Discussion Prompts
For the first paper please select from the italicized discussion prompts associated with each week on the syllabus, or respond to one of the suggestions below. Your paper should be no more than 1250 words. Please double-space. You should make an argument based on your understanding of evidence from the course thus far. Because I know of you are encountering this history for the first time, I know that you have only the limited material we have read. You ought not feel compelled to do any research beyond the course. If you happen to draw on something beyond the course, please provide me with the citation. You need not enumerate an answer to every question-mark appearing in the prompts below. Rather these are meant to get you started on what should be a fun, brief, writing exercise.
- Thus far in the course we have encountered a variety of populations who have made their home on the island we now call Taiwan. Using our readings: What kinds of conclusions can you draw about the skills needed to thrive in this environment and how have different groups interacted across space and time? What were the goals of different populations upon arrival on the island and how did their experiences change or shape these goals over time? You may wish to consider not only ethnic categories (European, Han, Manchu, Japanese, Aboriginal, Mainland-dwelling Fujianese) but also different professional identities (merchant, sailor, pirate, farmer, hunter, colonist) that might be held by members of any of the different ethnic categories. What was important to different groups and why? What kinds of ideas, values, or priorities might have been shared across different groups? Why?
- Identify one or two examples in our reading in which you see either gender or family relationships shaping events. What do your chosen examples tell us about Taiwan, whether with regard to Taiwan’s “Chinese-ness” or some other aspect of culture indigenous to the island. How does who is observing an event change how we ourselves later are able to view the event and what kinds of conclusions can we draw from that? You may also wish to consider what other hierarchies (familial, imperial, governing, ethnic) are significant in various contexts?
- What can be gained and what is lost by examining different regimes that have attempted to control Taiwan as “colonial” or “imperial”? How does Emma Teng’s reading of Qing ethnographic practices reflect these strategies? Depending on your areas of interest and background, students may find it helpful to compare colonial relations in Taiwan across different regimes, or to compare Taiwan with other historical examples from around the world. Students might also find it useful to consider the uses of “raw” and “cooked” across different contexts. (If you read ahead to Paul Barclay’s discussion of Japan’s management of the savage border, this also provides a potential comparison with the Qing as described by Teng.)