Annual Con­fer­ences of the Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies (EATS)

Six Annual Con­fer­ences have already taken place – in 2004 (London, UK), 2005 (Bochum, Ger­many), 2006 (Paris, France), 2007 (Stock­holm, Sweden), 2008 (Prague, Czech Repub­lic), 2009 (Madrid Spain) and 2010 (Tübingen, Ger­many). In 2011, the annual con­fer­ence will take place in Ljubljana.

For the pro­grams and papers of the last con­fer­ences, please click on the links on the left side.

Call For Papers: Eighth Annual Conference on 12-14 May 2011 at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

The Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies (EATS) will hold its eighth Annual Con­fer­ence on 12-14 May 2011 at the Uni­ver­sity of Ljubl­jana, Slove­nia. The con­fer­ence is co-​organized by the Uni­ver­sity of Ljubl­jana and the Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies (EATS).

The EATS board par­tic­u­larly wel­comes abstracts on the fol­low­ing themes:

• A Hun­dred Years of R.O.C. His­tory: Com­par­a­tive ROC his­tory from the two sides of the straits
• The Sub­jec­tiv­ity of Taiwan: How Taiwan became a geopo­lit­i­cal object in the 17th and a geopo­lit­i­cal sub­ject in the 20th centuries
• Taiwan’s Democ­ra­ti­za­tion and Cross-​Strait Rela­tions: Devel­op­ment of Taiwan’s democ­racy after 2008 and its rela­tion to
  cross-​strait ties.
• Gov­er­nance and Civil Soci­ety in Taiwan: How state actors nego­ti­ate rela­tions with local com­mu­ni­ties and civil society.
• ECFA and Eco­nomic Issues: Grow­ing closer rela­tions between the two sides and their interpretations
• Elec­toral and Party Pol­i­tics: Post-2008 elec­tions and continuities/changes in Taiwan politics
• Doc­u­men­tary Films and Cinema Stud­ies: Themes and tech­niques used by doc­u­men­tary filmmakers,  including  mar­ginal
  social/ethnic groups
• Soci­ety, Envi­ron­ment, Indus­trial and Nat­ural Risks: Man­age­ment of risks in a post- or hyper-​industrial soci­ety with regard to health, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, crisis pre­ven­tion, dis­as­ter man­age­ment, etc.
• Rewrit­ing Tai­wanese Lit­er­a­ture: Reex­am­i­na­tion of mod­ernism, nativism, real­ism, post-​modernism etc.
• Tai­wanese Reli­gious Beliefs and Prac­tices in a Global Era: A focus on how Tai­wanese reli­gions are glob­al­iz­ing while prac­tices at home undergo innovations
• Youth Cul­ture: Cos­play, online gaming, mobile phone culture… Taiwan’s youth is chang­ing bound­aries of leisure and cul­ture, which needs a com­par­a­tive approach
• MA Panel

A Hun­dred Years of R.O.C. History:

In view of the cen­ten­nial anniver­sary of the Repub­lic of China (R.O.C), this his­tor­i­cal panel invites con­tri­bu­tions that allow for a
com­par­a­tive per­spec­tive on the his­tory of the R.O.C. The pur­pose of this panel is to bring together papers that dis­cuss aspects of the R.O.C. his­tory from the two sides of the Strait: Taiwan and China between 1911 and 1949. At the same time, crit­i­cal reflec­tions on 100 years R.O.C his­tory in global per­spec­tive are also welcome.

The Sub­jec­tiv­ity of Taiwan:

Taiwan was ignored by most coun­tries of the world as late as the early 17th cen­tury before becom­ing a geopo­lit­i­cal object in the 17th cen­tury and a geopo­lit­i­cal sub­ject in the 20th. How has Taiwan been con­structed as a geopo­lit­i­cal entity in China, in the region, in the world, since the key moments of the 17th, 19th, 20th and 21st cen­turies? Is the Taiwan ques­tion still rel­e­vant to the world today in the con­text of the emer­gence of China as a global coun­try that uses soft power to avoid rais­ing anx­i­eties about this new emerg­ing role? Has Taiwan a space at all for exis­tence, not only as an econ­omy, but also a geo/political entity in the world?

