnic relationship history, comparative colonialism, Taiwan history and public history.

The Taiwan Matters lecture series has been funded by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC) through the Taipei Mission in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lecture recording (audio file only!)

Transcription

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Welcome, everybody, to this very, very, very special event.

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Professor Chang Lung-chih came flying in from Taiwan yesterday.

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I don't envy him with jet lag and everything to speak here today,

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but we are extremely happy to have him here.

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He is director of National Museum of Taiwan History in Tainan City in Taiwan

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and associate research fellow and former deputy director of the Institute of

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Taiwan History at Academia Sinica in Taipei.

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He has his PhD from Harvard and he is one of the foremost historians of Taiwan

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history. So we are extremely happy to have you here and I won't say more.

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Otherwise, I will spend your time, so please.

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So there's no microphone, right?

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No microphone.

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No need.

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It's in the air, the microphone.

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Just operate with this.

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Yeah.

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Oh, OK.

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Yeah. OK, good afternoon (dàjiā hǎo/tāi-ke hó). I am Lung-chih Chang from Taiwan.

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It's really my great pleasure and honor to be able to kick off the

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Taiwan Matters lecture series at Oslo University.

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And this is also my first visit to Norway, and after more than 20 hours of flight,

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I'm not sure I can keep my mind clear after maybe half of halfway through my lecture.

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But please bear with me if my English suddenly becomes very poor and very

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slow and my mind begins flowing in some unknowable direction.

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But anyway, here I am and I'm really glad to be able to come here and exchange

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with you when teacher A-De (Halvor) called me from some unknown place and invited me

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to come to this lecture.

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I hesitated for a moment, but then I think this is really maybe one of my

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lifetime experience to be able to travel to Norway.

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So here I am.

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And hopefully in the next 40 minutes or so, we could have a pleasant

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discussion of Taiwan history using a museum exhibition as an example to

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give a rough idea about how history has been, especially the history of Taiwan

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has been researched or represented.

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And maybe especially in tomorrow's lecture, we can talk about how Taiwan

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history has been debated and contested in contemporary Taiwan.

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Okay.

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So as you can see, the title of my today's lecture is Island of Encounters.

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And I will, this is my general outline, just to give you a rough idea.

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And I will just talk a little bit about how Taiwan history became a field of study

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in Taiwan after the post, after the lifting of Martial Law in 1987.

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And then I will just go directly to the museum of the National Museum of Taiwan

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History, and I will just briefly introduce how it came into being and then what

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has been, how the museum has been functioning.

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And then I will focus on two cases.

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One is the permanent exhibition of the museum when it first opened to the

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public in 2011, then I would talk a little bit more about how my staff, our

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staff's efforts to provide the new narrative based on the old exhibition

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and to reflect not only the changing political, social situation, but also

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the development of the historical study of Taiwan itself in 2021.

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And then I will, if time permits, I will be closing with a very rough remarks on

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what the museum and my colleagues and I are trying to do in the near future.

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And it's been, what we've been doing and what we want to accomplish.

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And that basically, so if anyone would like to maybe leave this room and go

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for to better place to go and a cup of coffee and you can feel free to do it.

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So this is a general picture of the National Museum of Taiwan History.

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And how many of you have been, have visited Taiwan before?

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Oh, very many.

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Okay.

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As you can see that when we talk about museums in Taiwan, our museum will not

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come to mind at first, usually the sequence will be National Palace Museum.

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And then if you have some knowledge about Taiwan's colonial past during the

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Japanese rule, there will be a museum, National Taiwan Museum, which is

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Taiwan's first museum set up in 1915

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by the Japanese colonial government, later transforming into a National Taiwan Museum.

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It is basically a natural history museum and located in the right now, we call it

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228 Peace Park near Taipei Station.

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And then there will be another museum called National History Museum located

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right across my high school called Jianguo

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High school in the so-called Botanic Garden.

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It is a museum set up in post-war Taiwan by the national government based on the

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artifacts transferred from Henan Museum.

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So this is actually a museum of Chinese civilization and arts.

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So our museum is the only museum that featured Taiwan history per se.

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And it was unthinkable before the lifting of martial law and is still growing after

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celebrating the 10th anniversary in 2021.

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In our, this is a brief introduction of the museum, the mission, and also some of the

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major

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major efforts, such as to promote Taiwan's cultural identity, to dialogue on historical

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issues, and to improve our international cooperation and also try to bring in the

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progressive idea of intellectual popularization, something like that.

