Written by Chee-Hann Wu.
Image credit: North American Taiwan Studies Association.
The North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA) is a registered nonprofit organization and the largest scholarly association dedicated to Taiwan Studies in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1994 when Taiwan Studies became a booming field of research that attracted international attention during the 1990s, a period of rapid political, economic, social, and cultural change in Taiwan. The growing interest in Taiwan called for a regular and interdisciplinary academic forum. To establish such a forum, the North American Taiwan Studies Association’s constitution was drafted and ratified at the first annual conference at Yale University in June 1994. NATSA has played a significant role in supporting and promoting the study of Taiwan in North America, providing a platform for scholars with related interests to come together for critical discussions about Taiwan and serving as a hub of resources to help students and scholars thrive in their respective fields.
What distinguishes NATSA from other academic organizations is that its leadership comprises mostly graduate students and early career scholars, including the president, conference program committee members, communications team, and local support members for the conference. With the support and oversight of the Board of Directors, the NATSA staff is committed to expanding the scope and audience of Taiwan Studies.
NATSA has held an annual conference since its inception. Every year for the past 28 years, NATSA has invited scholars, students, and people interested in Taiwan and Taiwan Studies from diverse backgrounds to come together to exchange ideas and witness remarkable gatherings of scholars, researchers, and experts dedicated to the study and understanding of Taiwan and beyond. Together, people explore the multifaceted dimensions of Taiwan’s history, politics, society, and culture, shedding light on its dynamic and ever-evolving nature. Even during the most difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic, NATSA continued to work to bring the community together and provide a place for scholarly exchange and for people to support and feel supported by one another. The annual conferences are a testament to the intellectual curiosity and collaborative spirit of all involved and committed.
In addition to the annual conference, there are several projects and initiatives that NATSA has been involved in to continue our support of the Taiwan Studies community throughout the year and to encourage the participation of undergraduate, graduate, and emerging scholars in the field of Taiwan Studies. For example, with the help of NATSA’s long-term sponsors, partners, and collaborators, the organization can provide partial travel grants to graduate students each year to attend the annual conference.
Podcasts have become one of the most prominent forms of entertainment and a platform for information exchange and community outreach, especially since the pandemic. In response to the changing environment, NATSA launched its podcast series in 2020 as a means to stay connected with members and the community interested in Taiwan Studies. Season One of the NATSA Podcast consists of seven episodes, in which seven scholars from different research fields were invited to share their personal and academic journeys. In early 2022, the second season of the NATSA Podcast was officially launched with a higher quality program that shifted the focus to the experiences of Taiwanese graduate students in North America, highlighting the challenges and difficulties as well as the insights and inspirations. A great deal of positive feedback has been received from audiences around the world. To continue the impact of the NATSA Podcast and the ongoing conversations addressed in season two, a new series is being planned and will be released soon.
Additionally, NATSA has a long history of supporting both graduate and undergraduate students. Beginning in 2019, it has invited submissions for the Undergraduate Research Paper Competition from undergraduate students in North America, with the goal of bringing promising young scholars into the field of Taiwan Studies. NATSA welcomes submissions that situate Taiwan in global contexts, comparative perspectives, and interdisciplinary frameworks. A careful and thorough review process is conducted by NATSA’s board members to determine the winner, who will receive a cash award and be invited to present at NATSA’s annual conference. It has been a great thrill for the organization to learn that many of the awardees have decided to continue their academic journey by pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree after presenting at the conference or have shared how the conference experience has influenced their future careers. In 2023, NATSA redesigned the competition’s eligibility to invite submissions from students at North American institutions and around the world. One winner and two honourable mentions were awarded to three awardees for their outstanding work.
Another important NATSA initiative is the Taiwan Syllabus Project. Launched in 2017, the program aims to collect Taiwan-related courses offered at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the United States and Canada. By categorizing and analysing the syllabi of these courses, the program aims to examine the common features and directions of Taiwan-related curricula in North America to find ways to propose and promote such curricula at other institutions. In addition, building an online database is hoped to provide a platform for faculty to access and share Taiwan-related curricula and teaching resources to make the field sustainable and resilient. To date, more than 100 curricula have been included in the database. NATSA continues to welcome submissions of new and updated syllabi to the database. Currently, due to staff capacity, only courses offered at North American institutions are included, and for each course, at least ⅓ of the content must be about Taiwan (in a general sense); language courses are excluded.
This special issue features articles about and beyond the North American Taiwan Studies Association’s 2023 conference, “Resistance and Resilience: Repositioning Taiwan,” held June 22-24 at the University of California, Irvine. In fact, the 2020 conference was scheduled to be held in Irvine but was postponed and finally moved online in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a great experience for the team to finally welcome in-person attendees to Irvine after the 2022 event in Washington, D.C. In this special issue, event summaries of three of the conference planning sessions were shared, along with an article about a unique series of workshops that NATSA has been offering for the past three years. These planning sessions demonstrated NATSA’s long-term commitment to (re)positioning Taiwan within a global context and shedding light on discussions about different connections and conversations that Taiwan Studies has been a part of. The workshops began as a response to graduate students’ feelings of fear, anxiety, loneliness, and uncertainty during the pandemic, whether it was Taiwanese students not being able to return home and scholars not being able to continue their Taiwan-related research due to travel restrictions, or the general feeling of instability of the world at that time. The focus was on solidarity and community-building rather than on the academic engagement of participants with emotions and struggles in unprecedented circumstances. The workshops were divided into two sessions: one dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of graduate students and the other offering practical suggestions for anyone navigating the career path. Since then, the workshops have become one of NATSA’s signature events.
Besides the sessions and workshops featured in this special issue, other special events and panels focused on China’s expanding influence in and around Taiwan, new democratic practices, environmental justice, and transitional justice, among other critical discussions. The full conference report will be available soon on the NATSA website.
Finally, in my personal opinion, one of the most valuable things about the Taiwan Studies community that NATSA has fostered is that it is friendly and inclusive, not just in rhetoric but in reality. At any NATSA conference, anyone will stumble upon and witness many inspiring presentations and discussions on and off stage at panels and roundtables or during coffee breaks, lunch, or dinner. Formal or informal, private or public, the conversations are based on episodes from everyday life. They are not just about what Taiwan or Taiwan Studies is, but also about what they can do and how they communicate with others.
Chee-Hann Wu is an Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow at NYU Tisch Drama. She received her Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from the University of California, Irvine. Chee-Hann serves on the board of the North American Taiwan Studies Association and is an editor of Taiwan Insight. Her current book project considers puppetry as a mediated means of narrating Taiwan’s cultural and sociopolitical development, as well as colonial and postcolonial histories.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘NATSA: Repositioning Taiwan’.