Taiwan’s Democ­ra­ti­za­tion and Cross-​Strait Relations:

Var­i­ous aspects of Taiwan’s democ­ra­ti­za­tion process have been ana­lyzed in great depth ever since late 1980s. In par­tic­u­lar, there has been a con­stant debate among aca­d­e­mic cir­cles on whether or not Taiwan’s democ­racy presents a prob­lem or a solu­tion to the long-​term Cross-​Strait peace, espe­cially in view of accel­er­at­ing eco­nomic inte­gra­tion between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. There­has also been a heated debate over the state of Taiwan’s democ­racy since 2000, and per­haps pos­i­tive impacts from Taiwan’s democ­ra­ti­za­tion, caused by strength­ened eco­nomic and com­mer­cial links brought about by ECFA, will pre­vail and foster a chance for gen­uine set­tle­ment. Mea­sur­ing or audit­ing the state of Taiwan’s democ­racy can be done together with an analy­sis of the impact of Taiwan’s democ­racy on China, uni­fi­ca­tion, or the impact of the geopol­i­tics of the Taiwan straits on the demo­c­ra­tic devel­op­ments in Taiwan

Gov­er­nance and Civil Soci­ety in Taiwan:

How does the state use devel­op­ment, secu­rity, indi­gene­ity and other ide­o­log­i­cal projects to imple­ment itself in com­mu­ni­ties and on local ter­ri­to­ries in Taiwan. This panel will inter­ro­gate the state and civil soci­ety, not view­ing either as a mono­lithic entity but as porous col­lec­tions of dif­fer­ent groups, orga­ni­za­tions, and people with diver­gent, often con­tra­dic­tory, inter­ests, goals and logics. At the local level, how do bro­kers emerge to nego­ti­ate rela­tions between state actors and local com­mu­nity? How do their own inter­ests con­verge with or diverge from those of the higher state levels?  What do new social sci­en­tific under­stand­ings of the state and civil soci­ety artic­u­late with or con­flict with sino­log­i­cal ideas of Min­jian 民間 vs.Guanfang 官方?

ECFA and Eco­nomic Issues:

Taiwan and the Main­land have been grow­ing closer due to Cross-​Straits agree­ments and ECFA. Can this be com­pared to other forms of regional inte­gra­tion? Who ben­e­fits from closer polit­i­cal and eco­nomic rela­tions? Who is dis­ad­van­taged in the process? What kind of resis­tance is there to the changes?

Elec­toral and Party Politics:

The KMT’s land­slide vic­to­ries in the 2008 elec­tions appeared to have trans­formed Taiwan’s polit­i­cal scene. The results lead­ing to a return to a one party dom­i­nance, some observers even warned of a rever­sion to mar­tial law style author­i­tar­i­an­ism or Sin­ga­pore style semi-​democracy. The first tests of this new era came in the mid-​term elec­tions of 2009 and 2010, call­ing for an analy­sis of the degree of change and con­ti­nu­ity in Taiwan’s party and elec­toral pol­i­tics since 2008.

Doc­u­men­tary Films and Cinema Studies:

This panel invites con­tri­bu­tions that offer a spec­trum on doc­u­men­tary film making and its rela­tion to cinema stud­ies. The ascent of doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing by Tai­wanese and non R.O.C. nation­als call for a reflec­tion on its meth­ods and selec­tion of topics. For instance, how do Tai­wanese doc­u­men­tary films fea­ture in the post-​bentu move­ment period? What are the themes and tech­niques and what kind of moti­va­tion do the direc­tors employ? Are doc­u­men­tary films still a “voice of the voice­less” (of deprived social/ethnic groups) or have they moved beyond this? To what extent are they still expres­sive of his­tor­i­cal preservation?

