Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines (順益台灣原住民博物館) and London’s Centre of Taiwan Studies, part of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), are to cooperate in a two-year research program that will give people in the UK a unique insight into Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.
The Taipei-based museum is sponsoring the project, which will include more than 20 public events on issues related to Taiwanese Aborigines. These will see 12 international academics visit London, with their talks forming the basis of a new research publication.
Indigenous social movements, literature, film and music, as well as social and political issues, will be covered.
Photo courtesy of Niki Alsford
It is the third time that the center and the museum have teamed up, with the latest agreement signed earlier this month by SOAS Director Baroness Valerie Amos and Centre of Taiwan Studies Director Dafydd Fell, along with Chen Ya-hui (陳雅惠) representing Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The memorandum of understanding was signed in Taipei on Tuesday.
“We... felt that there was a lack of English language material on many key issues concerning Taiwan’s indigenous peoples,” Fell said.
Fell hopes the book that will result from the latest project will be widely used on Taiwan studies courses in the future, not only at SOAS but worldwide, a view echoed by Shung Ye museum’s Annie Liu (劉安妮).
Photo courtesy of Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines
“We hope that this publication will draw more attention to studies related to Taiwan’s indigenous peoples,” Liu said, adding that the book is due to be published internationally rather than by a Taiwanese publisher.
Liu said that she would like to see the latest collaboration encourage more students to choose to study Taiwan’s Aborigines, as well as boost the museum’s international profile.
The two previous projects were based on archival research about British missionaries in Taiwan and Taiwan’s Aborigines in the 19th century.
Photo courtesy of Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines
The SOAS library contains the archival collections of the Presbyterian Church of England, which include some of the earliest written histories of Taiwan’s Aborigines in the English language. Taiwanese delegations visit the archives every year to study the collections.
The latest program, currently the only such agreement between the museum and a European academic institution, will focus on contemporary issues.
Even before the project officially starts some of these will come under the spotlight at the center’s annual summer school next month when singer-songwriter, actress and radio show host Ado Kaliting Pacidal will speak about indigenous media, as well as her musical career.
Ado starred in the feature film Wawa No Cidal (太陽的孩子), earning a nomination for best new performer at the Golden Horse Awards in 2015.
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
Two years ago my wife and I went to Orchid Island off Taitung for a few days vacation. We were shocked to realize that for what it cost us, we could have done a bike vacation in Borneo for a week or two, or taken another trip to the Philippines. Indeed, most of the places we could have gone for that vacation in neighboring countries offer a much better experience than Taiwan at a much lower price. Hence, the recent news showing that tourist visits to Pingtung County’s Kenting, long in decline, reached a 27 year low this summer came
The female body is a horror movie waiting to happen. From puberty and the grisly onset of menstruation, in pictures such as Brian De Palma’s Carrie and John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, to pregnancy and childbirth — Rosemary’s Baby is the obvious example — women have provided a rich seam of inspiration for genre film-makers over the past half century. But look a little closer and two trends become apparent: the vast majority of female body-based horror deals with various aspects of the reproductive system, and it has largely been made by men (Titane and The First Omen, two recent examples
RSS