Wednesday 10 April 24, 18.30 -20.00, SIN 1

This presentation underscores the significance of scrutinizing both secondary research data generating historical narratives and the nature of archival sources in making visible marginalized histories within dominant narratives. While both objectives are interconnected, the focus here is on the former rather than contextualizing the literary generic of the source material. The exploration of the 17th century Dutch colonial project in early modern Taiwan remains a vibrant area of research and extends beyond the realm of historians. Of interest is to see how the research output shapes the gender and race discourse within colonialism. Specifically, the presentation aims to understand the gendered nature of the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie/ Dutch East India Company) and its impact on postcolonial historiography in Taiwan. It examines the development of this gender narrative against the backdrop of Taiwan’s complex and multilayered colonial past, identifying ethnic components that have been concealed, silenced, biased, or overemphasized in the historically evolved constructions of social and cultural realities. To address these questions, an overview of themes in Dutch Formosa history (in English and Mandarin) relating to gender will be provided, with selected illustrations subjected to in-depth analysis. The concluding remarks will draw a renewed attention to how womankind feature in the Dutch colonial project and its civilizing mission in the Tayouan factory on Formosa.

Ann Heylen is Professor at the Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages
and Literature (TCLL) at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and currently serves as
the Director of the International Taiwan Studies Center, College of Liberal Arts at NTNU.
She holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies (Sinology) from Catholic University Leuven, Belgium.
She is editor-in-chief of the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture (EAJPC, Intellect). Her
publications cover the history and historiography of Taiwan, with special attention to Dutch
Formosa, the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945).