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Title |
The private／self（私wadasi）reading history of Taiwan Intellectuals under Japan rule: Focusing on Taiwan Japanese Writers |
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Author |
Wang, Hui-Chen |
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Asssistant Professor, Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, National TsingHua University |
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Abstract |
The reading “public” during the Japanese colonization period hadn’t disappeared in Taiwan, there were identical differences such as urban and rural, and classes, etc. among the readers. This essay will discuss about the Taiwan Japanese writers, trying to card their reading experiences, to probe into the relationship between their reading material and contemporary Japan mainland publication industry, that is, to mitigate the pressure of overproduction of books in Japan mainland, the publication industry dumped the knowledge institution of the Japan empire to the colony through the trafficking pipeline of books. The essay will also discuss about how the young intellectuals of colony traded on its strength accumulating their own cultural capital through considerable reading, thus to build the knowledge system belonging to the colony, and to expand the discourse of local culture. This essay will firstly investigate the publication forms of the colonial sovereign, such as the great amount of publication of translation of the “enhon” （圓本,えんぽん）and pocketbooks in the early years of Showa（昭和）era, which made the Showa intellectuals dabble at the European and American cultures directly and rapidly, and this was different from the Meiji（明治）intellectual who could get new knowledge only through reading the original texts. After all, what reading possibilities did this material resource provide for the colony intellectuals? With the expansion of empire territory and the widespread of Japanese language, the Taiwan reading market became one of the important markets to which the bookmen in Japan mainland sold overdue magazines and secondhand books. What kinds of reading texts did the colonial intellectuals get through the circulation of material culture resource? Furthermore, how did they transform these resources into individual cultural capital, which were to be the knowledge basis for modernization of the colony? Secondly, the book collections and dairies of the Taiwan writers during Japan governance period will be my research material. I will illustrate the possible reading content of Taiwan intellectuals, and explain how they built individual knowledge system through reading the Japanese translation. Finally, I will discuss about how they build the knowledge of “Sina” in the upsurge of publication about Sina during wartime. I anticipate that I could draw the outline of the private/self reading history of the Taiwanese intellectuals under Japan colonial rule. |