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Okay.

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And this is what our museum looks like.

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It is actually a historical garden, and there are two major buildings.

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One is an administrative building with our depositories, and the other is exhibition

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education building, which is located here.

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And this is the museum's main building.

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Which is located here, and this is our, it is a symbol of our museum, and I will talk

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about it with you if time permits later.

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Our museum right now consists of more than 100 staff members, and they are not only from

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history background, they're also from various disciplines, like from art history to

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museology, and also there is some civil administrative channel directly.

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So there's basically many tracks that consists of our team.

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And so for those who are familiar with the four major functions of the museum, our museum

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also performed similar functions in featuring Taiwan history.

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So right now, after maybe 20 years in preparation and 10 years open to the public, we have collected

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more than 150,000 items of artifacts, varying from, with different categories.

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And most of our collections are donated by the owners.

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Many of them are actually from featuring the daily life of Taiwanese people.

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So we don't have any things like those treasures in National Palace, like if you happen to

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broke one of them, then you will be in great trouble.

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But our artifacts, it's more down to earth, and it's basically a social, trying to reflect

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the social life of Taiwanese people and also the folk culture, along with other various

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religious and cultural traditions.

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So this is, this is just to give you a rough idea about the variety of our collections

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from maps to drawings to artifacts.

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And we also have some, but not many, collections from the indigenous Taiwanese.

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And in last year, which is about September 2022, we have a new special item into our

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depository, which is the only Nobel Prize, Nobel Medal in Chemistry, donated by Mr. Yuen-che

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Lee, and hopefully it will not be the only one, but right now it is, it is the only Nobel

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Prize medal in Taiwan, which has become part of to our museum.

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Our research focus on various time periods and publish related historical material and

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documents along with other materials.

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So for those who have a basic idea of Taiwan, it is essentially a regional island and it's

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the rich archaeological findings, but it formally entered the realm of world history in the

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late 16th century and become the crossroad of different maritime powers in 17th centuries.

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In 18th centuries, there's a lot of Chinese migrants from South China, especially Fujian

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and Guangdong, they set up a various agricultural development and Taiwan become developed, gradually

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transformed from a regional island into a home for Han immigrant volunteers.

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In maybe with the opening of treaty ports in the 1860s, Taiwan became, especially Taiwan's

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commercial product like tea, sugar, and also camphor, became the worldwide merchandise.

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So Taiwan also became the focus of various international rivalry in East Asia.

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And starting from 1895, Taiwan became Japanese first overseas colony.

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During the 50 years of Japanese rule, Taiwan gradually transformed from a Han immigrant

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frontier to a modern industrial society under the Japanese colonial regime.

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In 1945, with the defeat of Japanese in the World War II, Taiwan was returned to the ROC,

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the KMT government, and starting the so-called post-war period for more than 70 years.

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And Taiwan is one of the longest martial law rules under the world's longest martial rule

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for more than 38 years.

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And it was not until 1987 when Taiwan gradually became a democratic society with strong civil

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organizations all the way until today.

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This sketch of Taiwan history is the focus of our research team.

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So we have been collecting and also researching, if not translating into Chinese, various multilingual

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sources on Taiwan from all the way from the 17th to the 19th century.

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And we also published a lot of Ming-Qing dynasty materials such as land deeds, archives from

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National Palace Museum, and such like that.

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And we also work on Japanese colonial archives and published various source collections or

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maps.

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Also, there are some visual collections like documentaries during the 1930s.

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Yeah, these are part of our research, the results of our research.

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So this is just to give you an idea about the difference.

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For example, this is from the Dutch materials.

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The VOC, the Dutch East Indian companies, which ruled Taiwan for 38 years.

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And this is the first Taiwanese political and social movement speech organ for this

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so-called Taiwan self-rule movement during the Chinese period.

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There's also a lot of diaries about various local elites also published by our museum

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together with other, for example, the Institute of Taiwan History.

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I will not talk much about the exhibition because it will be the major focus of analysis

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today.

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But our museum features a permanent exhibition and also has been designed and showcased more

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than 100 different special exhibitions in our exhibition hall.

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And this is just to give you a general idea about how our special exhibition is.

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So you can see that it's only, it eventually ranges from various different perspectives.

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So there's religion and there are also earthquakes, environmental issues and there's something

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about maps and there's something about the Japanese pioneering into power and investigation

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in Taiwan.

