Cultures of Memory in Asia

A collection of works by Asian scholars looking at different ways in which relatively recent traumas have been memorialized in their various countries, often while the traumas themselves are ongoing, or the memories of them contested. Memory studies typically focuses on the study of memorialization after traumatic incidents are overcome, in Asia, however, the past and the present remain closely intertwined. Between the legacies of the Japanese Empire, the respective suppressions by the Kuomintang and the People's Republic of China, and the ongoing protests in much of Southeast Asia against oppressive governments and laws, memorialization is occurring while the histories are still being contested. The contributors to this book are Asian scholars examining the memorializing of events in the countries of Asia, including China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, using local language sources. They look at a broad range of media of memorialization, encompassing statues, cemeteries, testimonial literature, and film among others. An insightful resource for scholars of memory and cultural studies, as well as those of twentieth and twenty-first century Asian history.

Chieh-Hsiang Wu is a Professor in the Department of Arts at the National Changhua University of Education in Taiwan. She is a former Chairperson of Taiwan's Association of Visual Arts and since 2021 she has serves as the Director of the Taiwan Association of Cultural Policy Studies.

Introduction. Struggling to Remember: Memory, Representation, and Contention 1. Cultural Memories of State Violence: A Comparative Study of Kwangju and Hiroshima 2. The Making of Tiananmen Square as a Realm of Contested Memories 3. From Dictator to Hero: Marcos, Heroes Cemeteries, and Sites of Cultural Memory 4. The Praxis of Memory: The Royal Statue of King Prajadhipok 5. Reshuffling History: From Mengkerang to Party, Image (Film) and it's Overflowing History/Time Index System 6. (Un-)Representability of History and Visualisation of Memory 7. Exorcising Memory through Cold Confessions? Testimonial Literature and the Problems of Ethics 8. The Politics and Promise of Memory: The White Terror in Taiwan as Example.