Welcome to the Taiwan Primary Sources project!
Taiwan Studies is a growing field, as more and more scholars across disciplines—history, literature, sociology, political science, anthropology, etc.—are paying attention to Taiwan on its terms. Scholars are increasingly aware of its significance as a case study for a broad range of topics, including modern East Asian histories and studies. A principal obstacle to teaching about Taiwan in much of the world is a dearth of accessible, English language primary sources, the absence of which makes it challenging to engage students with the details and textures of Taiwan’s long history. In the hope of encouraging more attention to the study of Taiwan in classrooms, we have launched this project to translate and collect a selection of sources on Modern Taiwan.
Contributors to this project are scholars from all over the world, and they have translated materials from their research and teaching. These translations have been sorted by chronology as well as broad categories of subject matter. What unites them is that they are primarily non-fictional, complementing the growing anthologies on Taiwanese literary studies. This is a living project: the current translations may contain some typos, and we are always interested in expanding the collection. We hope you will consider using these sources freely for your classes in East Asian histories and studies. And please feel free to contact us with any questions or contributions. Enjoy!
Wayne Soon (Vassar College) and Evan Dawley (Goucher College)
Primary Sources on Taiwan 