Comparatizing Taiwan

International Conference on Taiwan

Friday, January 21, 2011

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

6275 Bunche Hall, UCLA

Organizers: Shu-mei Shih (Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA) and Ping-hui Liao (Literature, UC San Diego)

Presented by the Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA, & the Program in Taiwan Studies, UCSD

Formal paper presentations: Friday (whole day) and Saturday (half day), January 21-22, 2010, at UCLA

Workshops: Monday, January 24, 2010, at UCSD

Aimed at shifting the study of Taiwan beyond the conventional model of area studies, "Comparatizing Taiwan" takes "Taiwan" not as a discreet or separate object or area of study, but as a product and site of relations in terms of geography, culture, and politics. "Taiwan" as an island, a multiculture, and a nation acquires its changing identity in history through its geographical location vis-à-vis other islands and continents, oceanic crossings of indigenous and other cultures, and the geopolitical formations of empires and nations. The conference hopes to explore new avenues for Taiwan studies by using comparative approaches, not only to examine Taiwan’s many relationalities, material as well as symbolic, over a long historical and wide geographical span but also to view Taiwan in comparison with other islands, cultures, or nations that do not seem to be immediately related. “Comparatizing” here is a transitive verb that acts directly upon the word "Taiwan" in the conference title, so that "Taiwan" itself becomes an open term that acquires specific meaning in relation to that which it is compared. When Taiwan is viewed in terms of its relations within the crucial China-Japan-U.S. triangle, or situated in relation to Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, or even the seemingly remote Caribbean or Mediterranean, what new forms of understanding can be achieved? When Taiwan culture and society are compared to those of other nations and islands (especially other settler colonies), what new insights and interpretations might emerge? The formal part of the conference at UCLA hopes to explore these and other related questions, while the workshops at UCSD will explore pedagogical and other questions regarding the future of Taiwan studies outside Taiwan.

Friday, January 21, 2011

8:30 am to 9am: Breakfast and Registration

9:00 - 9:15: Opening Remarks

Shu-mei Shih (UCLA)

9:15 - 10:45: Panel 1: Policy Matters: Education, Culture, and Politics

MU-LIN LU (Ming Chuan University), “Higher Education Policies in Taiwan: Approaches, Impacts and Results Regarding the Competitiveness of Taiwan’s Universities”

DUNG-SHENG CHEN (National Taiwan University) and SUE-CHING JOU (National Taiwan University), “The Embryology of Spontaneous Cultural Clusters in Taipei: Creative Class, Consumption and Urban Fabric in the Making”

JIEH-MIN WU (National Tsing Hua University), “Taiwan after the Colonial Century: Bringing the China Factor into the Foreground”

Moderator: PING-HUI LIAO (UCSD)

10:45 - 11:00: Break

11:00 am – 12:30 pm: Panel 2: Matters of Comparison

FRANK MUYARD (French Center for Contemporary Chinese Studies/U. of Colorado), “Comparativism and Taiwan Studies: Analyzing Taiwan in/out of Context, or Taiwan as an East Asian New World Society”

HORNG-LUEN WANG (Academia Sinica), “How to Understand Nationalism Empathetically? Exploring the Structure of Feeling in East Asia”

ROBERT CHI (UCLA), “Taiwan in Three Cinemascapes”

Moderator: SHU-MEI SHIH (UCLA)

12:30 - 2: Lunch

2:00 - 3:30: Panel 3: Colonial Crossings

FAYE YUAN KLEEMAN (U. of Colorado), “Body (Language) Across the Sea: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Embodiment of Post/colonial Modernity”

PING-HUI LIAO (UCSD), “Comparatizing Taiwan: Sato Haruo’s Travels in the Colony”

CHIEN-HENG WU (UCLA), “’A Tiger’s Leap into the Past’: Orphan of Asia and the Politics of Redemption”

Moderator: Robert Chi (UCLA)

3:30 - 4:00: Coffee Break

4:00 - 5:30: Panel 4: Postcolonial Crossings

LIANG-YA LIOU (National Taiwan University), “Taiwanese Postcolonial Fiction”

KAREN THORNBER (Harvard University), “Paradoxes of Tourism and Environmental Conservation in Literature from Taiwan and Lands Bordering the Indian Ocean”

YIN WANG (UCSD), “Differences in Resistance: Americanization of Chinese Civil War and Competent Narratives of Liberation in Late Cold War Taiwan”

Moderator: FRANK MUYARD (French Center for Contemporary Chinese Studies/ University of Colorado)

6:30pm: Dinner for Conference Presenters

Saturday, January 22, 2011

8:30 am: Breakfast

9:00 to 11:30: Panel 5: Taiwan in Relation

JING TSU (Yale University), “The Literary Triangle of Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong”

YING-YING CHIEN (National Taiwan Normal University), “Voice of the Margin/Representation of the ‘Other’: A Comparative Study of Asian Diasporic Women’s Life Writing”

MARGARET HILLENBRAND (University of Oxford), “Voices of Empire in Dubliners and Taibeiren”

YU-TING HUANG (UCLA), “Repeating Islands: The Poetics of Relation from the Caribbean to the Islands of Taiwan”

Moderator: SHU-MEI SHIH (UCLA)

11:30 - 12:00: Concluding Discussion

Moderated by Ping-hui Liao (UCSD)

ABSTRACTS >>

PAPERS >>

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