From 14 October 2024 to 09 June 2025 from 15:00 to 18:00.

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

Bibliographical References

Since 2017, our seminar on the theme of “Realms of Memory in Taiwan” has focused on exploring the processes of identity affirmation unique to Taiwanese society, aiming to identify its cultural and memorial roots. Drawing on Pierre Nora’s concept of realms of memory as “the point where memory works” rather than “that which is remembered”, we have examined how Taiwanese actors continually revisit the past, questioning the elements and dynamics of island memory. Our exploration has particularly focused on the numerous debates within the political and intellectual spheres, which often revisit issues of political, cultural, and identity legitimacy as the need arises to redefine what constitutes the terms of a “common” identity.

Retracing these shifts within the polysemic and polyphonic space of the “social frameworks of memory”, as defined by Maurice Halbwachs, has led us to question the processes involved in constructing the bonds that allow individuals to recognize themselves as integral parts of the same group.

Several questions have arisen: Are these bonds based on the uninterrupted transmission of narratives? Do they rely on the mobilization or remobilization of affects? Do they involve the acceptance of forgetting and silence, or even distortion? Are they built upon the creation of narratives that are both operative and meaningful in the current context of the island community? If so, through which figures, evocations, or words?

We now wish to address the question of bonds within the specific context of the Taiwan Strait. However, we will approach the term “space” beyond its strict spatial and geographical sense. Whether material, social, or symbolic, space is a site for the production of meaning and significance. The memorial dynamics that traverse and shape it construct notions of the near and the far, thereby defining the contours of “us” and “them”; “them” may be perceived as simple otherness or, in extreme cases, as a threat. To the concepts of “bond” and “space”, we will add “distance”. From this triptych of “bond, space, distance”, a fourth term emerges: the “frontier”. The frontier defines and delineates space and measures proximity and distance. However, a frontier can be open, crossed, or influenced by the bonds and affects that are valued and kept alive on both sides. It only takes a spark of heightened sensitivities for bonds to wither or break, leading to the shrinking of the interaction space, consumed by a frontier turned barrier.

The seminar offers an opportunity to explore several aspects of the “Cross-Strait” or “Formosa Strait” space. We will examine its role as a boundary space or, conversely, as a bonding space; we will study the different narratives that construct the connection between China as a continental space and Taiwan as an insular space. We will also explore the historical and memorial imaginations that have shaped aspirations for encounters and exchanges or, conversely, for avoidance and distancing, which have developed and evolved over time.