On Thursday, May 23 from 3:30 to 5pm in THO 317 and online, the UW Taiwan Studies Program will welcome Henry Yeung (National University of Singapore) to discuss his book Interconnected Worlds: Global Electronics and Production Networks in East Asia. His book offers key empirical observations on the highly contested and politicized nature of semiconductor global production networks since the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. In this capital-intensive manufacturing industry, governance and power dynamics are manifested differently from many other industries due to highly complex technology regimes, production network ecosystems, and, more recently, geopolitical imperatives. While some of these critical dynamics had been in play ahead of the 2020s in China, Taiwan, and South Korea, their intensity and significance became more apparent by the early 2020s. The book also examines the need for strategic partnerships with technology leaders toward building national and regional resilience in the US, Western Europe, and East Asia.

Professor Henry Yeung has been a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, since 2018, and a Professor of Economic Geography since 2005. As a leading academic expert in global production networks and the global economy, his research interests cover broadly theories and the geography of transnational corporations, East Asian firms, and developmental states. He is the first geographer based in Asia to receive both the 2018 American Association of Geographers Distinguished Scholarship Honors (“in recognition of his extraordinary scholarship and leadership in the discipline”) and the UK’s Royal Geographical Society Murchison Award 2017 (for “pioneering publications in the field of globalisation”). In November 2022, he was conferred the 2022 Sir Peter Hall Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Field by the Regional Studies Association in London: “acknowledging and celebrating excellence in the field of regional studies”.

This event was made possible by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

Renegade Rhymes invites readers into Taiwan’s vibrant underground hip-hop scene to explore the social, cultural, and political dynamics of life in a post-authoritarian democracy. Beginning in the immediate aftermath of martial law (1949-1987), the book follows Taiwan’s earliest rappers and DJs as they critiqued the island’s political system, spun tales from their perspectives as members of marginalized ethnic communities, and reimagined previously suppressed local musical forms. A series of ethnographic and historical chapters trace an arc between these earliest interventions and the innovations of present-day musicians, who grapple with ongoing existential uncertainty imposed by the island’s ambiguous geopolitical status and accelerating neoliberalization. The book argues that rap artists past and present configure post-authoritarianism as a creative political intervention, whose ultimate objective is the reordering of epistemic hierarchies, power structures, and gender relations.

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Jessamyn R. Abel (Pennsylvania State University). Professor Abel will be speaking about her book Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World’s First Bullet Train (Stanford University Press, 2022), which was recently awarded the inaugural Modern Japan History Association Book Prize. Dream Super-Express sheds fresh light on postwar Japan’s rise to technological and economic superstardom. Integrating the histories of technology, infrastructure, economics, politics, diplomacy, and empire, Abel argues that the Tōkaidō Shinkansen—the first bullet train, dubbed the “dream super-express”—represents the bold aspirations of a nation rebranding itself after military defeat, but also the deep problems caused by the unbridled postwar drive for economic growth. Abel contends that understanding the various, often contradictory, images of the bullet train reveals how infrastructure operates beyond its intended use as a means of transportation to perform cultural and sociological functions. As the train variously enchanted, enthralled, and enraged government officials, media pundits, community activists, novelists, and filmmakers, it prompted a reimagination of identity on the levels of individual, metropolis, and nation in a changing Japan. Yuting Dong (University of Chicago) will serve as discussant.

Pacific Zen Institute: Live Online Event with poet Jane Hirshfield

The Asking: New and Selected Poems —A Conversation with Poet Jane Hirshfield and Pacific Zen Institute’s Jon Joseph Roshi, Wednesday March 27, 2024, Live Online at 6 pm Pacific Time

Register: https://www.pacificzen.org/product/zen-luminaries-series-jane-hirshfield-in-conversation-with-jon-joseph-roshi-march-27th/

Join by donation on a sliding scale: Starts at zero—suggested is $12–20.

We hope you’ll join us!

Liu Cixin’s Three-Body trilogy can be profitably interpreted from the standpoint of international relations theory, in particular the offensive realism that is prominent in contemporary IR practice, the logic of which parallels several key developments in the story. Such, indeed, was my initial impulse upon being introduced to Liu’s work (Dyson, 2019). In this talk I would like to supplement and in some degree challenge that original interpretation with a counter-reading, one motivated not by the security focus of international relations theory but by the humanistic focus of science-fiction studies – the academic discipline directed towards the interpretation of science fiction texts.

