CANCELLED People Unwanted by the Nation:The Politics of Mourning in Super Citizen Ko

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

CANCELLED

Li Shu-Chun

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Abstract

The works of film director Wan Jen, including The Taste of Apples (1983), Ah Fei (1984), Super Citizen Ko (1994), Connection by Fate (1998), and It Takes Two to Tango (2013), examine the political condition of Taiwan using political metaphors. This talk focuses on Super Citizen Ko, which explores the unmournable political suffering and the completion of its mourning. After the Kuomingtang retreated to Taiwan in 1949, Taiwan became trapped in the frame of the conflict between the “communists” and the “liberal democrats” in the Chinese Civil War, and the “patriots” were differentiated from suspected “communist spies.” The unmournable nature of political suffering and the search for mourning are discussed in two parts, namely “Unmournable Scene” and “Two Graves in the Heart: Grave-Seeking, Mourning, and Atonement.” First, the death and wounds of the people unwanted by the nation became unmournable. Second, the monologues, madness, and withering of political victims, along with their evasion of subjects and the erasure of the places of their memories by the nation, has further increased the difficulty of mourning. Third, the value of mourning lies in understanding the connection and interdependence between oneself and others. Super Citizen Ko grants meanings to mourning through the worshipping of the unmarked graves in Liuzhangli, the ashes of the victims’ families, and wounds of the second generation, stressing the inevitability of mourning in the process of relieving sadness. Political victims who have lost their lives can be remembered only if they are the subjects of mourning.

Speaker's Bio

BioAssociate Professor, Graduate Institute of Gender Studies, Kaohsiung Medical University
Ph.D. in Taiwan Literature, National Cheng Kung University
Specialty: Gender and Culture Study. Taiwan Culture and History.

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: hl55@soas.ac.uk