「解嚴以來……」、「戰後以來……」，這些流行於台灣社會人文學界的敘事起首語，徵候性地表達了當代學術界關於歷史與時間的意識與無意識，反映了這個時代的一個深刻矛盾：一方面「日本因素」遍佈於日常生活、心靈感受與政治經濟各個層面，另一方面卻又找不到足以與之匹配的學術與思想關注，以及更符合歷史真實的歷史意識。這是否意味了台灣當代知識界對於「台灣」的認識，存在著某種深刻的缺陷呢？

另一方面，已經成為「顯學」的台灣史研究，以我欠學的感受，似乎承擔了過於工具的、過於立即的民族國家打造的政治使命，從而接受了這個政治使命下的史觀，以及這個史觀背後的龐大知識系統。要以這個定型化的知識系統來面對包括台灣在內的東亞區域的複雜歷史與文化，應該是會讓求知者恆常面臨一種深刻的無力感；無法產生一種能讓人通情達理地、不削足適履地認識台灣的知識與常民感覺。台灣持續且加深的內在分裂，無言地說明了既存的只為自我確認的台灣史的失敗。

因此，「重新認識台灣」不只是一個政治問題，更也是一個知識問題。這學期的課程首先將重新認識的工作集中在那台灣與現代的首度深刻邂逅之時──即日本殖民時期。希望透過對於這段殖民歷程的回顧，重新找到認識當今台灣問題的某些被忽視或遺忘的契機。

然而，「日本殖民台灣」勢必不能只透過「台灣」的尺度格局來看，必需也要透過對「殖民」與「帝國」這樣的二十世紀現代構造的掌握進行，也必需對非西方國家或文明如何抵抗帝國與殖民的歷程有所掌握。因此，「重新認識台灣」 必然是一個區域史的、全球史的認識工作。在某種意義上說，沒有英法德美這些老牌帝國主義的殖民史的參照，我們可能也無法真正完全掌握日本的殖民與帝國構造，但這些工作留待以後吧。我們首先最可能有效掌握的還是東亞區域的歷史。如何將「重新認識台灣」的工作置放在一個東亞的區域內，並以這樣的區域視野和二十世紀全球史的視野結合起來，尋求思想出路，是本課程的一點企圖。

這是「重新認識台灣」一系列課程的第一門課。照目前的規劃，下一門課是關於日本殖民時期的「語言政策」、「文學」、「認同與心靈工程」等方面。

"Since the lifting of martial law..." and "Since the war..." are popular narrative prefaces in Taiwanese society and humanities circles. They symptomatically express the consciousness and unconsciousness of contemporary academic circles about history and time. They reflect a profound contradiction of this era: on the one hand, "Japanese factors" are present in every aspect of daily life, spiritual feelings, and political economy. On the other hand, there is no academic and ideological attention to match it, and a historical consciousness that is more consistent with historical reality. Does this mean that there are some profound flaws in Taiwan’s contemporary intellectual circles’ understanding of “Taiwan”?

On the other hand, the study of Taiwanese history, which has become an "explicit scholar", seems to me to have taken on the political mission of building a nation-state that is too instrumental and too immediate, to my unlearned feeling, and thus I have accepted the historical view under this political mission and the huge knowledge system behind this historical view. To use this stereotyped knowledge system to face the complex history and culture of East Asia, including Taiwan, should make knowledge seekers often face a deep sense of powerlessness; it is impossible to produce a kind of knowledge and ordinary people's feelings that can enable people to understand Taiwan in a reasonable and uncompromising way. Taiwan’s ongoing and deepening internal divisions silently illustrate the failure of the existing Taiwanese history that is only for self-confirmation.

Therefore, "re-understanding Taiwan" is not only a political issue, but also an intellectual issue. This semester’s course will first focus on re-understanding the time when Taiwan had its first profound encounter with modern times—the Japanese colonial period. I hope that by reviewing this period of colonial history, we can rediscover some overlooked or forgotten opportunities to understand today's Taiwan issues.

However, the "Japanese colonization of Taiwan" must not only be viewed through the scale of "Taiwan", but must also be understood through the understanding of twentieth-century modern structures such as "colonization" and "empire". It must also understand the process of how non-Western countries or civilizations resisted empire and colonization. Therefore, "re-understanding Taiwan" must be a work of understanding regional history and global history. In a sense, without reference to the colonial history of old imperialists such as Britain, France, Germany and the United States, we may not be able to fully grasp Japan’s colonial and imperial structure, but we will leave this work for the future. The first thing we can most effectively grasp is the history of East Asia. How to place the work of "reunderstanding Taiwan" within an East Asian region, and to combine this regional perspective with the perspective of global history in the twentieth century to find an ideological outlet is the attempt of this course.

This is the first course in a series of courses called "Re-Understanding Taiwan." According to the current plan, the next course will be about "language policy", "literature", "identity and spiritual engineering" during the Japanese colonial period.

依各週進度

According to the progress of each week