Literature grows out of a land and its people, recording how they lived and what they believed in each era of their history. Taiwan’s own story begins with the hunting and fishing life of its indigenous peoples, followed by centuries of Han migration and settlement. From there it passed through Dutch and Spanish colonial rule, the Kingdom of Tungning, Qing administration, Japanese colonial rule, and Republic of China rule after 1945, arriving at the economic prosperity and lively democracy that draw the world’s attention today. That long struggle—its hardships, its upheavals, and the refusal to give up—has been reflected in writing of every kind. In myths and legends passed down by word of mouth, and in written texts, literature has kept a faithful record of the multifaceted “Taiwan experience,” and of the blood, tears, and wisdom behind it. Whether the concern is passing Taiwan’s own culture on or engaging with the wider world, Taiwan literature is a cultural asset of enormous value. Over the past three or four centuries it has produced remarkable variety in both language and subject matter, along with one generation of gifted writers after another, and within world literature it stands as a system in its own right.

Established in August 2002, the Institute of Taiwan Literature at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) admits about 9 master’s students each year. A Ph.D. program was added in 2012, admitting 1 to 3 students a year, plus 1 to 2 students from China, from overseas Chinese communities, or from other countries. In 2006, in collaboration with other units within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), the Institute launched the “Graduate Program of Taiwan Studies for In-service Teachers.” The program gives high school teachers ways to bring Taiwan literature into their own classrooms while deepening their knowledge of the field. In 2010, the Institute also established the “Program in Literature and Creative Writing” under the Interdisciplinary Program of Humanities and Social Sciences, where theoretical and practical courses train students in creative writing and in applying it across disciplines. Our Institute is the only Taiwan literature program in the country to give equal weight to research, creative writing, and teacher education. Each semester the Institute co-hosts a graduate student conference with other universities in Taiwan. In 2012 it founded the “Taiwan Literature Research Association,” which brought scholars in Taiwan and abroad together to discuss the field and became the forerunner of the national “Association for Taiwan Literature” founded in 2016. In 2015, with funding from the novelists Wang Mo-Jen and Chou An-Yi, the Institute established the “Wang Mo-Jen and Chou An-Yi Literary Lectures,” a regular series devoted to creative writing and to bringing literature to a wider public. Since its founding, the Institute has held a major international conference every one or two years, bringing in scholars from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the United States, and beyond. Sustained dialogue at these meetings has built a working platform for cross-border collaboration. Faculty and students also make an academic visit abroad each year, to Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, and elsewhere, which keeps their work in contact with institutions overseas and opens up further opportunities for exchange.

The Institute offers a wide-ranging curriculum: Taiwanese Literary History, Classical Taiwanese Literature, Taiwanese Indigenous Literature, Taiwanese Literature under Japanese Colonial Rule, Colonialism and Literary Production, Comparative Colonial Literature, Post-War Taiwanese Literature, Modern Literature, Post-War Women’s Literature, Studies in Prose and Essays, Studies in Modern Poetry, Taiwanese Cinema, Taiwanese Drama and Theater, Cultural Studies Theory, Feminism and Gender Studies, Comparative Literary Theory and Research, Global Modernism, and ACG (Anime, Comics, Games) and New Media Studies.

Our graduates go on to a wide range of careers in academia, education, writing, and the cultural and creative industries: