A Teaching Program for History, Culture, and Languages of Taiwan

We are grateful to have been granted another three years of support by the Taiwan Ministry of Education starting in 2022. 
Since spring 2019, the Taiwan Ministry of Education is generously supporting the project "A Teaching Program for History, Culture, and Languages of Taiwan", which is being conducted at the Faculty of East Asian Studies of Ruhr University Bochum. In this program, scholars from universities and research institutes in Taiwan are invited to teach courses on Taiwan's anthropology, social and economic history, linguistics, and languages at the Faculty of East Asian Studies of Ruhr University Bochum. The Research Unit for Taiwanese Culture and Literature coordinates the curriculum.

Taiwan is becoming a more and more attractive location for the BA and MA students of East Asian Studies. With a solid knowledge obtained in the courses of the Taiwan Studies Project at the Ruhr University, students will be able to accurately assess Taiwan's role in the East Asian macroregion and in the world. In this way, their skills for research and interaction in Taiwan will be enhanced and they will be able to make the most of their terms of study at Taiwanese Universities.

Project Insights

During the project, activities such as presentations of documentary films, public conversations and interviews with directors and film producers, panel discussions on the present situation of Taiwan’s cultural and political scene, will give a lively and up to date impression of Taiwanese reality. The teaching program on the history of Taiwan will offer important insights in historical backgrounds, the ethnic distribution and identity of Taiwan’s population, and the social economy of Taiwan. In addition, the Taiwanese language (Hoklo), a variety of the Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian, will be taught and explained in elementary courses. This is a unique didactic program that will enable students to better follow colloquial speech, and increasingly also media representations, in contemporary Taiwan. Finally, in the courses of the Taiwan Studies program, students will realize that Taiwan is not only Taipei. The seminar on the regional and local history of Taiwan in a socioeconomic perspective will allow them to understand the wide variety of patterns of agriculture, settlement, labour markets, and Taiwan’s early infrastructure.

For further information regarding current events please click here.

For our annual reports of the last years please scroll down.