Fall 2026
Lillian Tsay – In Search of Subjectivity: Researching Taiwan in Japan Studies (10/14)
Abstract: In recent years, Taiwan has attracted growing scholarly attention, driven in part by the rise of its semiconductor industry and by increasing geopolitical tensions surrounding the island. Yet within East Asian Studies, Taiwan has often been approached primarily through the frameworks of Chinese Studies and, more recently, Japanese Studies. This presentation examines the current historiography of Japanese colonial Taiwan, including the presenter’s current and future research, and considers how scholars might preserve Taiwan’s subjectivity within studies of the Japanese Empire and beyond.
Lillian Tsay is an assistant professor of Japanese History at the Université de Montréal. She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Sugarcoating Empire that examines sugar and confectionery’s role in the Japanese Empire. Her research interests are histories of empire, business and economic history, material culture, and historical memory.
Chia-li Kao – The Invention of Taiwanese Natural Aesthetics in Japanese Tanka Poetry (10/19)
Abstract: During the Japanese colonial period, Japanese settlers in Taiwan confronted a drastically different natural environment. The tanka (waka) tradition, which had long been rooted in the characteristics of four distinct seasons, suddenly lost its anchor within Taiwan’s tropical and subtropical climates. Concurrently, a wave of tanka poetry reform driven by Westernization currents was rising in metropolitan Japan. Caught in the dual tensions between tradition and modernity, as well as the metropole and the colony, Japanese residents in Taiwan progressively attempted to construct a tanka aesthetics capable of responding to Taiwan’s natural environments. This lecture explores this dynamic process.
Chia-li Kao is an associate professor of the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature and Transnational Cultural Studies at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. She currently serves as Chair of the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature and Transnational Cultural Studies and Chair of Bachelor Program in Taiwan Humanities and Creativity.
Kao received a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University at Bloomington. Her research areas include comparative literature, pre-WWII Japanese and Taiwanese literature, and Globalization studies. Her recent research focuses on nature writing in Taiwanese literature under the Japanese rule. She published her book entitled Writing Tropical Islands: Empires, Travel and Imagination (2016) and coedited a book, Crossing Southeast Asia (2021).
Past events
Chiang Kai-shek’s “Righteous Compatriots” in the Global Cold War: Displacement and Relief of Dachen Refugees in the First Taiwan Strait Crisis
Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang (University of Missouri-Columbia)
May 29, 2024 Wednesday
12:30 pm-1:45 pm (PT)
Zoom Link:
https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/4177296373?pwd=dW9MWXNRYUtLc3pJS3ltZXo0VkhWUT09
Meeting ID: 417 729 6373
Passcode: 752786