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And there's also about water problems in Taiwan.

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And we also put a lot of attention about the Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan and their

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living experience.

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So we also touch, although not very much, but also we touch on contemporary issues such

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as the 3.18., the Sunflower social movements.

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And there are also exhibitions on comics, on education, etc.

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So just to give you a rough idea about what we have been doing.

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And these two are the featuring special exhibition.

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Last year we have collaborated with our German counterpart on about divination or "suanming"

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in Chinese to contrast the East-West worldview.

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And we were also celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the first very important Taiwan

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cultural association.

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Taiwan Cultural Association, Taiwan Wenhua Xiehui.

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Many leading elites, modern elites are actually members of this association.

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So there is a special exhibition on it.

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And we also provide a kind of alternative accounts, not so much focus on those heroes

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or big names, but also some different ways of how to understand this important era about

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Taiwan's enlightenment in the 1920s.

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Our public service sections provides service to different kinds of audience because we

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pride ourselves to be a museum for everyone, not just for some special guests or some officials

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or some scholars.

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So we have tried to offer open access services to those who are audiovisually impaired.

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And also some special policies are designed for those students, young students in some

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more peripheral or economic minorities.

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And we also offer different education measures from especially drama or theater is one of

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our strengths compared to other museums.

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So this special drama is actually performed by those who... They are not actors, they are actually

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performing their own experience.

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These are those brides married from Southeast Asia to Taiwan and their children in their

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descendants, who are now called the new Taiwanese, Xin Taiwan Zhi Zi, because has become gradually...

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For those who are familiar with Taiwan's demography, there are so-called four major ethnic

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groups ranging from Fujian, the Hokkienese, to Hakka, to indigenous Taiwanese.

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And also there's those who migrate with the KMT government after 1949, the so-called mainlander,

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the waishengren.

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But now we have the fifth ethnic group, which is those from those who came to Taiwan,

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especially in the 1990s, come from Southeast Asia and they become... They and their descendants...

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and actually their population are more than indigenous Taiwanese right now.

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So they've become the fifth ethnic group in Taiwan.

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So in general, we're trying to bring in all these different kinds of multi-ethnic society,

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the aspect of multi-ethnic society.

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So this is actually one important event when we invited them and they actually tried to

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come to our museum to perform their own story and this actually created a lot of responses, positive

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responses from the audience.

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In addition to the four major functions of museums, we also provide digital services.

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For example, we have a lot of our artifacts and research and also exhibition results has

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been digitalized and become accessible to our audience who not only can come to our

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museum to see for themselves and to experience the different kinds of museum exhibition,

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but also they can also access our resources from far away using internet and other digital

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channels.

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So this is, we have a very popular website featuring our collections.

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And we also have a very special website on the visual history of Taiwan.

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You can really listen, can listen on history by yourself, listen to the history by yourself.

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And we have a database on local history and we have a very popular website on Taiwanese

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women's experience.

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So that's just to give you a general idea about how National Museum of Taiwan History

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has been doing following its formal opening to the public in 2011.

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Right now, let me just step, let's step a little bit further into how the history of

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Taiwan has been featured and represented and narrated in our permanent exhibition.

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First of all, the theme of our permanent exhibition when it first opened to the public in 2011

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is called Our Land, Our People.

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In Chinese it's called Si Tu, Si Min, or This Land, This People.

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So it is actually trying to provide a new perspective for those who want to understand

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or to know about their own history, their history and their, not from some conventional

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perspective such as the expansion of Han Chinese, overseas expansion of Han Chinese,

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or the history of Han immigrants from, migrated from mainland China to Taiwan and other places.

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These are very important themes and has been the orthodox narrative during the martial

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law period.

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But there's other perspectives which are featuring Taiwan and Taiwan in and of itself, or to

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use more theoretical terms called Taiwanese subjectivity.

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This kind of view has been one of the major features of the newly emerged Taiwan Studies

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after the 1980s, especially in gradually developed into a new discourse or new way of envisioning

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Taiwan and Taiwanese history and culture in the 1990s.

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The Taiwan subjectivity is, although there are different connotations and even some fierce

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debates regarding how this term should be understood, but there's a general consensus

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that we should understand the history of Taiwan from the Taiwanese perspective.

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Okay, that's the basic idea.

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So Our Land, Our People - the exhibition is actually a ramification of this idea of Taiwanese

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subjectivity.

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So you can see that this is a general spatial arrangement of this, of the old permanent

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exhibition.

