TAIOAN｜Taiwan Studies at National Cheng Kung University
NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY · TAIWAN STUDIES
TAIOAN is a digital public humanities publication of the Taiwan Studies program at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan. It brings together research, archaeology, archives, Indigenous histories, material culture, maritime exchange, and interdisciplinary perspectives to reconsider Taiwan in its local, regional, and global contexts.
WHY TAINAN? WHY TAIOAN?
Tainan is not simply a local setting for Taiwan Studies.
As a historically layered city shaped by Indigenous societies, migration, colonial encounters, maritime trade, religious traditions, material cultures, and successive political regimes, Tainan offers a distinctive point of departure for rethinking Taiwan. TAIOAN begins from the south, but moves beyond the local: from land to sea, from archives to archaeology, and from Taiwan to East Asia and the wider world.
VOL. 02
Vol. 02 approaches Taiwan through long-term archaeological perspectives, Siraya Indigenous memory, material culture, maritime exchange, and seventeenth-century East Asian networks. Together, these perspectives ask how Taiwan was formed through sustained interactions among land, people, objects, and the sea.
VOL. 01 · INAUGURAL ISSUE
The inaugural issue introduces Taiwan through Fort Zeelandia and the seventeenth-century world system, Siraya ancestral memory, archival and interdisciplinary research, and Taiwan's position within the East Asian maritime world.
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
Archaeology · Indigenous Histories · Archives · Literature · Migration
Material Culture · Maritime Asia · Local History · Public Humanities
Digital Humanities · Interdisciplinary and Transregional Taiwan Studies
TAIWAN STUDIES AT NCKU
The Taiwan Studies program at National Cheng Kung University brings together scholars across the humanities and social sciences to develop interdisciplinary, comparative, and transregional approaches to Taiwan. Based in Tainan, the program connects academic research with public humanities, fieldwork, cultural heritage, education, and international exchange.
We welcome dialogue and academic exchange with Taiwan Studies programs, research centers, scholars, and students worldwide. Through TAIOAN, we hope to create connections across disciplines and regions, and to open further conversations about Taiwan from southern Taiwan to the wider world.
RESEARCH · PUBLICATIONS · ACADEMIC EXCHANGE · INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION