In this talk, Wen Liu will argue that Asian Americans are not a coherent racial population, but they are made so through the psychological technologies of “racecraft.” These technologies aim to demonstrate the racial elasticity of the Asian American mind, including cultural essentialism, democratic governmentality, white ascendancy, and unconscious microaggression. They help construct a flexible racial identity that can demonstrate the wide range of cognitive styles, cultural practices, and, most importantly, race elasticity for the ...

Ku'er, the Mandarin transliteration of the English word "queer," has a distinctly Taiwanese genealogy, as implied in the homophonic meaning of being "cool." This conference examines the interrelationships between queer studies and Taiwan studies, from placing Taiwanese history and culture on the map of queer inquiry to the queering of Taiwan studies. Does queer Taiwan studies mean a focus on queer content, or is "queering" a method that can be used in studying any content ...

Taiwan has long held a pivotal—if “strategically ambiguous”—position in inter-imperial tensions over global influence and has in recent decades been frequently used to refurbish debates over a “new Cold War.” Situated at the nexus of inter-imperial entanglements, settler-colonial formations, and migrant labor networks, Taiwan’s perpetually unresolved status is, Wong argues, pivotal not only for the geopolitics of empire but more importantly for its place in trans-geographical alliance building for those who have long survived, navigated, ...

In his talk, Ian Rowen will highlight how Chinese tourism split Taiwan into “Two Taiwans”—one portrayed as part of China for Chinese tour groups, and the other experienced as the everyday reality of local residents and independent travelers. He will also examine how this dynamic intensified conflicts between business, civil society, and government entities with differing stakes in maintaining a PRC-focused tourism industry, ultimately contributing to a more diverse civic nationalism in Taiwan. Rowen's book ...