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So you can see that from when the audience takes the elevator to the second floor of

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our museum, they will first see a general map of Taiwan.

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And then through an interactive device, you can have your own face and become reflected

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in this screen.

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So it is an idea about the history of for everyone.

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So you can become - every audience can become part of our exhibition by using your or interactive

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device.

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And then you will have an overall view about Taiwan's early history or the major archaeological

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finding something like that.

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Then you will see a great huge map.

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You can see from another, I'm sorry.

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About the 16th and 17th century when Taiwan was a maritime frontier.

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And then you will have entering basically the exhibition order is chronological, but

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it is not strictly followed the chronological order.

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There are also some semantic design to featuring major events or some important issues of Taiwan

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history.

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So from the Dutch period to the rule of Ming loyalist Cheng Ch'eng-kung in the region and all the way to

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the more than 212 years of Qing rules, you can see that there's agricultural development

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and then some development about the town and the cities.

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And then in this section you will see, I'm sorry, I forgot there are some people not

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in this room.

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So let me use the mouse.

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So in this section you can see the 19th century Taiwan when it become a focus of international

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trade and some imperialist rivalry.

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And this part you can see there's a, oh, thank you.

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I'm sorry, let me return to my mouse.

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So in this section you'll see the different narratives about the once very famous Taiwan

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Republic in 1895 when the local Taiwanese organized to resist the invading Japanese

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troops armies in 1895.

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And this section is basically the Japanese colonial period all the way through the different

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various kinds of modernization experienced all the way to the Taiwanese experience on the

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World War II when some young Taiwanese, including indigenous Taiwanese were conscripted to fight

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for the Japanese empire.

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The original narrative end with the somewhat tragic ending about the transition between

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Japan and Taiwan and China and the tragic so-called 228 incident in 1947 when there's

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the popular uproar or popular protest was suppressed by the KMT government.

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And there's some people even use massacre to describe this event.

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So that's the general narrative about in our museum, the previous permanent exhibition.

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And I would like to emphasize that if you are familiar with the textbook version of

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Taiwanese history, if there's something Taiwanese history in the textbook, there's actually

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no such thing as Taiwanese history in the textbook before.

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It's actually a series of reforms.

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So it was not until 1995 that the students in the senior high school, they can have a

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special coherent section on Taiwanese history.

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Usually it was segmented in following the overall narrative of Chinese nationalist history.

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So for those who are familiar with this conventional textbook style Taiwanese history, the history

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actually consists of two major narratives.

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One is expansion or development of Han Chinese in Taiwan.

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The other is the major historical figures and their influence on Taiwan history.

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For example, from Koxinga (Cheng Ch'eng-kung), all the way to Liu Ming-ch'uan, those South Chinese

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officials - Qing imperial officials, they basically constitute the major figures in the conventional narrative.

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But in this exhibition Our Land, Our People, there's no famous figures.

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And there's no this very important events.

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What you have seen is the daily life of Taiwanese throughout the various time son the

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island.

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So that's the basic feature for our old historical narrative.

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So in a sense, it is a social history by itself.

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And not a political history in essence.

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That's the feature of our permanent exhibition when it was first opened in 2011.

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And how this coming to being is actually the product of various factors.

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One is the development of Taiwanese historical study itself, which I will cover more in

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tomorrow's lecture.

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And the other is actually the process of democratization and the growing recognition of

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people's importance, various people's, various groups of people's importance in constructing

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the island's history.

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So with these two different strains of thought that constitute the so-called Our Land, Our People

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narrative.

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So this gives you another idea about...

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So if you come to the second floor of our exhibition hall, what you have seen is something

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like that.

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It's actually a special reconstruction of major historical scenes throughout the history

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of Taiwan.

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Okay, with this in mind, let me go quickly into the new or renewed permanent exhibition,

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which after closing for 15 months for design and construction, formally reopened in January

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2021.

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That is before my coming to this post.

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This new, we called it renewed permanent exhibition.

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The old scene, our Our Land, Our People still remains, but there is a new framework for narration,

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which can be seen as an island of encounters.

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So if the so-called discourse of Taiwanese subjectivity

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is featured in the land and the people in and of itself,

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then the new or renewed narrative is actually trying to put Taiwan in a larger macro-maritime

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transnational comparative perspective and trying to emphasize Taiwan's position in Taiwan's,

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the fate of Taiwan is actually influenced by various regions and the interaction of people,

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culture, ideas, commodities, or geopolitical factors.

