Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945: History, Culture, Memory [Hardcover]

This book brings together in one volume a fine collection of readably scholarly articles by professors in Taiwan, Japan, and America on the subject of, well, just as it says, Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule--a potentially contentious subject indeed, and yet deeply fascinating and seriously significant, as this book itself amply demonstrates. The overall tone gets it just right too, striving neither to rantingly condemn Japan's colonial aggression nor blithely whitewash it, but rather to understand it in all of its complexity--especially the complicated and convoluted cultural interactions occasioned by this historical situation and their reverberating effects on people's sense of identity (both colonized and colonizers). The articles are too many and multifarious to properly summarize here, but many deal with literature and art while some in a more straight-up history manner attempt to theoretically grapple with Taiwan's particular case as a colony or else crunch numbers to arrive at some unexpected conclusions about certain events in the island's colonial history. All of the articles are well-written, interesting, nuanced, and informative in their own way, and as a whole they contribute quite a bit to our understanding.

This book's one minus is one inexplicably found in many academic publications nowadays: sloppy and lazy editing. Many proper nouns throughout the book are infected with typos, and the kanji given especially for several of the Japanese names and terms are incorrect or incomplete. This can really be annoying if not maddening for the readers, not to mention misleading for those less familiar with the subject or the languages involved. Other than that one gripe, though, I highly recommend this fine book, most especially of course if your interests are in Taiwanese History, Japanese History, or Colonial Studies. If the study of literature is your chief concern as it is mine, I imagine you'll find much of interest here as well. Check it out!

The following articles are included in this book:
Intro: "Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945: History, Culture, Memory" by Liao Ping-hui
1. "A Perspective on Studies of Taiwanese Political History: Reconsidering the Postwar Japanese Historiography of Japanese Colonial Rule in Taiwan" by Wakabayashi Masahiro
2. "The Japanese Colonial State and Its Form of Knowledge in Taiwan" by Yao Jen-to
3. "The Formation of Taiwanese Identity and the Cultural Policy of Various Outside Regimes" by Fujii Shozo
4. "Print Culture and the Emergent Public Sphere in Colonial Taiwan, 1895-1945" by Liao Ping-hui
5. "Shaping Administration in Colonial Taiwan, 1895-1945" by Ts'ai Hui-yu Caroline
6. "The State of Taiwanese Culture and Taiwanese New Literature in 1937: Issues on Banning Chinese Newspaper Sections and Abolishing Chinese Writings" by Kawahara Isao
7. "Colonial Modernity for an Elite Taiwanese, Lim Bo-seng: The Labyrinth of Cosmopolitanism" by Komagome Takeshi
8. "Hegemony and Identity in the Colonial Experience of Taiwan, 1895-1945" by Fong Shiaw-chian
9. "Confrontation and Collaboration: Traditional Taiwanese Writers' Canonical Reflection and Cultural Thinking on the New-Old Literatures Debate During the Japanese Colonial Period" by Huang Mei-er
10. "Colonialism and the Predicament of Identity: Liu Na'ou and Yang Kui as Men of the World" by Peng Hsiao-yen
11. "Colonial Taiwan and the Construction of Landscape Painting" by Yen Chuan-ying
12. "An Author Listening to Voices from the Netherworld: Lu Heruo and the Kuso Realism Debate" by Tarumi Chie
13. "Reverse Exportation from Japan of the Tale of 'The Bell of Sayon': The Central Drama Group's Taiwanese Performance and Wu Man-sha's 'The Bell of Sayon'" by Shimomura Sakujiro
14. "Gender, Ethnography, and Colonial Cultural Production: Nishikawa Mitsuru's Discourse on Taiwan" by Faye Yuan Kleeman
15. "Were Taiwanese Being 'Enslaved'? The Entanglement of Sinicization, Japanization, and Westernization" by Huang Ying-che
16. "Reading the Numbers: Ethnicity, Violence, and Wartime Mobilization in Colonial Taiwan" by Douglas L. Fix
17. "The Nature of 'Minzoku Taiwan' and the Context in Which It Was Published" by Wu Micha

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