Every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month, from 14 November 2022 to 26 June 2023 from 16:30 to 18:30.

Address : EHESS-Condorcet Building, Room 327, 2 cours des Humanités 93300 Aubervilliers. The seminar is also accessible online.

Bibliographical References

The aim of this seminar is to retrace the different stages of a process of identity affirmation which has resulted in Taiwan in what we might call “Formosan tropism”. We will attempt to identify the historical and cultural supports around which an identity has gradually crystallized that is increasingly assertive in relation to the Chinese referent, and claimed to be fully marked by the island’s singularity.

While observing these changes in identity in the light of the debates that continue to accompany them, we also trace their memorial underpinnings by exploring the places of memory at work in Taiwan. We focus as much on the places of memory linked to the Republic of China, and thus brought back to the continental and Chinese trajectory, as on those specific to the Taiwanese historical and cultural experience. The study focuses on concrete, material, geographically situated objects, but also on more abstract and diffuse embodiments of memory, such as political symbols, terms and names in public and private space, characters in national and local history, narratives, etc.

The seminar uses first and second hand written sources in French, Chinese and English. It is also an opportunity to screen video sequences, fiction films and documentaries related to the theme of identity and memory.

In 2022-2023, the seminar will more specifically explore the notion of bond. We will examine how the dynamics of memory construct and undo the territories of the common by ceaselessly displacing the boundaries between the near and the far.

The validation of the seminar requires the completion of a written work which will also be the object of a preliminary oral presentation.