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So this development, actually the new narrative, is actually an extension of the old narrative,

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if I may.

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So let me show you some of the key elements in this new narrative.

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One is the idea of encounters.

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So you can see that this is actually a new artifact by indigenous artists.

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And he tried to use one of the legendary myths about one of the Amei/Amis tribe in Taiwan to feature

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in the burst of the island, to symbolize the burst of the island and trying to add on the

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old world map, the old context of the old map.

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So that is one addition.

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And the other is the inclusion of more and more indigenous stories from for those who

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are familiar with Taiwan's indigenous people.

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They are not one ethnic groups.

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They're actually right now we have more than 16 officially recognized indigenous groups

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in Taiwan with the ongoing indigenous rights movement and also so-called transitional justice

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movement.

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Maybe in two years time or three years time, the number will keep increasing.

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So this is actually something new, not only to the demographic configuration of Taiwan,

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but also the political imagination about what comes to you, this entity or the imagined

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community of Taiwan itself.

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So the story of indigenous people is actually a new and very significant addition to the

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old narrative, which is still more or less, although there is no big name, but they are

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still Han Chinese experiences in Taiwan.

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Right now, so the second feature of this new narrative is that it is more, it becomes a

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pluralist, a multi-ethnic narrative in comparison to the old Han-centric, Chinese-centric,

35:36.200 --> 35:38.760
Sino-centric story of Taiwan.

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So this sense of pluralism or multiculturalism becomes, and also the coexistence, if not

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competing, conflicting of various memories in Taiwan is also a new way of presenting

35:59.480 --> 36:00.920
the island's history.

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So we are no longer subscribed to one orthodox narrative, but we try to include, although

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we cannot exhaust all the narrative, but we're trying to provide a sense of democracy that

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by recognizing differences, by listening to different voices or recognizing those

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lost or suppressed or marginalized voices in Taiwan's past, we can work together for

36:30.680 --> 36:31.960
a better future.

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So this is also this element of memory politics is the third edition of the new narrative

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to our museum's permanent exhibition.

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And also there's another aspect which focuses on democracy or democratization of Taiwan.

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Until today, Taiwan's history has been featured as one of the major development, not only

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in economic success, but also in terms of the first or the most successful in the sense

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of democratization in Chinese society.

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But as you can see, especially in recent years, Taiwan's democracy has underwent a lot of

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changes if not when it's a very serious crisis and challenges.

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So how to consolidate the deepening, how to deepen the democratic culture of the time

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of political, democratic politics in Taiwan, it's become more and more pressing, especially

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facing the changing geopolitical situation.

37:53.240 --> 38:03.720
So in the new narrative, there's a whole new section featuring the post-war Taiwan history,

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which is not so, which only mentioned in passing in the previous version of our narrative.

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So in this new post-war narrative, we no longer subscribe to the economic miracle narrative,

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which is very popular in 1990s and earlier, this whole little dragon narrative, but focus

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on the challenge of Taiwan's democracy and the difficulty and even the frustration of

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Taiwan's democratization all the way from the 228 incident to throughout the white terror

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period.

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And gradually, you can see the emergence of local politics, the so-called Dangwai Movements

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and then gradually this various wars converge, become a social movement and all the way leading

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to the lifting of martial law and then facing the first presidential election and also the

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consolidation of Taiwan democracy.

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This new narrative is an important, a new addition of our new, renewed exhibition.

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And last but not least, if you have time to go through the permanent exhibition, before

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the ending part of the so-called Museum for Everyone, you will see some very important contemporary

39:45.080 --> 39:46.080
artifacts.

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These are our rapid response collection of the important social movements.

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So for example, these stones are those indigenous elites who have been camping for three years

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in front of Taiwan's presidential office to advocate for the land right and also the

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transitional justice of indigenous people.

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Although the work is still going on, but these stones have become our new collections, which

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in addition to the 3.18. Sunflower Movement.

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And this gentleman is actually a former political prisoner who spent more than 10 years in the

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Green Island and offshore islands during his youth years.

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And he now become an important advocate for human rights in Taiwan.

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And he attended various events to commemorate those victims of political prosecution, but

40:59.280 --> 41:09.000
also educated the younger generation to understand the price that the former generation has paid

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for Taiwan's democratization.

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But these new elements are also missing in our old exhibition.

