Finished Revolutionary Taiwan; on to Taiwan Travelogue

Just finished my third book of the year--Catherine Lila Chou and Mark Harrison's Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order. I think it provides a good introduction to Taiwan's complicated place in the world today, including some historical background for that place--or its "out of place"-ness, as they describe it. 

They begin with a description of what vote-counting is like in Taiwan--a description that was depressing to me when I think about how impossible such an open and peaceful vote-counting would be in the USA. (Although I was there in 2004 when the response to Chen Shui-bian's victory was not particularly peaceful. Who can forget Chiu Yi's attack on the Kaohsiung District Prosecutor's Office?) The vote-counting is symbol of Taiwan's maturing (mature?) democratic process, but as the authors demonstrate, this democratic process is happening in the context of a precarious state of existence. (I'm surprised there's not yet a book about Taiwan entitled Precarious State--get to work, people!)

One part of the book that I especially liked was their "close reading" of Taipei City's martial-law-era road-naming practices. Not that familiar with Taipei, I didn't realize that someone had actually laid a map of China over a map of the city to figure out what to rename Taipei's streets. (This part of the book reminded me of the article about TV cooking shows in Taiwan that I read a few years ago--particularly the part about Fu Pei Mei. I see there's a new book about her, too.) 

The book ends, interestingly, with an epilogue that introduces a critique of dominant--and parochial--Taiwanese attitudes toward Indigenous Taiwanese and "new Taiwanese" immigrants and foreign laborers, arguing that this parochialism needs to be overcome in order for Taiwan to really move beyond being seen as a "Chinese democracy." As they conclude, "the choice to cultivate a more diverse and eclectic national community today--one that will extend Taiwan's connections to communities and countries around the globe--lies with the people of Taiwan" (p. 159).

Around the same time that I finished Revolutionary Taiwan, I got my copy of Taiwan Travelogue in the mail. I decided to read this award-winning novel next. I have already finished the first chapter, and I'm loving it! (It makes me hungry, though--so much about Taiwanese food!)

Classes starting this week; interview assignment

I have two on-ground classes tomorrow--two sections of "Advanced Writing in the Business Administration Professions." I have been teaching this course on and off for over ten years now, but I'm trying a new/old thing this semester. New in that I haven't done it in this course--at least not in this way or for these reasons--before, but old in that I have done it before, both in this course (for different reasons) and in other previous courses. 

The assignment is an informational interview assignment with someone whose job aligns with the student's expected/hoped for/dreamed of career path. This being a writing course, I ask students to focus a good part of the interview on the writing expectations and practices of the job. I've done this assignment in some previous advanced writing courses (and it occurs to me that I did this assignment at least once in a composition class I taught at Tunghai, where I asked students to focus on how people in the job used English--or didn't!). 

The new thing this time is that we're going to throw GenAI into the mix--(how) are the interviewees using GenAI as part of their work? What are the implications, if any, for what students should be learning in an "Advanced Writing in the Business Administration Professions" course? This assignment occurred to me last semester after running into a previous student from ten years ago who was telling me about how the company she works for has its own proprietary ChatGPT-like system that employees are expected to use to write letters to clients. She hates it--it writes sentences that are too long. I want to get a sense of how widespread this is, and I want students to learn about it, too.

I attended an online discussion today on "Scaffolding GenAI Conversation in Your Courses," and one of the things that came out of it is that, perhaps not surprisingly, faculty are taking very different approaches to how or whether to allow students to use GenAI in their work. I got the sense from the discussion, for example, that while in my writing classes, learning how to synthesize sources is an important practice that I want students to work on without help from AI, in courses in some other disciplines/professions, it would be acceptable to have AI do the work of synthesis because the pedagogical focus of the assignment is not necessarily on synthesis. (In those cases, though, I'm sure the instructors would still want the students to tell them how they used AI to help them.) This reminds me again to make clear what I'm hoping students get out of assignments--what they should learn how to do, presumably unaided by AI. And maybe from this, what things might be OK to get help with from AI (for instance, APA citation, at least to a certain extent). 

Well, now to go back to my materials and see if I need to do any tweaks on the syllabus before tomorrow morning.

Finished reading Rebel Island

I enjoyed reading Rebel Island: The Incredible History of Taiwan, by Jonathan Clements. I realize it's a general history for people who don't know a lot about Taiwan, but I found myself learning from it even though I've read other histories of Taiwan. It's a good supplement and updating of books like Wan-yao Chou's A New Illustrated History of Taiwan and the Murray Rubinstein-edited Taiwan: A New History. 