Soci­ety, Envi­ron­ment, Indus­trial and Nat­ural Risks:

With Taiwan being a “hyper-​industrial soci­ety” per­haps more than a “post-​industrial” one, even if part of its indus­tries go to China, it is inter­est­ing to cross issues likes the policy of public health, the reg­u­la­tion of indus­trial pol­lu­tion, envi­ron­men­tal move­ments, the anthro­pol­ogy of health and med­i­cine, the soci­ol­ogy of indus­trial and nat­ural risks, the impact of
global warm­ing on Taiwan, the eco­nom­ics of indus­trial poli­cies, soci­ol­ogy and his­tory of labor and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion move­ments, major indus­trial projects like the fourth nuclear plant, the exten­sion of the cen­tral Taiwan sci­ence park, etc., all of which often play a deci­sive role in local and national pol­i­tics. Very much debated through a very dynamic nation­wide net­work of SST (soci­ol­ogy of sci­ences and tech­niques) that is attract­ing a wide vari­ety of researchers and a grow­ing number of stu­dents, this theme is also very much min­gled with global pol­i­tics and cross-​strait relations .

Rewrit­ing Tai­wanese Literature:

The panel aims at re-​considering estab­lished “labels” such as mod­ernism, nativism, realism,post-modernism etc. It would like to draw atten­tion to ques­tion to what extend these mostly West­ern rooted con­cepts are appro­pri­ated in Tai­wanese lit­er­a­ture, and how far the lit­er­ary works cor­re­spond to them.  Papers may also address the prob­lem of peri­odiza­tion of Tai­wanese lit­er­a­ture and the prob­lem of Tai­wanese lit­er­ary historiography.

Tai­wanese Reli­gious Beliefs and Prac­tices in a Global Era:

Reli­gion con­tin­ues to play an impor­tant role in Tai­wanese cul­tural and social life. With increased con­tact across the Taiwan Straits and glob­al­iza­tion, Tai­wanese reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions such as Tzu Chi and Fokuang­shan are estab­lish­ing an impor­tant pres­ence world­wide. At the same time, local ritual net­works are also making new inno­va­tions. In Taiwan, indige­nous peo­ples are also redis­cov­er­ing their native reli­gious prac­tices and beliefs. This panel thus looks at Tai­wanese reli­gious prac­tices, the trans-​border spread of Tai­wanese reli­gious insti­tu­tions, and the asser­tion of reli­gious based iden­tity in Taiwan.

Youth Culture:

In the new mil­len­nium, Taiwan’s youth cul­ture has acquired unique fea­tures which have emerged as a result of global and local influ­ences: the phe­nom­ena of cos­play, the boom in online gaming, the urban youth cul­ture of Taipei’s Ximend­ing dis­trict, the activ­i­ties of Senior High Schools’ and uni­ver­si­ties’ shet­uan 社團, the use of the Web 2.0., and the new mobile phone appli­ca­tions, to name but a few. We are par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in car­ry­ing out cross-​cultural com­par­isons between Taiwan and other Asian (East Asian/Southeast Asian) coun­tries in order to gain a clearer pic­ture of the devel­op­ment of the unique and hybrid form of Taiwan’s new cul­ture and to ascer­tain the extent to which this cul­ture exerts an influ­ence on other parts of Asia.

MA Panel:

Mas­ters stu­dents enrolled in a Taiwan Stud­ies Pro­gramme or work­ing on a dis­ser­ta­tion focused on Taiwan at a Euro­pean uni­ver­sity are par­tic­u­larly encour­aged to apply to present their research in the EATS MA panel.

In addi­tion, we will con­sider out­stand­ing sub­mis­sions in the fol­low­ing themes :

• Law, Finance and Inter­na­tional Relations
• Gender, Class, and Ethnicity
• Migra­tion, Tran­scul­tur­a­tion and the Making of Asian Languages.
• Sport and Leisure in Taiwan Society

Please submit a A-4 ONE PAGE (500) word abstract by 15 Novem­ber 2010 to this URL (see below). Panel pro­pos­als are not accepted. Please indi­cate the theme panel you submit your abstract to. The board of EATS will announce the accepted abstracts on 10 Jan­u­ary 2011. Stu­dents pre­sent­ing a paper and who are affil­i­ated with Euro­pean insti­tu­tions will be eli­gi­ble for travel grants. Details will be announced. The con­fer­ence will start on Thurs­day after­noon and finish on Sat­ur­day evening.

Submission of Abstracts

Sub­mis­sion of abstracts will be pos­si­ble from 1 Novem­ber to 15 Novem­ber 2010.

If you have any ques­tion, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us at info@eats-taiwan.eu.