TAIWAN LITERATURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES

The specialization on Taiwan literature and cultural studies will have two focuses:  Taiwan literature and Taiwan cultural studies. 

Since the nineties Taiwan has undergone rapid political, social, and cultural transformation, and Taiwan Studies has become a burgeoning field in the academic world that has attracted growing international scholarly interest.  In a timely response to this increasing interest, many universities and research institutions in the world have recently directed their research interest toward this field, and many research groups have been established, as evidenced in the growing websites related to Taiwan Studies. 

The study of Taiwan literature has been a particular strength in the Department with the publication of Taiwan Literature:  English Translation Series since 1996, the only journal of its kind in the United States, dedicated to English translation of Taiwan literature.  With the establishment of the Lai Ho and Wu Cho-liu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies, the Department will continue to take the lead in building up a vital and distinctive Center for Taiwan Studies, which will organize on a regular basis the Taiwan Studies Lecture Series, going beyond literature and translation and extending to other fields, such as history, popular culture, and cultural anthropology. 

The Ph.D. specialization on Taiwan literature and cultural studies will be supported by three faculty members’ research interests:  Kuo-ch’ing Tu, who is the editor of Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series and whose research focuses on modern Chinese poetry, Chinese theories of literature, translation studies, literatures in Chinese worldwide, and Taiwan literature during the Japanese occupation period;  Michael Berry, whose research interests, in addition to literary translation, include modern and contemporary Chinese literature, Chinese film studies, Chinese popular culture and cultural studies in the Chinese Disapora with Taiwan as an important component; and Mayfair Yang, a socio-cultural specialist whose cultural and geographical region of emphasis is China and its offshoot cultures and the Diaspora in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and the West., and whose research includes social & critical theory, China and Taiwan, globalization and nationalism, gender and feminism, mass media, popular religion, ritual and politics. 

FACULTY

Michael Berry
(Chinese fiction and cinema)
K.C. Tu
(Taiwan literature and cultural studies)
Mayfair Yang
(Chinese anthropology and religion)