Book Launch: 'Reorientating Taiwan: Ocean, Selfhood, and the Pacific'
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Main Building
- Room
- KLT
- Event type
- Launch
About this event
The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to welcome Professor Niki Alsford and Dr Ti-Han Chang to share the new edited volume, Reorientating Taiwan: Ocean, Selfhood, and the Pacific.
Reorientating Taiwan redefines how you see Taiwan, moving beyond land-centred perspectives to embrace its deep connection with the Pacific. This interdisciplinary collection takes you on a journey through anthropology, literature, ecology, and art, revealing Taiwan as a cradle of Austronesian expansion and a hub of oceanic entanglements.
You’ll discover how Taiwan’s vibrant marine culture influences its identity, from Indigenous traditions to contemporary environmental activism. This book invites you to explore Taiwan’s cultural and ecological narratives in a way that is both profound and transformative.
About the speakers
Professor Niki Alsford
Niki Alsford is Professor of Anthropology and Human Geography, and Director for the Institutes for the Study of the Asia Pacific (ISAP), and the Institute for Area and Migration Studies (AMIS) at the University of Lancashire. He is a Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS and an Associate Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford.
Alsford's research focuses primarily on Taiwan, Korea, and the Pacific Islands. He is the book series editor for the Taiwan Series at BRILL, the Korean series at Routledge, and a new series on Asia Pacific Cultures, Communities, and Landscapes at Palgrave Macmillan. Alsford is also the author of Taiwan Lives: A Socio-Political History, published by the University of Washington Press in 2024.
Dr Ti-Han Chang
Ti-han Chang is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Taiwan Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her teaching and research centre on contemporary Taiwan, with particular interests in eco-literature, postcolonial literature, cinema and cultural studies in regional and global contexts.
Image credit: Andrzej Kryszpiniuk via Unsplash