Seo Young Park’s book, Stitching the 24-Hour City: Life, Labor, and the Problem of Speed in Seoul, reveals the intense speed of garment production and everyday life in Dongdaemun, a lively market in Seoul, South Korea. Once the site of uprisings against oppressive working conditions in the 1970s and 80s, Dongdaemun has now become iconic for its creative economy, nightlife, and fast-fashion factories, and shopping plazas. Park follows the work of people who witnessed and experienced the rapidly changing marketplace from the inside. Through this approach, Park examines the meanings and politics of work, focusing on what it takes for people to enable speedy production and circulation and also how they incorporate the critique of speed in the ways they make sense of their own work. Stitching the 24-Hour City provides in-depth ethnographic accounts of the garment designers, workers, and traders who sustain the extraordinary speed of fast fashion production and circulation, as well as the labor activists who challenge it. Attending to their narratives and practices of work, Park illuminates how speed is, rather than a singular drive of acceleration, an entanglement of uneven paces and cycles of life, labor, the market, and the city itself.

On Wednesday, April 24 from 3:30 to 5pm in THO 317 and online, the UW Taiwan Studies Program will welcome Professor Wendy Cheng to discuss her newest book entitled Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism. Wendy delves into the compelling political lives of Taiwanese migrants who came to the United States as students from the 1960s through the 1980s. Often depicted as compliant model minorities, many were in fact deeply political, shaped by Taiwan’s colonial history and influenced by the global social movements of their time.

Drawing on interviews with student activists and extensive archival research, Wendy Cheng documents how Taiwanese Americans developed tight-knit social networks as infrastructures for identity formation, consciousness development, and anticolonial activism. Raising questions about historical memory and Cold War circuits of power, Island X is a testament to the lives and advocacy of a generation of Taiwanese American activists.

Wendy Cheng is a Professor of American Studies at Scripps College. She received her A.B. from Harvard University in English and American Language and Literature, her M.A. in Geography from UC Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), which won the 2014 Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Asia and Asian America, and coauthor of A People’s Guide to Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2012), which won the Association of American Geographers’ Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography and the SCIBA Nonfiction Award.

One of the great themes of modern Chinese and Sinophone culture is the emergence of new forms of individual identity that break free of the confines of what May Fourth intellectuals such as Lu Xun, Wu Yu, Chen Duxiu, Ba Jin, and others have imputed to filiality 孝, one of the cornerstones of traditional Chinese thought, ethics, and subject-formation. But filiality has not retired from the scene of intellectual discourse as quickly and easily as some had thought it would. The modern era is in one sense a battle between the time-honored obeisance to one’s elders on the one hand and individualism on the other. This Manichean conflict presumes that we think of filiality in terms of duty: devotion to one’s parents and ancestors; heterosexual bonding and marriage; the production of biological heirs, especially sons; and honorable deeds that bring pride to parents and family.

Deeply engrained in Chinese society since pre-Confucian times, and codified by Confucius, Mencius, and their followers, the filial structure of selfhood and conduct is virtually synonymous with the fundamental essence of Chinese culture in its purest form. This is only true if we conceive of filiality as a prescribed protocol for upright behavior. But what about the feelings associated with filiality? In a recent book that promises to redraft our perspective on filiality, Maram Epstein seeks to place affect, or the emotional component of human existence, at the forefront of our understanding of the nature of filiality, suggesting that the modern repudiation of filiality has tainted our entire thought-structure as to what filiality means historically and how it functions.

Epstein’s work on Ming and Qing China has prompted Professor Lupke to reflect on his own understanding of filiality, asking how it fosters emotional bonds such as affiliations to one’s parents in positive ways. In this presentation, Professor Lupke will use his refreshed attention on affect to explore the emotional terrain of filial relationships in contemporary Sinophone works. He will examine works by Huang Chunming, Bai Xianyong, Wang Wenxing, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and the contemporary US-based poet Zhang Er. At issue is the crucial role that overwrought emotions play in the filial dynamic in intergenerational relations that we see so much of in the Sinosphere and in Sinophone cultural production.

