Literature as a Future-making | SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2019-03-11

Literature as a Future-making: Native Resurgence and Epistemology with Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan is a lecture given by Dr Chih-Fan Chen at the Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS University of London on 22 February 2019. Find out more at http://bit.ly/2J8tSdi
This talk attempts to investigate the relationship between native resurgence and epistemology of Taiwanese indigenous peoples, but also to explore where “literature” stands in and for this relationship. The definition of epistemology here covers the world view of indigenous peoples, but also the knowledge and skills they have been learning and modifying with the historical progress and related effects on continuing and maintaining their subjectivity. Accordingly, this exploration employs the literature of indigenous peoples to propose that, whether retuning to tradition or integrating other new forces, literary works in Chinese and/or indigenous languages could play a crucial role in both the construction of individual epistemology as well as the response for temporary contexts. This talk will consequently highlight two aspects: firstly, regarding writing as a means, how indigenous writers represent an ongoing process of cultural change and identities building; secondly, how ethnic literature, as an instrument, would generate new social, cultural, and symbolic capital to resonate the possibility of native resurgence. With this respect, this talk would further suggest literature as a future-making with that: the internally functional benefits of ethnic literature to epistemology building of indigenous peoples, and the externally flexible strategies for cultural translation, particularly associating with the Austronesian languages; more importantly, it is this kind of the inward-outward interaction to make literature a possible way of involving in native resurgence, but also a unique perspective of reviewing the contemporary contexts and challenges of Taiwanese aboriginal peoples. 

Speaker Bio
Dr Chih-fan Chen is currently an assistant professor of Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Tsing Hua University, an advisory committee member of the NTHU Indigenous Students Resource Center, and an executive committee member of the Center for World Austronesia and Indigenous Peoples, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, NTHU. Chen had been invited as a visiting scholar by the Institute of Ethnic Literature, CASS, participating in the project of interviewing writers of the minority groups in China. Furthermore, as the editor of Mountain and Sea Culture Magazine Publications, Chen had taken part in projects such as “Taiwan’s Aboriginal Literature Digital Archive” and “Translation and Publication of Indigenous Literary Selections and Poetries during the Mind Dynasty, the Ching Dynasty, and the Japanese Colonial Period”.

Chen’s research interests contain ethnic literature and culture, Taiwanese indigenous historic data, and field studies of 19th-century Taiwan by westerners. She is the author of the Special Issue for the Exhibition of Indigenous Images and Historical Materials over the 100 Years in Taiwan (2011) and the co-writer of the Anthology of Taiwan Indigenous Literature: 1951-2014 (2015). In recent years, Chen’s research projects have focused on where literary works stand for indigenous peoples to engage in the contemporary political and economic contexts, and to employ literature as a medium to respond to diverse survival issues, ranging from urbanization, religious conversion, gender equality, cultural identities, to cultural revival.