Workshop series: "Catching up on Taiwanese history" (I)
As part of the international symposium entitled "Taiwan in the World. On Teaching Taiwan: circulation, innovation and Taiwanization", co-organized with NTNU's International Center for Taiwan Studies, to be held on April 10, a series of workshops entitled "Catching up on Taiwan's history" is scheduled.
This initiative aims to offer essential keys to a better understanding of Taiwan through different disciplinary approaches, ahead of the colloquium devoted to contemporary issues in the teaching and circulation of knowledge about Taiwan.
The expression "catching up with history" is not just a pedagogical metaphor: it underlines an observation. In many international academic contexts, Taiwan's history is still insufficiently known or taught. Yet to understand Taiwan today - its plural identity, its democratic trajectory and its place in regional and global dynamics - we need to fill this knowledge gap and revisit certain historical narratives. This series of workshops thus proposes to "catch up", in both the literal and intellectual sense: filling a gap and opening up new perspectives for thinking about Taiwan.
For this first session, two workshops propose to explore Taiwanese history through original angles that go beyond traditional political narratives. By mobilizing art history and historical ecology, these interventions show how cultural forms and natural environments are privileged avenues for understanding the profound transformations of Taiwanese society.
Program
4:00 pm - 4:50 pm
Workshop on Taiwanese art history: understanding Taiwanese society through the evolution of its art
Taiwanese art history is a privileged observatory of the island's social, cultural and political mutations. From the colonial period to contemporary dynamics, artistic practices reflect the cultural circulations, identity transformations and historical tensions that have shaped Taiwanese society.
5:00 pm - 5:50 pm
"Heishuigou" workshop (黑水溝): understanding Taiwan's history from its ecology
The Taiwan Strait, once nicknamed "Heishuigou" - black waters, evokes a dreaded maritime space that has long shaped imaginations and migrations to the island. Through an ecological and historical approach, this workshop will explore how landscapes, natural environments and human-nature interactions have helped shape Taiwan's history and identity.
Through these two workshops, "Catching up on Taiwan's history" invites the public to discover the island in a new way, revealing the multiple layers - artistic, environmental and social - that make up its history. It's an invitation to enrich our understanding of Taiwan and to fill in together a "history course" still too often absent from academic perspectives on contemporary Asia.
To register: https://forms.gle/fGjx4TZDpSQ7Vi3k6
Organization
Chan - Yueh Liu
Contact
