Taiwanese Americans: Voices through the Arts A Taiwan Humanities Virtual Symposium
Friday, November 1st, 2024
01:00 PM – 05:30 PM ET
Virtual Event via Zoom
About the event:
Join us for a thought-provoking virtual symposium that explores Taiwanese and Taiwanese American identities through the multidisciplinary lens of the arts. Featuring a special keynote address and three dynamic panels, this event will highlight how the arts foster critical and reflexive discourse on identity formation, preservation, and evolution within the Taiwanese American community.
Kicking off the symposium is a welcome keynote address by writer, speaker, and Taiwanese American community organizer Leona Chen, in which she will chart the formation of a distinctly Taiwanese American space, culture, and identity, as well as share her reflections from “growing up Taiwanese American” and her observations on its increasing legibility throughout the last decade. The first panel will examine documentary film as a powerful medium to tell the stories and experiences of Taiwan. The second focuses on the role of visual arts and music in expressing the intersections of Taiwanese, American, and diasporic identities. The final roundtable will dive into how Taiwanese American stories are being documented, articulated, and preserved for future generations. This symposium invites scholars, artists, students, and the public to reflect on how art transcends borders and how communities far and wide can engage with these vital stories.
About:
Speakers:
Leona Chen is a Taiwanese American community organizer, writer, and speaker committed to building upon the legacy of Taiwanese American elder-activists and serving the multi-generational Taiwanese diaspora. Her 2017 debut poetry collection, BOOK OF CORD (Tinfish Press), confronts the shaping of Taiwanese identity through state and family narratives. She is the editor-in-chief of TaiwaneseAmerican.org.
Eric Tsai is a producer and digital content lead at TaiwanPlus. He started working at TaiwanPlus when it launched in 2021, and has been contributing to various Taiwan education efforts for over a decade. While at TaiwanPlus, Eric has helped launch Taiwan Explained YouTube channel and TaiwanPlus News Instagram. Eric grew up in Taipei, and went to undergrad in New Jersey. Prior to returning to Taiwan, he was a tech product manager in New York and Boston.
Kaley Emerson started his career as a photographer, and soon transitioned into video production where he found a love for documentary filmmaking. As a documentary filmmaker, he has worked with Discovery Channel, NatGeo, KIA Motors, VOX, VICE MEDIA, and Taiwan Plus. In the commercial space, he has shot and directed campaigns for KIA, NETFLIX, The Walking Dead, Red Bull, ASUS, EVA AIR, Taiwan Tourism, Hawaii Tourism, and Marvel. Additionally, over the years he has directed dozens of music videos for artists, with a majority generating millions of views.
Felicia Liang is an artist and printmaker based in the Bay Area, California. Her colorful work explores her identity and emotions and how the cultures and communities she is around uniquely shape them. She draws to tell stories and establish her place in the world through whimsical food, still life, and cityscape illustrations. She’s known for works celebrating her Taiwanese-American identity and uplifting local Chinatowns in the Bay Area and New York.
Her illustrations have been featured on Tripadvisor, Eater, and the LA Times, and her products have been featured in Refinery 29, Glamour, and New York Magazine. She’s had two solo exhibitions both in New York and San Diego, California and regularly showcases her work at craft markets throughout the year.
Isabelle Engler is a board-certified music therapist specializing in the NICU and pediatrics. Engler has performed at and attended piano festivals in San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Tokyo, Paris, and Italy. Additionally, she’s worked with educators and artists as a collaborative pianist; her most recent works are the Fire Organ and Cymatics Sculpture, produced by Guerilla Science, and Andantino, a chamber music concert series designed for families. Experienced in working with hospitalized children and caregivers, children with autism spectrum disorder, and adults with neurological impairments, Engler desires to use music to serve children and families. Engler resides in Southlake, Texas, with her husband and two daughters.
Christine Lin is the Director of Training & Technical Assistance at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies based at UC Law San Francisco and has taught in the Refugee & Human Rights Clinic. Her research on the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the advocacy of local autonomy led her to pursue a career in international human rights law advocating for the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. Currently, Christine is researching the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in non-Refugee Convention signatory states and examining the protection of asylum seekers in Taiwan.
As a Visiting Scholar at The George Washington University’s Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group 2023-2025, Christine is examining the coalescing of a Taiwanese American identity and U.S.-Taiwan relations. She previously published on Taiwanese Americans’ political views in the United States and the status of Taiwan.
Previously, Christine served as the Legal Director of Hong Kong Refugee Advice Centre and an Attorney Advisor with the U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. She has taught in refugee legal aid clinics at the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Christine is on the board of the Taiwanese American Professionals – San Francisco.