It covers a lot of territory in its 250-odd pages, so there are some stories or aspects from Taiwan's history don't get much or any coverage (the 921 earthquake of 1999 is only mentioned in relation to Morris Chang's insistence on getting the power back on to his TSMC plants). But I think Clements makes a good point early on in the preface about the history (and prehistory) of Taiwan. I'm going to quote this paragraph in full. I don't know if it's completely technically accurate, but it sounds plausible:

If we imagine the whole history of the human habitation of Taiwan, up to the present day, as a single calendar year, then humans first arrive on 1 January--although those ancient people have left behind none of their DNA, only fire sticks and stone axes. The Neolithic period, which saw settlement of the island by the ancestors of today's Formosan indigenous communities, begins around 1 November. The rise on the mainland of the First Emperor, Qin Shihuang, his Terracotta Army, and the very concept of there being a China that Taiwan could become a part of, happens sometime on 3 December. Prolonged and enduring ties with the Chinese on the mainland are initiated around Christmas. The Ming-dynasty loyalist Koxinga and his men arrive in the small hours of 28 December, and their regime is toppled with a Qing-dynasty retaliation by lunchtime. The Japanese annex Taiwan as a colony around midday on 30 December, and are themselves ousted shortly before dawn on New Year's Eve, making way for the mass arrival of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, in retreat from Mao's Communists on the mainland. Martial law stays in force until just after breakfast, and the entire modern history of a democratic Republic of China on Taiwan occupies the next 18 hours until midnight, when I am telling you this. (xiii)

In other words, there's a lot of Taiwan's history to cover, even if your focus is mainly on "November" to "New Year's Eve." I think that despite any faults (including a few mistakes here and there), Clements very ably covers that history. 

Another new book in the former native speaker's library

Just received my copy of Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order, by Catherine Lila Chou and Mark Harrison. It's a relatively short book (about 161 pages + bibliography), so I think I can read it soon, after I finish Rebel Island, perhaps. (All these "revolutionary" and "rebel" books about Taiwan!) 

Finished reading John Brown, Abolitionist

I wanted to read a biography of John Brown for some reason, so I asked my brother and sister-in-law for one for Christmas. I finished reading it today. I thought John Brown, Abolitionist by David S. Reynolds was a good study of Brown, the historical context in which he grew up and became an anti-slavery and anti-racist advocate, his effect on the Civil War, and how he was remembered in both the North and the South. Reynolds clearly admires John Brown, and he suggests that had Brown not attacked Harpers Ferry, the Civil War might have taken place much later and been much bloodier. 

Here's a good interview with Reynolds about the book from 2005.

Review of Resistance in the Era of Nationalisms published

My review of Resistance in the Era of Nationalisms: Performing Identities in Taiwan and Hong Kong, edited by Hsin-I Cheng and Hsin-i Sydney Yueh is out. It was a pleasure to read this book, particularly realizing the risks some of the authors took in writing it.

"Midterm" reflections on August's "new year's resolutions"

Back in August, I wrote up a few new year's resolutions for the 2024-2025 academic year. In the past, I've usually written them up and then ignored them, but this time I'm going to take a look back at them and figure out what I did, what I didn't do, and what course corrections I might make.

• "Try to get up earlier in the morning"--the idea here was go get up early enough to do my Duolingo and a little writing. This didn't work at all as planned. I did manage to get up early some mornings and do a little journaling, but I didn't have enough time to do my Duolingo before I had to get the day started. And many days, I woke up just in time to jump in the shower before starting to get my son ready for school.
• "Use my commute time to read"--since I didn't have time to do my Duolingo in the morning, I usually did it on the trip into school. Sometimes I read on the way home from school, but a lot of times, I was using that time to catch up on work. 
• "Make time for writing"--I pretty much failed at this during the semester, unless you count my teaching-related writing and service-related writing. I had the usual amount of the former and, it seems, more than the usual amount for the latter. I did a few little revisions on a couple of book reviews that will be coming out soon, but besides that, I didn't work on any of the papers I have to revise.

So things didn't go quite as well as planned. I think one thing that cut down on my writing time was that I was teaching a new course, so that involved a lot of work to keep ahead of the students. This semester, I'll be teaching "old" courses (though of course I can't seem to stop myself from fiddling with the assignments), which might help. 

Another thing that might help in terms of the writing is that next semester, I'm rejoining a writing accountability group that has always forced me to spend at least an hour and a half a week on writing. I've always found that helpful. I need to finish that George Kerr paper first, then get started on the chapters I need to write for the collaborative biography. 

I think I need to add "going to bed earlier" to the list of resolutions because if I don't get to bed earlier, I can't wake up earlier. I'll try to work on that. I've been napping a lot recently because of some muscle relaxants I have had to take for a sciatica problem, but hopefully I'll get over that before vacation is over. Napping always throws off my evening sleep schedule. 

As for using commuting time for reading, I think I'll still end up doing Duolingo during the trip in. I'll try to do some reading on the way home. I'll have to decide what I want to read, though! Right now, I'm about a third of the way through David S. Reynolds' John Brown: Abolitionist, but I'm going to try to finish it before the semester starts. I have to think about what to read after that. Any ideas?