The UW Taiwan Studies Program will welcome Professor Niki Alsford to discuss his newest book entitled Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History. Published by the University of Washington Press as the first book in the Taiwan and the World book series supported by UW-TSP, Taiwan Lives traces Taiwan’s complex history through the lens of colonial influences from Austronesian expansion to the economic and democratic polity it is today.

Alsford explores this arc of history by recounting the life stories of its inhabitants. Taiwan Lives delves into the lives of twenty-four diverse individuals, including a merchant, exile, activist, pop star, doctor, and a president. These stories span different time periods, social classes, ethnic backgrounds, and political affiliations, yet all offer glimpses into the varied historical epochs and highlight the interconnectedness of colonialism.

Niki J.P. Alsford is Professor in Asia Pacific Studies and Director of Asia Pacific Institutes at the University of Central Lancashire. In addition, he is a Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS, the University of London, and an Associate Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. Alsford is the author of Transitions to Modernity in Taiwan: The Spirit of 1895 and the Cession of Formosa to Japan, published by Routledge in 2017.

This event was made possible by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

Background: In 2023, 4 more comfort women survivors from Taiwan, Mainland China, the Philippines, and South Korea left us. On a significant legal front, the UN issued a groundbreaking CEDAW ruling early in the year, holding the Filipino government accountable for its discrimination and neglect of Filipina comfort women. Later in 2023, the Seoul High Court made a historic decision, supporting a comfort women claim for compensation against Japan, marking a reversal of a previous ruling that had upheld Japan’s state immunity under international law. Despite these unprecedented developments, the reality is that the number of survivors is dwindling. In order to ensure that these women did not suffer in vain it is time to discuss their legacy – what are the lessons that we have learned and, in the future, should learn in regards to rape and sexual violence during conflicts?

Two-fold Objective: Firstly, to raise awareness and increase understanding of recent 2023 developments. Secondly, to celebrate the positive contributions that the comfort women movement has made towards advancing women’s rights in international law, and to point out areas for improvement.

SPEAKER LINE UP: Dean Gillian Lester, Judge Lillian Sing, Prof. Alexis Dudden, Ms.Indai Sajor, Chairwoman, Na-Young Lee, Ms.Sharon Cabusao-Silva, Prof. Diane Desierto, Dr. Thomas J. Ward, Prof. Katherine McGregor, Prof. Peipei Qiu, Prof. Edward Vickers

RSVP at https://forms.gle/Tifza21uKDDCvyzr7

Join UW-TSP on Wednesday, January 17 at 3:30pm in HUB 340 and online as we welcome Bonnie Glaser (German Marshall Fund) to discuss her co-authored book with Richard Bush and Ryan Hass, U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis? This book talk will address the rising Chinese military pressure and the intensifying gray-zone campaign tactics (economic coercion, disinformation, diplomatic pressure) that threaten Taiwan.

While Xi Jinping has the ambition to reunite Taiwan with mainland China during his tenure in office, he must weigh the risks of doing so through the use of force. Simultaneously, American policymakers must play a larger role in supporting Taiwan. Beyond aiding Taiwan’s military capability, the United States will need to strengthen Taiwan’s economic competitiveness, international participation, and confidence to ensure it remains a democratic polity in Asia.

Bonnie S. Glaser is the managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program. She is also a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. Glaser holds a B.A. from Boston University and M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Her published works have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.

This event is made possible by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

The Association for Chinese Art History is organizing a “Meet the Authors” Zoom webinar so that members have a chance to meet the three inaugural winners of the Bei Shan Tang book prizes: Aurelia Campbell, author of What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming (University of Washington Press), Dora C. Y. Ching, author and editor of Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves (Princeton University Press), and Rachel Silberstein, A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing (University of Washington Press). Moderated by Bei Shan Tang Prize Committee chair Roberta Wue, the event will be 90 minutes, beginning with each author discussing their projects and the publication process, from the conceptualization of the project to the nuts and bolts of bringing their work to press, and ending with 45 minutes of questions from the audience.  

This event will take place on Thursday, August 3, 2023: 10:00am PDT/1:00pm EDT/6:00pm BST. Please register here and the Zoom link will be sent to you before the event: https://forms.gle/a9xFPUJroK7jCCnAA