This volume brings together essays by leading scholars in the field to offer comparative perspectives concerning Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule. While much has been written about the European and American empires, scholars tend to pay less attention to the development of colonialism and modernity in East Asia. As editors, we hope to fill in these gaps as we focus on Japan’s first and also its last colony—Taiwan—concentrating on such issues as language and ethnic identity, colonial policy and cultural hegemony, art and literature, historical memory, and postcolonial aftermaths, among others.
This volume originated in a conference held at Columbia University in March 2001 on the topic of history, culture, and memory; the event was sponsored by Taiwan’s National Science Council, with additional generous support from the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation at our host institution. Over the years we have tried to expand on the scope of the original conference by inviting submissions from experts in related fields; during the course of the relatively long editorial process we have also benefited from reader feedback. The publication project was made possible largely through an endowment from Taiwan’s Cultural Affairs Council.
In addition to thanking these institutions and friends, we wish to express our gratitude to a number of people. Jennifer Crewe, editorial director of Columbia University Press, was most congenial and patient in arranging the publication of this volume. Robert Christensen read through most of the papers and offered indispensable comments, but Kerri Sullivan went even further in rendering them more readable and coherent. Attia Miller, Juree Sondker, and Philip Leventhal were helpful in facilitating the publication process of the book. Several of Ping-hui Liao’s research assistants at Taiwan’s National Tsinghua University not only carried on voluminous correspondence with contributors but also undertook the difficult task of reformatting the papers; in this regard, Yi-yun Liu, Phaedra Wang, Yu-wei Lin, Ching-huan Lin, Po-kai Hsu, and Tsai-ling Hsu deserve special mention.
Finally, we would like to dedicate the book to the fond memory of the late Huang Wu-chung, a true friend and colleague in Taiwan studies, who supported our project from the start in his capacity as director of cultural commission but regrettably passed away prematurely at the age of fifty-seven on April 7, 2005.
—Liao Ping-hui and David Der-wei Wang