Detention (2019): Displacing Millennial, Nipponophiliac Taiwan’s Red Scare onto Mid-Century White Terror Part II

Written by Sheng-mei Ma. Part II of the article perceives Detention as a haunting of Taiwan’s White Terror, where Fang’s guilt, forbidden love, and suppressed memory recur through ghosts, banned texts, and images of facelessness and decapitation. Its hybrid cultural references reveal Taiwanese identity as historically layered, while headlessness symbolises political violence, erasure, and unresolved collective trauma.

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Detention (2019): Displacing Millennial, Nipponophiliac Taiwan’s Red Scare onto Mid-Century White Terror Part I

Written by Sheng-mei Ma. In Part I of the article, the author examines how the film Detention (2019), through a return to Taiwan’s White Terror, exposes unresolved tensions among Chineseness, Taiwaneseness, and Japanese colonial legacies. Through Fang’s mixed family, religious practices, and betrayal of the banned Study Group, the film links political repression with intimate conflicts of love, resentment, identity, and betrayal.

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LIBERTY SQUARE REVISITED: THE WILD LILY MOVEMENT AND TAIWAN’S DEMOCRATIC CRISIS

Written by Vasja Hafner. This article argues that the Wild Lily Movement not only created repertoires that have been repeatedly reused in subsequent movements, using occupation of public space as the primary way to articulate democratic legitimacy, but also helped create a structural gap in the constitutional architecture. The same protest repertoire is now being used to contest the institutional order.

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Beyond Exclusion: Countering Taiwan’s Identity Subordination in Non-State Institutions

Written by Nilufer Mistry Sheasby. This article examines how non-state institutions undermine Taiwan’s identity by mandating subordinating terminology in ostensibly apolitical settings. It argues that traditional diplomatic responses are insufficient and proposes a multi-faceted playbook: coordinating government and private actors to challenge naming decisions, mobilising stakeholder pressure, and mitigating harm when reversal remains impossible.

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A Taiwan School of Music? Rethinking Identity, Politics, and Aesthetics

Written by Min-Erh Wang. This article examines the conceptualisation of a “Taiwan School of Music” within contemporary musicology. Exploring the intersection of music, postcolonial agency, and identity, the author critiques state-driven cultural hegemony while advocating for a bottom-up, pluralistic framework. Using strategic essentialism, the project offers an open acoustic space to express Taiwan’s distinct democratic identity.

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