Book talk: 'Haunted Modernities: Gender, Memory, and Placemaking in Postindustrial Taiwan'

The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to welcome Professor Lee An-Ru to give a talk as part of this year's Centre of Taiwan Studies Summer School on her book Haunted Modernities, exploring women workers, public memory, and the remaking of heritage in postindustrial Taiwan.

In 1973, 25 young women drowned in a ferry accident while travelling to factory jobs in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone. Buried together in what became known as the Twenty-five Maiden Ladies Tomb, they came to occupy a troubled place in public memory: as unmarried women without a husband’s ancestral hall, their spirits were widely regarded as unsettled, and the site became associated with haunting and avoidance. In 2008, after years of debate and campaigning by local feminist groups, the Kaohsiung City government renovated the site and renamed it the Memorial Park for Women Laborers.

Haunted Modernities explores how these women and other female workers have been remembered, reinterpreted, and mobilised in Taiwan’s changing public culture. By examining the competing proposals for renovating the tomb and the meanings attached to it, the book considers how gender, labour, memory, and heritage have been reshaped in postindustrial Taiwan. It argues that history and memory are not only about the past, but are continually reworked in response to the social and political needs of the present.

Image credit: Ands Mahardika via Unsplash.