{"id":9937,"date":"2025-08-24T22:36:41","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/?p=9937"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T07:53:11","slug":"uw-professor-james-lin-speaks-on-centrality-and-marginality-in-taiwan-studies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/en\/2025\/08\/24\/uw-professor-james-lin-speaks-on-centrality-and-marginality-in-taiwan-studies-2\/","title":{"rendered":"UW Professor James Lin Speaks on \u201cCentrality and Marginality in Taiwan Studies\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This summer, the International Taiwan Studies Center at NTNU was pleased to co-organize a series of lectures on the topic of \u201cTheory and Methodology of Taiwan Studies\u201d (\u53f0\u7063\u7814\u7a76\u7406\u8ad6\u8207\u65b9\u6cd5) with Yushan Scholar Professor Shih Shu-mei (\u53f2\u66f8\u7f8e) of UCLA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first lecture, held on June 26th, was \u201cDeprovincializing and Reprovincializing Taiwan Centrality and Marginality in Taiwan Studies,\u201d by James Lin, an assistant professor at the University of Washington. For eight years, Professor Lin has been teaching a graduate-level survey of Taiwan Studies course titled “Making Modern Taiwan.” His talk in June was aimed at bringing a historian\u2019s perspective to Taiwan Studies, and providing guidance for those pursuing new projects in the field by illustrating how that perspective can shape one\u2019s future scholarship or academic career. This was especially useful for the large number of younger scholars in attendance that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As implied by the title, Professor Lin argued that examining the centrality or marginality of Taiwan in history can open up new ways of seeing and understanding Taiwan and Taiwan Studies; in fact, it is the essence of the field itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScholars and activists question the logic of [Taiwan\u2019s] marginality. How can you have an international system that doesn\u2019t include everybody in its order? The contradiction between this centrality and marginality, between commonplace and unique, is at the heart of what it means to study Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also introduced his own recently-released book, In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan<\/em>, which discusses how in the latter half of the 20th century, the ROC (in Taiwan) attempted to reinforce its legitimacy by exporting its agricultural techniques and technology to the Global South, claiming that they were better suited for developing countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talk ended with nearly an hour of Q&A, discussing the significance of the terms \u201cdeprovincialization\u201d and \u201creprovincialization,\u201d the relevance of the \u201contological turn\u201d to Taiwan Studies, the intent and impact of nation-building in Taiwan, and the application of these theories to Taiwan\u2019s outlying islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Lin\u2019s lecture built enthusiasm for the rest of the lecture series, which was held throughout July. In light of the success of the series, Professor Shih will be holding another series on \u201cTaiwan and Sinophone Studies across Disciplines\u201d (\u8de8\u5b78\u79d1\u7684\u53f0\u7063\u8207\u83ef\u8a9e\u8a9e\u7cfb\u7814\u7a76), beginning at the end of this year. Stay tuned for more information!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This program is co-sponsored by the Yushan Program of the Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Gregory Laslo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer, the International Taiwan Studies Center at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category--en","category-4-4","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9953,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions\/9953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsc.ntnu.edu.tw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}