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  • 2021-10-20
Cultivation and Growth: Retrospect and Prospect of 40 Years of Chinese Studies in Taiwan Academic Forum Comes to a Wonderful End
Cultivation and Growth: Retrospect and Prospect of 40 Years of Chinese Studies in Taiwan Academic Forum Comes to a Wonderful End

This academic forum originated as part of the Center for Chiense Studies’ 40th anniversary celebration. The Center’s previous assistant director, Li-chun Keng, was asked to serve as the editor in charge of putting together a book titled Cultivation and Growth: Retrospect and Prospect of 40 Years of Chinese Studies in Taiwan. Over the course of 18 months, she directed the process from concept to planning to preparation and call for papers. With the diligent help of 23 authors, a timely completion of the monograph was realized. It contains 20 powerful essays on important aspects of each author’s respective field in which they are known for internationally, in which they look back over scholarly development to show the amazing achievements that have occurred in Taiwan’s humanities. They also discussed future trends in scholarship.

The event also coincided with the anniversary celebration. Arrangements were made for renowned international scholars in Chinese studies to give lectures. Dr. Peter K. Bol from Harvard University gave an online lecture on “The Last 40 Years and One Pandemic: What Does Current International Scholarly Exchange Signify?” Dr. Rur-bin Yang from Tsing-hua University gave a lecture on “Has Today’s Chinese Studies Reached the Age of Certainty (40)?” Discussants for these lectures were Professor Kuan Chung Huang and Academician Yu-Yu Cheng, respectively.

As a conclusion to the six events, 18 scholars were invited to present their papers, which covered classical studies, unearthed documents and philology, linguistics, classical literature, modern and contemporary literature, Taiwan literature, Taiwan history, Ming-Qing social history, intellectual history, gender history, medical and health history, art history, the pre-Qin masters, Song-Ming Confucian studies, Buddhist studies, Daoism and folk religions, anthropology, and international Chinese studies. Discussants for the forum included Professors Sher-shiue Li, Yu-Yu Cheng, Kuan-chung Huang, Jo-shui Chen, Chao-heng Liao, and Ying-chun Tsai.

 

Over the two-day forum, whether it was listening to lectures by Professor Bol and Professor Yang, or what seasoned scholars who were in attendance presented—including Chiu-hua Chiang, Hsiu-Sheng Chi, Jen-kuei Li, Dongliang Liao, Wei-tung Chien, Chia-ling Mei, Mei-e Huang, Hsueh-chi Hsu, Hung-tai Wang, Miaw-fen Lu, Ching-cheng Liu, Shi-yung Liu, Ching-Fei Shih, Han-ni Chiu, Chi-ping Lin, Tsai-chun Chung, Lawrence Lau, Fong-mao Lee, Feng-chuan Pan, and NCL Director-General Shu-hsien Tseng—and regardless of whether developmental prospects of Chinese studies in Taiwan are cautiously optimistic or even more hopeful, in the minds of the audience members appeared vista after vista of a dialog on cross-discipline Chinese studies. They also fully experience the passion and professionalism that these scholars have in regards to Chinese studies in Taiwan.

During her closing remarks, Director-General Shu-hsien Tseng stated through the scholarly insights shared in each presentation we can notice that many issues require the government, schools, and society to come together in finding solutions so that crises become opportunities for growth. Such issues include changes in scholarly norms, challenges in digital research, the decline of a core foundation in scholarly talent in Chinese studies, a lack of research in humanities research and educational funding, weak influence from professional scholarly groups, disparity between professionals’ education and actual job duties, the international status of Taiwan’s Chinese studies, too much focus on certain research topics in disciplines, the break off of long-term exchange between associations, a lack of ability for cross-disciplinary research, and even the problem of commercialization and open access to scholarly resources.       

For many years, NCL has stood firm in its belief that scholarship is public property. Consequently, in addition to a select few institutions around the globe that provide open access to digitized ancient books in their databases, over the last ten years NCL has been promoting Taiwan Resource Centers for Chinese Studies. Through the 37 Centers in collaborating libraries overseas, as well as more than six hundred exchange partners in eighty countries, it has continued to promote Taiwan’s Chinese studies and other research achievements to countries around the globe. At the same time, through subscribing to digital databases, the library continuously provides important scholarly institutions overseas with top-quality publications from Taiwan. It has also expanded the scope of its foreign scholar grant program, to help solidify Taiwan’s advantages in scholarship, as well as making research findings more convenient. Through the research and reminders presented in the forum, the future is can provide NCL with many more research materials to acquire and new inspiration on how to organize its holdings. In the future, the library staff will continue to cautiously and conscientiously continue to build with all our heart an event platform for exchange with Taiwan’s Chinese studies.

Last Update Time:2021-10-22
  • A group photo at the start
    A group photo at the start
  • A group photo at the end
    A group photo at the end