University of Helsinki
Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang (Associate Professor, Department of History, the University of Missouri-Columbia)
Venue: Room U3041, University of Helsinki Main Building
Time: Tuesday 26 September, 13:15-14:30
Population displacement is a recurring theme in human history. During the Cold War, mass exodus became a weapon in the rhetorical battle for the hearts and minds. Influenced by Cold War politics, in the 1950s, the UNHCR defined refugees narrowly as people displaced across “national borders.” Moreover, international bureaucracy back then cared more about European displacement than Asian and African displacement. As a result, the world knows very little about the experiences of ordinary people displaced by the Chinese Civil War and the ensuing Cold War in Asia. My talk will focus on three different cases of mainland exodus from China to Taiwan during the 1950s: Hong Kong, the Dachen Islands (Zhejiang, China), and Burma.
About the speaker
Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang is Associate Professor in Department of History, the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research and publications focus on the Chinese Civil War and Cold War refugees in twentieth century Taiwan. The work engages trauma theory, memory politics, diaspora studies, and transitional justice. His 2021 book The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan (Cambridge University Press) won the Memory Studies First Book Award. Dominic also received the University of Missouri Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Research and Creative Activity Award, the first junior historian receive this honor in the award’s twenty-year history at his university. His most recent publications include: “Putting Trauma on Display: The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park in New Taipei City,” in Tina Burrett and Jeff Kingston ed., Commemorating and Contesting Trauma in East Asia. New York: Routledge (forthcoming 2023); “To Remove, or Not to Remove, That is the Question: The Troubled Legacy of Chiang Kai-shek Statues and Memorials in Democratized Taiwan,” in Tomas Macsotay and Nausikaä El Mecki eds. Toppling Things, The Visuality, Space and Affect of Monument Removal. Leiden: Brill (forthcoming 2023).
If you have access to the University of Helsinki’s library, you can read Prof. Yang’s award-winning ebook The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan here.