Back to Events of Monday 22nd July 2019
Tuesday | 02:00 PM | Taiwan Lecture Series, Part I: Cosmologies of Difference on the Taiwan Frontier: Chinese Colonial Discourse in Comparative Perspective: The Dangers of Republican Freedom in Dutch Colonial Formosa, 1624-1662 Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics) This lecture examines the ways in which Dutch representations of indigenous Formosan political and social life in the seventeenth century, produced by agents of the Dutch East India Company during their 40-year control of Taiwan, were influenced by specific notions of republican liberty emerging from the Dutch Low Countries. The acephalous nature of village society confounded Company attempts to secure what they saw as genuine and free consent to the alienation of indigenous territory to the Dutch. In response, Company agents systematized the selection of representative leaders from indigenous villages by inviting them to participate in annual “Land Day” celebrations, which satisfied key expectations of Dutch republican liberty in securing village representation and collective political participation. The Formosan case suggests heretofore unexamined ways in which republican liberty betrays an imperial logic, demanding dramatic transformation of indigenous social orders to conform to Dutch expectations of what freedom meant. The recognition of indigenous freedom as a natural condition eventually morphed, in theory and practice, into freedom as an implied ability to consent to Dutch territorial and economic expansion on the island. The Dutch extended colonial control throughout Formosan territory not by violating native political rights, but by conferring and recognizing them. Address Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) CATS 440.01.12 Voßstrasse 2 69115 Heidelberg Homepage Event https://www.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/sinologie/research/tls/taiwanlec19s_de.html Organizer Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) Homepage Organizer https://www.cats.uni-heidelberg.de Contact contact@cats.uni-heidelberg.de Alle Termine der Veranstaltung 'Taiwan Lecture Series, Part I: Cosmologies of Difference on the Taiwan Frontier: Chinese Colonial Discourse in Comparative Perspective': This year’s Taiwan Lecture Series offers object lessons with objects from Taiwan in the Museum of Ethnology (Seeing Taiwan), a lecture series with renowned LSE Historian Leigh Jenco on colonial Taiwan (Thinking Taiwan), and finally a workshop and concert with Taiwan composer Chen Shih-hui and famous Sheng-Player Wu Wei (Hearing Taiwan). Students who would like to take this class for credit will participate in all activities related to the class. They will each analyze and introduce one object, and they will prepare abstracts of the readings for the lecture series and the music workshop. At the end, students will write a seminar paper. Monday 22nd July 2019, 10:00 AM Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics) Monday 22nd July 2019, 02:00 PM Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics) Tuesday 23rd July 2019, 10:00 AM Chen Di’s Record of Formosa (1603): A Chinese Anti-Imperial Text in Global Perspective Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics) Tuesday 23rd July 2019, 02:00 PM The Dangers of Republican Freedom in Dutch Colonial Formosa, 1624-1662 Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics) |