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So then just to give you a general idea about what happened in 2011 and what is new or

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renewed in 2021 in our permanent exhibition narrative.

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Okay.

41:35.840 --> 41:45.160
And right now we are promoting a new idea using the public history or co-writing as

41:45.160 --> 42:01.960
a key collaboration, as a key concept to just to promote a new way of shared authority in

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Taiwan historical culture.

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For those who can recognize the Chinese, you can see that it is called "ni ye shi xie lishi de ren"

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So everyone can be a chronicler of history.

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So this actually, for those who are familiar with the American public history, there is

42:21.840 --> 42:25.100
a saying that every man is his own historian.

42:25.100 --> 42:35.080
Something in this spirit to try to bring in this idea and try to co-write or co-read Taiwan's

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history with our audience and readers.

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So it is no longer kind of a one-dimension, top-down museum initiated historical narrative

42:46.820 --> 42:48.920
to educate the audience.

42:48.920 --> 43:01.160
It's actually a more equal footing, more fluid, and more open-ended way of rethinking Taiwan

43:01.160 --> 43:02.160
history.

43:02.160 --> 43:08.640
So I think that can recognize some of the major spirit in this renewal and renovation

43:08.640 --> 43:13.480
of the historical narrative of Taiwan.

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I think I don't have time to show the field, but by way of inclusion, just to conclude

43:25.840 --> 43:39.200
with some very rough remarks, here is what we have been doing after celebrating our 10th

43:39.200 --> 43:46.480
anniversary and also our promotion to the third tier institution under the Ministry

43:46.480 --> 43:50.600
of Culture in 2021.

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So right now there are five Taiwan-related museums or national museums in Taiwan.

43:58.360 --> 44:03.560
One is what I've been saying, the National Taiwan History, the former Japanese colonial

44:03.560 --> 44:04.560
museum.

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And the second is the National Museum for Taiwan Arts.

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And in Taitung, there is a National Museum of Prehistory, Prehistorical Culture featuring

44:17.760 --> 44:22.760
indigenous culture and archaeological findings.

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And our museum, together with our counterpart, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature,

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was the last two museums promoted to the equal footing with the former three museums featuring

44:34.680 --> 44:35.680
Taiwan.

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So although we were formally opened to the public in 2011, it was not until 2021, 10

44:45.320 --> 44:55.840
years after that we finally were promoted to be the same footing with the other national museums.

44:55.840 --> 45:06.040
So for those who are familiar with the so-called International Commission of Museums, ICOM,

45:06.040 --> 45:13.280
last year in Prague, in their conference in Prague, there's a new definition passed with

45:13.280 --> 45:18.680
this majority, and it's after three years of debate after the Tokyo conference.

45:18.680 --> 45:24.200
So in this new definition of museum, there are some new elements that have been added

45:24.200 --> 45:30.780
to the conventional, to the consensus of museum workers.

45:30.780 --> 45:38.320
So that, for example, this collects, interprets, assesses, inclusive, diversity, sustainability,

45:38.320 --> 45:40.280
et cetera, et cetera.

45:40.280 --> 45:48.280
So that's just to give you an idea about what the trends of museum has been gradually changing.

45:48.280 --> 45:55.080
And we also, as museum workers in Taiwan, we try to respond positively to the changing

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trends.

45:56.600 --> 46:08.880
So we have attended the Prague ICOM 2022, and there's some of our publications featuring

46:08.880 --> 46:13.600
our museum experiences, as you can see from the PowerPoint.

46:13.600 --> 46:22.000
So there's actually various topics that's been collected and presented.

46:22.000 --> 46:31.240
As a response to the ongoing, gradually ceceding COVID-19 pandemic, we have a rapid response

46:31.240 --> 46:34.840
collection that started two years ago.

46:34.840 --> 46:44.880
So people can upload their photos and their thoughts or their comments directly to our

46:44.880 --> 46:55.760
specially designed webpage and to become a part of the COVID-19 special collections in

46:55.760 --> 46:59.720
our museum collection.

46:59.720 --> 47:07.160
We're also trying to work with our neighbors to become an animal-friendly park.

47:07.160 --> 47:20.040
And finally, we're trying to gradually develop our experience into a kind of more academic,

47:20.040 --> 47:21.760
some discourse with more academic sense.

47:21.760 --> 47:28.480
So there's, we collaborated with the Taipei University of Arts to publish the so-called

47:28.480 --> 47:32.200
Doing History in the Museum series last year.

