A new (old) book in the former native speaker's library

I got back last Saturday from Yokohama, where I had a great experience talking to a small but very interested audience about George H. Kerr, his process(es) of writing what eventually became Formosa Betrayed, how Taiwanese students at Kansas State University used Kerr's book in their "battle of the pens" with pro-KMT students, and the translations of the book into Chinese. (Some of this is discussed in my 2014 conference paper, "Formosa Translated.") 

While I was there, I also got a chance to talk with my friends Su Yao-tsung, Hidekazu Sensui, and Yukari Yoshihara about a project we're working on related to Kerr. (More details forthcoming.) I also had a lot of conversations with Su about Kerr, the writing of Formosa Betrayed and his other works, the February 28 Incident, the Taiwan independence movement in Japan and the United States, and the Cold War context of Kerr's teaching and writing about Taiwan. 

He also suggested a topic that I might work on researching related to that last point, so I decided to look up some books written about Taiwan during the 1950s. I just got one of them in the mail, Geraldine Fitch's (infamous) Formosa Beachhead (which is also available online). 

Fitch, who died in 1976 at the age of 84, was described in the New York Times obituary as "a consultant editor to The Free China Review and other English‐language publications in Taipei, Taiwan." 

Judging from a quick skim of the book, Formosa Beachhead is less about Taiwan than it is about China and the United States' policies towards China (and Nationalist China in particular). It'll be interesting to read in more detail.

There are a couple of contemporaneous reviews of the book, including the following:

• W. Macmahon Ball, in Pacific Affairs (concludes that "[t]he book should win enthusiastic readers in some sections of the Middle West and in Formosa")
• Karl A. Wittfogel, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (a not-surprisingly glowing review by the professional ex-Communist)

I need to go home to find George H. Kerr's review of the book, but he was not as kind as these two were.

台灣演義 episode about the World United Formosans for Independence

I came across this video in my search for more information about WUFI, the World United Formosans for Independence organization. Unlike some other 台灣演義 videos that I've posted, this one has English subtitles! Enjoy!

Preparing for a presentation in Japan

I've been invited to talk at the Center for Asian Studies at Kanagawa University in Yokohama about my research on George H. Kerr. My lecture is entitled, "Formosa's "Borrowed Voice": George H. Kerr's Struggle to Chronicle Taiwan's Postwar Trauma," playing on the title of Linda Arrigo and Lynn Miles' book, A Borrowed Voice: Taiwan Human Rights through International Networks, 1960-1980 (a book you should get if you haven't yet!). Like the "foreigners" Arrigo and Miles describe who lent their voices to speak for Taiwanese who, at the time, would be in danger if they spoke out themselves, Kerr tried to use his voice to tell Americans about what was happening in Taiwan as soon as he left the island after the February 28 Incident. But he struggled to write and publish a complete account of what happened, for reasons I'll describe in my talk.

My lecture is on April 19--if you happen to be in the Yokohama area, here's where you can get more information to register!

I'm also working on an article manuscript about this topic, which has been accepted with revisions required. (That might take a little while because I'm also speaking at the North American Taiwan Studies Association conference in June. Yikes!)