Yeh Wen-hsin is the Walter and Elise Haas Chair Professor in Asian Studies and the Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Chair in History, as well as the former director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies. She is also an honorary professor of history at Peking University, an honorary distinguished researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, has won the Humboldt Research Award in 2012, and isauthor or editor of 16 books and numerous articles examining aspects of Chinese modernity and the politics of space.

She will give a talk on her current research project: China in Taiwan: the Question of Province

Abstract: In the past two decades the history of Taiwan has emerged to become one of the most vibrant areas of studies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Entire centers, schools and associations of Taiwan Studies have appeared in Xiamen, Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing, producing scores of journals, hundreds of degree-holders, innumerable conferences including museum exhibitions, plus tens of thousands of articles and volumes that examine all aspects of Taiwanese histories from the late Ming (1368-1644) to the present.The outburst of scholarly energy has much to do both with Taiwan’s democratic transformation and the island’s contested quest for eventual independence from China. On Taiwan, a new discourse seeks to construct Taiwan as a place in its own right instead of being a province of China, and history is among the disciplines mobilized to service Taiwan’s nation-building agenda. On the Chinese side a counter discourse has emerged that deploys historical resources, in contrast, to support the idea of Taiwan as being an inalienable part of China.What is the history of Taiwan? And what are the means and modes of historical writing that have informed the making of Taiwan in relationship to China? What is the significance of such practices in the context of the writing of modern Chinese history and nation? This talk will offer a preliminary examination of the above issues with a focus on the question of Taiwan as a Chinese province.