ICS Lecture: Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, "Exodus, Home, and Return: Diasporic Trauma and Memory Politics of the Chinese Civil War Exiles in Taiwan"

The Institute for Chinese Studies and Department of History present:

"Exodus, Home, and Return: Diasporic Trauma and Memory Politics of the Chinese Civil War Exiles in Taiwan"

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang
University of Missouri-Columbia 

Abstract: The legacy of the Chinese Civil War is very much alive, given the current tension between Taiwan and the PRC. But are the traumatic memories of the people that actually lived through this war still relevant today, and to whom? This talk breaks new ground in three established historiographies: (1) Chinese Civil War/Chinese Communist Revlution, (2) modern Chinese migration, and (3) Cold War Taiwan. More importantly, it offers impactful theoretical interventions in the larger interdisciplinary debates on the unfolding of collective social trauma and the trauma’s connection with shared memory production. Based on these discussions, the book suggests a method for reconciliation between emotionally divided memory communities, between those inside Taiwan, and of course, between Taiwan and China. In this talk, Dominic will reflect on the main arguments and theories of trauma and memory proposed by the book. The talk also invites the audience to reflect on people displaced by traumatic military conflicts or political suppression (such as the Hong Kong exodus) in our time.

Dr. Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang. Dr. Yang is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He specializes in Chinese Civil War trauma, memory politics, and identity formation, in particular ordinary people displaced to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in 1949. Dominic has published in leading journals of his field, such as China Perspectives, Taiwan Historical Research, Journal of Chinese Overseas, and Journal of Chinese History, and his book The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan won the Memory Studies Association First Book Award in 2020-2021.