Assignment
Main Questions
1. How do we study Taiwan, and what does it mean to study Taiwan?
2. Is Taiwan a place, a people, a society? What is its history?
3. How do empires and polities "know" their subject populations? How do they create knowledge about these populations?
4. How do we understand the historiography-the history of history writing-of Taiwan? How have various people written about the history of Taiwan in the past?
Key Terms/Figures
Qing Empire (1644-1911); ruled Taiwan 1683-1895
Fujian Province
Opium Wars (1839-1842; 1856-1860); treaty-port system
"Sino-centric" world order
Ryukyu Kingdom (now Okinawa Prefecture, Japan)
Paiwan (group indigenous to southern part of Taiwan)
GotoShinpei, head of civilian affairs in Japanese colonial government (Taiwan Government-General) OkamatsuSantaro, legal scholar and head of the Committee for the Investigation of Old Customs.