This is an introductory course on the development of Taiwanese film culture in relation to social trends/changes. This course is structured on the premise that social culture and film culture are two mirrors reflecting and corresponding to one another. In this course we begin with the modern period, especially the rise of Taiwan New Cinema movement of the 1980s, also a time of rapid and fundamental changes in Taiwanese socio-economy, socio-politics, and social culture. This course is expected to explore issues from ethnicity, gender, a search for new national consciousness, historical self-perception, and transnational migration. It is through this primary exploration that this course hopes to reach an understanding of how Taiwanese society as well as Taiwan's film culture have come to be the way they currently are. This course hopes to help us understand and reflect on Taiwanese social culture by not just watching but also “reading” Taiwanese films.

Davis, Darrell. and Yueh-yu Yeh. Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island. Columbia University Press, 2005.
Hong, Guo-Juin. Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Screen. Palgrave Macmillan: 2011.
Yip, June. Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary. Duke University Press, 2011.