Jonathan Hsy is Professor of English at George Washington University and Affiliated Faculty in the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. He teaches in the Department of English and the Asian American Studies program with interests in comparative literature, translation, race, and media studies. He is the author of Antiracist Medievalisms: From “Yellow Peril” to Black Lives Matter (2021) and serves on the Executive Board of the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies. Hsy is a founding member of RaceB4Race, an interdisciplinary research network led by scholars of color in Premodern Critical Race Studies, and he has received fellowships from the NEH, Mellon, Institute for Advanced Study, and Huntington Library. His publications on literature, media, and cultural identity have appeared in the Journal of American Ethnic History, PMLA, Literature Compass, and Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies.
Moderators
Alexa Alice Joubin teaches in the English department at George Washington University. She is an affiliated faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and co-founded the GW Digital Humanities Institute. She directed the Dean’s Scholars in Shakespeare (a signature program of GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences). At MIT, she is co-founder and co-director of the open access Global Shakespeares digital performance archive. Her publications can be accessed on ResearchGate.
Her teaching and publications are unified by a commitment to understanding the mobility of early modern and postmodern cultures in their literary, performative, and digital forms of expression. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, International Shakespeare Association, Folger Institute, and other agencies.
Her latest books include Race (co-authored; Routledge New Critical Idiom series), Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance (co-edited; Palgrave), and Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation (co-edited; Palgrave). She is co-general editor of The Shakespearean International Yearbook, and has guest-edited special issues of the journals Shakespeare: Journal of the British Shakespeare Association, Asian Theatre Journal, and Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation. She received the MLA’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize, an honorable mention of NYU’s Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama or Theatre, and the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) Colleagues’ Choice Award.
She chaired the MLA committee on the New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare and edits the Palgrave-Macmillan book series on “Global Shakespeares”. She has taught at Lincoln College, Oxford, as an early modern studies faculty of the Middlebury College Bread Loaf School of English (a summer graduate program) and in South Korea as distinguished visiting professor at Seoul National University.
In her outreach work, Alexa has testified before congress in a congressional briefing on the humanities and globalization, and been interviewed by BBC 4 (TV), BBC Radio (in D.C., London and Edinburgh), The Economist, Voice of America, Foreign Policy, Index on Censorship, Hay Festival, Edinburgh Festival, and various outlets and podcasts by Oxford University Press, Folger Shakespeare Library, and other journals, news media, and publishers in the U.S., China, Japan, Korea, and Brazil.
At Middlebury College Alexa holds the John M. Kirk, Jr. Chair in Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the Bread Loaf School of English.
Richard J. Haddock is the Assistant Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University, where he leads the Center’s robust Taiwan affairs programming, outreach, and curriculum development. He is also a member of the UC Berkeley U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, where his research focuses on U.S.-Taiwan education diplomacy and exchange. Previously, he has held positions at the GW East Asia National Resource Center, the National Democratic Institute’s Asia team, the American Institute in Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Section, and the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Haddock is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University, focusing on digital democracy and e-governance development in the Asia-Pacific. He holds an MA in Asian Studies from the Elliott School, with a concentration on domestic politics and foreign policy of East Asia. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Political Science and minors in Asian Studies and Diplomacy.
Adrienne Chih-fang Wu is a research associate at the Global Taiwan Institute and the host and producer of Taiwan Salon, GTI’s cultural policy and soft power podcast. With an interest in exploring the intersection of culture and policy, her research focuses on how Taiwan can strengthen international connections through nation branding, cultural diplomacy and a strong civil society. She is also a member of the UC Berkeley U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, where she is conducting a research project on the barriers to importing Taiwanese cultural products. Before joining GTI, she graduated from Ritsumeikan University and Kyunghee University with a Dual Master’s Degree in International Relations. She spent seven years living in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan—including three years of teaching English in Japan and Taiwan and a year of study at Waseda University while pursuing her B.A. in Honors East Asian Studies from McGill University. She also worked at the Presidential Precinct to help facilitate the Mandela Washington Fellowship Program for young African leaders. As a Taiwanese-American, the mission of GTI is close to her heart, and she is excited to be part of an organization committed to better public understanding of Taiwan worldwide. She is a Strait Talk GW ’23 Alumna.
The Taiwan Education and Research Program was established in 2004 to promote and support both academic and policy-related study and research on the history, international relations, and the contemporary political, economic and social development of Taiwan. The Taiwan Education and Research Program “TERP” operates under the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. The program is co-directed by Liana Chen, Associate Professor of Chinese Language & Literature, and Alexa Alice Joubin, Professor of English, Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and International Affairs.
