{"title":"The Fourth World Congress of Taiwan Studies: ‘Taiwan in the Making’, University of Washington, Seattle, 27–29 June 2022","authors":"Chun-Yi Lee, Beatrice Zani","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20231357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20231357","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This report highlights and offers reflections on three unique features of the fourth World Congress of Taiwan Studies (wcts4) held in Seattle in June 2022. First, following the covid-19 pandemic, wcts4 was one of the first large-scale conferences in the field of Taiwan studies to be held in hybrid mode. Second, although three previous editions have taken place since 2012, wcts4 was the first to be held in the United States. Third, it is the first Congress to launch a major new publication, the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Taiwan Studies. Most media coverage of wcts4 has emphasised only that it was held in the United States. This report goes further, focusing on why it was held in the US, and why Seattle in particular, and on the Congress’s importance more generally to the global field of Taiwan studies.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114146958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gareth Price, Language, Society, and the State: From Colonization to Globalization in Taiwan","authors":"S. Sommers","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20231294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20231294","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116358323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mother of the Nation: A Short Translation History of Yang Qianhe’s ‘Flower Blooming Season’","authors":"Aoife Cantrill","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221248","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000First published in 1942, Yang Qianhe’s Japanese-language short story ‘Flower Blooming Season’ depicts a schoolgirl named Huiying who seeks out female role models to help her navigate the realities of womanhood beyond the school gates. This article uses close readings of the 1979, 1992, and 2001 Mandarin Chinese translations of the text to argue that the translation process politicised the text’s depiction of girlhood through omitting or foregrounding the protagonist’s interest in cultural and social markers of Japanese womanhood. In examining the translators’ differing approaches, the article explores how literary translation reflects and reinforces narratives concerning the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan, as well as questioning the tendency to view imperial subjectivity from a male perspective exclusively.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127285071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘“Thinking the Republic of China”: An International Symposium’","authors":"Mark McConaghy","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221331","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the summer of 2021, scholars working in seven different countries gathered online to hold a series of seven different forums, each dedicated to discussing one aspect of National Tsinghua University professor Rur-bin Yang’s upcoming scholarly monograph Thinking the Republic of China (Forthcoming). The forum engaged with the following questions: what are the ideals of the Republic of China (roc)? How can one understand the meaning of the roc in relation to both the longue durée of imperial Chinese history and its once ideological adversary the People’s Republic of China? How can one historically evaluate the accomplishments of the roc in its post-1949 guise as a state-in-exile on the island of Taiwan? Has the combination of Confucian humanism and liberal constitutionalism imagined by early architects of the roc been realised in Taiwan, and do these ideals still have meaning for the larger Chinese world as a whole?","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121285011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Taiwanese Soft Power? Contesting Visions of Democracy and Culture","authors":"N. Otmazgin","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221285","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000How do Taiwanese officials view democracy and culture and how do they plan to utilise these two soft power resources as part of advancing the island’s international position? Based primarily on interviews conducted with state officials in Taiwan, this paper analyses Taiwan’s soft power repositioning in the regional and global soft power competition and examines its advantages and disadvantages. It discusses the institutional and geopolitical constraints Taiwan faces when trying to implement its soft power policy and addresses the internal disagreements over utilising its cultural and democratic achievements. It concludes that despite the utility of soft power in pursuing its foreign policy agenda, Taiwan faces a few major institutional and conceptual obstacles, keeping Taiwanese diplomacy in a transitional period from old thinking about culture and diplomacy while hesitantly evaluating its soft power resources.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121528573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Subversive or Not? Analysing the Findom in Heterosexual Intimate Relationships","authors":"Yi-Wen Rhiannon Chen","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221204","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This research analyses the significance of an invention introduced in Taiwan—the ‘findom’ (finger condom)—by focusing on heterosexual couples in terms of heteronormativity, gender norms, and power dynamics. The data are obtained from advertising texts and interviews with seven participants who discuss their use of the findom in relationships. The study argues that heteronormative scripts are reinforced when advertisements suggest that the findom will increase erotic pleasure. Heteronormativity is revealed in the interviews, indicating that heterosexual hegemony regulates sexual behaviour and autonomy through gendered roles. Regulatory heterosexuality is dominant, as six of the interviewees used the findom in conventional sexuality. However, the findom enables the subversion of heterosexual regulatory norms and the rearticulation of gender dynamics via unconventional sexual practices. The findings suggest it is possible to consider the findom a challenge to normative heterosexuality and that the materiality of sexuality can be reversed through its use.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115408939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editing as an Act of Intersemiotic Translation in A City of Sadness: From Poetic Language to Cinematic Language","authors":"Vivian Szu-Chin Chih","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221272","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000A City of Sadness (1989) is a groundbreaking Taiwan film classic directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. This research paper aims to comment on and contribute to academic discussions of the film by investigating the performance of Chinese poetics in Liao Ching-Song’s editing. Using an inverted sequence of the February 28 Incident as an example, this paper explores the film editor’s cultural discourse of Du Fu’s influence on his own Qi-Yun editing method that he employed to edit the sequence. Through dialogues between the ancient and the contemporary, poetics and narratives, subjectivity and objectivity, as well as the theories of Roman Jakobson, Wai-lim Yip, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and David Bordwell, this paper provides a fresh perspective for re-examining the once harshly criticised method of cinematic ellipses in the film, reaffirming the film’s aesthetic function of allowing audiences to re-access a past obliterated from modern Taiwanese history.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115492478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dafydd Fell, Taiwan’s Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan","authors":"Lev Nachman","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221292","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221292","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129224741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neglected from Societal Narratives and Minoritised","authors":"S. Chong","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221296","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study explores the experiences of Taiwanese, Hong Konger, Malaysian, Singaporean, and Vietnamese community members as invisible Asian communities in Canada before and after covid-19. Ten interviewees participated online in semi-structured interviews, and results showed that minoritised Asian communities had a different experience from hegemonic ‘Asian’ community members in Canada because of their ethnocultural identities. Society’s attempts to homogenise the experience of ‘Asians’ has rendered the interviewees’ ethnocultural experience invisible in Canadian society. These experiences stirred polarising sentiments among interviewees towards their ethnocultural identity. As covid-19 hit, daily anxieties surrounding both the pandemic and ethnic-related attacks came to the fore of minoritised Asian community members’ concerns. Community members have been ambivalent about the impact of organised solidarity movements against anti-Asian racism. Given the findings from this study, researchers should consider disaggregating broad categories like the ‘Asian’ category for future research as well as policymaking.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130929448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"China’s Buffer Thinking towards Taiwan","authors":"Yu-Hua Chen","doi":"10.1163/24688800-20221268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688800-20221268","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 How are we to understand China’s decades-long sovereignty claim over Taiwan? One assumption upheld by many international relations scholars is that state behaviour will change according to a variance of polarity in the international system. Yet while China can flexibly manage its territorial issues elsewhere, its goal of unification with Taiwan has not changed despite multiple structural changes in the international system over the decades. This paper argues that historical and nationalist approaches alone do not explain China’s unswaying obsession with this island. Geopolitics plays a far more prominent role in the minds of Chinese leaders than scholars have previously acknowledged. Since 1949, China has viewed Taiwan as a geopolitical buffer protecting the security of Chinese coastal areas. China’s buffer thinking towards Taiwan was a significant factor in China’s decisions to launch military action against Taiwan in 1954, 1958, and 1996.","PeriodicalId":203501,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Taiwan Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127697673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}