CfP: Topical Section: New Perspectives on Maritime Taiwan

In recent years, international maritime history has witnessed a prolific expansion of scholarship. Nevertheless, reputable journals in Taiwan studies or maritime history have yet to produce a collection of research papers showcasing new research into Taiwan’s historical role in the global maritime world. This topical section of the International Journal of Taiwan Studies (IJTS) aims to fill this scholarly void by presenting some of the latest research about Maritime Taiwan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  As Taiwan’s economic and geopolitical powers have been increasingly felt in the region and worldwide, a glimpse into their historical and human connections shall be of interest to the global readership of area studies, maritime history, and, specifically, Taiwan studies.

Conventional maritime historiography often sees the island of Formosa from a top-down, national, and even nationalistic perspective. Too frequently, the history of Taiwan has been subsumed under the much more extensive literature of Qing China and the maritime history of China and later as part of the Japanese imperial history. Our collective contributions examine Maritime Taiwan from the much-needed local and bottom-up approach, offering alternative interpretations of the evolution of the island’s relations to the sea. Such an approach highlights the agency of the local officials, traders, villagers, cartographers, and hydrologists, whose voices were too often silenced in the national master narratives. Furthermore, this planned volume shall bring forth the special place of Taiwan in global maritime history—an island situated at the periphery of multiple empires but with critical political and commercial significance for the world.

This call invites authors to submit proposals for inclusion in a topical section dedicated to the theme of Maritime Taiwan, broadly conceived during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The publication is keen to include ideas and approaches that challenge the traditional views of Maritime Taiwan. For your reference, current inclusions are the following:

• The Royal Navy’s Survey of the Eastern Taiwan Coast after Mid-Nineteenth Century
• The Douglas Steamship Company and the “Opening” of Taiwan
• Nineteenth-Century Taiwan’s Efforts to Improve Maritime Salvage
• Jardine, Matheson & Co.’s Opium Receiving Ships in Nineteenth-Century Formosa
• British Knowledge of the Sea between Taiwan and the Philippines in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
• A Russian Admiral’s Circumnavigation and Qing’s Expansion to the Pacific Shore in the Nineteenth Century

The topical section will be dedicated to Dr. Li Peichen of Academia Sinica, who passed away shortly after attending the final conference related to this planned publication. Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a 150-word short author bio to this address for consideration of inclusion in the topical section: portcitiesconference@gmail.com

Deadlines:
By 15th July 2024: Submission of abstract to guest editors
By 15th September 2024: Invitation sent for manuscript submission
By 15th November 2024: Submit full papers online to the IJTS for double-blind peer review