Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, NCCU

Title The Idea of "the People" in the Folk Magazine Minzoku Taiwan: Takeo Kanaseki's, Tetsuomi Tateishi's, and Kenzo Matsuyama's Investigation on Jomin in the Magazine's Graphic Columns Author Chiu, Ya-Fang Professor, Department of Taiwan Languages and Communication, National United University Abstract The paper seeks to examine the different approaches carried on by three Minzoku Taiwan editors—Takeo Kanaseki, Tetsuomi Tateishi, and Kenzo Matsuyama—to investigate Taiwan's folklore, as well as their understanding on "the people" of the folklore, with a focus on the magazine's graphic columns. As Japanese in Taiwan, the three editors, who were sensitively aware of the pressure caused by the deteriorating war situation in Japan, sought for a breathing place or a mental utopia in Taiwan's everyday life. Due to their different backgrounds and abilities, the editors developed their own images of the utopia, which were further realized into three types of specific folk graph, that is, Kanaseki's artistic mingei, Tateishi's everyday folklore, and Matsuyama's craft and festival photo. In this regard, the value and meaning of Minzoku Taiwan lie in maintaining Taiwan as a place of healing through the preservation of folklore, in order to resist the Kominka Movement, which threatened the utopia of the editors' own imagining. Furthermore, the three editors regarded "the people," who created the folklore of Minzoku Taiwan, as the real "jomin" (the common people). For these editors, the jomin were Taiwanese, but also not Taiwanese, because the jomin were the "unforgettable people" that could be identified with, and only existed in their mind.  

Title Swordswomen's World: An Investigation into Di Yi's Wuxia Novels Author Tai, Hua-Hsuan Associate Professor, Department of Taiwan Literature, Aletheia University Abstract This paper is the first to investigate specifically the first Taiwanese female martial arts novelist, Di Yi. As the wuxia (i.e., martial heroes, martial arts, and chivalry) literary scene in Taiwan was dominated by male writers before 1980, it is of particular importance to study Taiwan’s first female martial arts novelist. This article first examines why Di Yi began writing after 1980, a time when the overall production and volume of Taiwanese wuxia novels were in decline. Analyses of interviews with Di Yi suggest that the absence of a female martial arts novelist in Taiwan prompted her to write. Having practiced martial arts, read a wide range of Chinese and Western literature, and mastered diverse professional skills such as fortune telling, Chinese medicine, and classical musical instruments, she took the initiative to express her wish for creative writing to the editor-in-chief of a newspaper. Thereafter, with incessant writer contracts and positive feedback from female readers, she has written an ample number of martial heroine novels, demonstrating that Di Yi wrote to quench her thirst for creativity but not to quest for external fame and fortune. This is her female novelist’s internal driving force to construct her Subjectivity. As a female writer, Di Yi is conscious of the need to distinguish the main characters from male martial heroes. Hence, unlike mere female arm candy portrayed in male-centered wuxia novels, almost every one of her works focuses on female chivalry narratives, in which women are either the most skilled, wise, and resourceful martial artists, or those who bear the heavy responsibilities to restore their countries and retaliate on behalf of their fathers. By defeating male characters with martial arts featured by tender and flexible sensibilities, she inverses the male martial paradigm of chivalry, showing her reflection on and critique of patriarchy. Since martial arts are the discourse power in the world of wuxia, Di Yi's softness over hardness is precisely her attempt to confront the male-centered mainstream of wuxia writing with a fluid, marginal combat position. Within the limits of established wuxia writing frameworks, Di Yi has created a swordswomen’s Jiang Hu (i.e., world), which is to some extent different from the traditional masculine aura.  

Title The Hidden Seventies: The "Baodiao Movement Narrative" in Kuo Songfen's Late Works Author Yang, Chieh Doctoral Candidate, Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, National Taiwan University Abstract This essay uses fiction, manuscripts and annotations to explore the "Baodiao Movement Narrative" in Kuo Songfen’s late works. In Kuo's late writings, the intertextual reference of writings of Lu Xun, a Spiritual Teacher with Both Political and Literary Exemplary Meanings, becomes an important interface for Kuo to negotiate with his own movement experience. "Moon Seal" and "Snowblind", as well as Kuo's annotations and reading notes on his re-reading of Lu Xun in the 1980s and 1990s, testify to his detour from Lu Xun and indirect dialogue with the Baodiao movement. In Kuo's late novels, the politically relevant 1970s are always hidden. This period of disappearance is measured in terms of ten or seventeen years, revealing the novelist’s trauma symptom through its fractures and shortages. This essay argues that Kuo's concern of the early postwar period, mediated by the left wing, embeds the implicit historical structure of the 1970s under the explicit historical framework of the February 28th Incident. The loss of aesthetic technique in Kuo's unpublished novel "Ice Silkworm" reveals the unfinished state of his ideological purge of the Baodiao movement. This manuscript was sealed, indicating Kuo's attempt to "Farewell to Baodiao movement". The 1970s have been hidden from view in his fiction ever since. Then, Kuo made a breakthrough in his introspection of history and developed an ambiguous and poetic narrative voice.  

Title 1930's Taiwan Proletariat Esperanto Movement Connected to Literature and Cultural Aspects: A Study on Chuang Song-lin's Folk Literary Works Author Lī, Bí-Chhin Assistant Professor, Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, National Taiwan Normal University Abstract This thesis investigates how Chuang Song-lin（莊松林）, a folk literature writer, participated in the "Proletariat Esperanto Movement" and Esperanto popularization movement of the new religion "Oomoto" during the time from 1931 to 1935, proposing discussion about why intellectual youths would choose Esperanto as the way of cultural practice and its implications behind it while "Tenkō" (changing direction) to the exploration of cultural movement. Chuang Song-lin's attempts and practice in the Esperanto movement, or Marxism with so-called anti-system character and a religious though with cross-domain personality and the pursuit of human peace can be regarded as a symbol of connection and combination from this local intellectual youth. In particular, Chuang Song-lin's first folk literature was the Taiwanese fairy tale "La Malsaĝa Tigro"（戇虎）written in Esperanto and published in "La Verda Insulo"（綠島）. Judging from Chuang Song-lin's practice track, not only was the “Proletariat Esperanto Movement' a starting point for the practice of folk literature in the 1930s, but it could also be seen as a practice process from "local" to "world" made by a local left-wing youth who managed a breakthrough in cultural movement in the darkest time.