47:32.200 --> 47:40.280
And there will be some new textbook on museology also.

47:40.280 --> 47:48.200
So let me conclude my very rough and jet-lag affected lecture with these two snapshots

47:48.200 --> 47:49.200
of our museums.

47:49.200 --> 47:54.800
If you have time to come to Tainan, you're more than welcome to drop by our museum in

47:54.800 --> 47:57.040
the beautiful afternoon.

47:57.040 --> 47:59.920
Enjoy the scenery.

47:59.920 --> 48:09.040
We have some very popular duck staff who will show your way to the museum buildings and

48:09.040 --> 48:16.880
you can enjoy the exhibition as part of the exhibition that I've been trying very hard

48:16.880 --> 48:20.600
to show you.

48:20.600 --> 48:30.040
So thank you very much for your listening.

48:30.040 --> 48:36.080
Thank you very much for this great excursion into not only your museum, but also into Taiwanese

48:36.080 --> 48:42.600
history through a very lively way of getting into the details of Taiwanese history and

48:42.600 --> 48:52.080
to see how it is composed of both imperialism and ethnic diversity, which are sort of two

48:52.080 --> 48:55.760
very different angles, but also many other angles.

48:55.760 --> 48:58.200
And we're extremely happy about this.

48:58.200 --> 49:08.360
We will have the second lecture with Professor Chang tomorrow at 14.15 to quarter past two

49:08.360 --> 49:10.120
in this same room.

49:10.120 --> 49:17.080
So hope to see you all here then.

49:17.080 --> 49:21.560
The title for tomorrow is Island of Memories, Critical Overview of Contemporary Taiwanese

49:21.560 --> 49:22.560
Historiography.

49:22.560 --> 49:30.640
It will be basically a very boring discussion about academic history.

49:30.640 --> 49:35.440
Today is more lively with the museum and public history.

49:35.440 --> 49:37.760
Anyway, you're most welcome to come.

49:37.760 --> 49:44.320
And also just mention that next Tuesday, there is no lecture set up, but for those who are

49:44.320 --> 49:49.920
interested to prepare for one of the later lectures on Taiwanese film and cinema, there

49:49.920 --> 49:57.240
is a film screening of Gu Ling Jie Shao Nian Sha Ren Shi Jian, Brighter Summer Day, which

49:57.240 --> 50:03.780
will be shown then in seminar room two in this building.

50:03.780 --> 50:10.520
So on the ground floor of this building on next Tuesday.

50:10.520 --> 50:16.320
And then we will resume with lectures again one week after that.

50:16.320 --> 50:20.200
Always on Tuesdays, except for tomorrow, which is on the Wednesday.

50:20.200 --> 50:21.600
So we needed to grab-

50:21.600 --> 50:28.160
Just to show my appreciation for your patience, I've bring some souvenirs, which is our postcard

50:28.160 --> 50:35.800
published by our museum, just for your, you're most welcome to come and enjoy.

50:35.800 --> 50:40.200
And for those who are more interested in what actually had been taught in the exhibition

50:40.200 --> 50:49.640
with the illustration and narrative, I would leave this guide, tour exhibition guide here.

50:49.640 --> 50:55.960
That's for those who are interested to pursue a little bit more about our museum and the

50:55.960 --> 50:56.960
exhibition.

50:56.960 --> 51:05.300
And finally, this is a newly published book and we're receiving just in the Taipei Book

51:05.300 --> 51:07.040
Fair last week.

51:07.040 --> 51:09.360
It's called Visualizing Taiwan.

51:09.360 --> 51:11.960
And it is a series of three books.

51:11.960 --> 51:15.720
This is the second one, which featuring Time.

51:15.720 --> 51:18.840
The first one, Space, is published last year.

51:18.840 --> 51:22.280
And you can see that how our colleagues have been using the artifact of our collection

51:22.280 --> 51:26.280
to tell the story of Taiwan history.

51:26.280 --> 51:28.080
So I will just leave it here.

51:28.080 --> 51:32.560
And for those who are interested, you're more than welcome to use that as a reference for

51:32.560 --> 51:33.560
getaway to our museum.

51:33.560 --> 51:37.480
And looking forward to seeing you, hopefully in the near future in Tainan.

51:37.480 --> 51:44.160
Thank you very much again.

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Thank you very much again.

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Now there will be a thought break and then only those who have registered for the course

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will stay behind and continue talking with Professor John.

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So thank you all for coming here