Short Courses and Webinars

Presented by Liang-Yin Lin

During World War II, the United States advanced across the Pacific through a strategy commonly known as “island-hopping”. After 1945, many of these wartime footholds became part of a more permanent network of American military power in East Asia. As the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, and the global Cold War reshaped the region, Okinawa and Taiwan acquired new strategic importance. Okinawa remained under direct U.S. administration until 1972 and continues to host a highly concentrated and visible American base presence. These bases have transformed Okinawan land, everyday life, politics, and culture, while generating sustained protest and anti-base movements. Taiwan, by contrast, hosted American advisers, servicemen, facilities, and military operations without presenting itself publicly as a “base society.” Here, American power was more dispersed, politically managed, and often obscured in official narratives and later public memory.

By comparing Okinawa and Taiwan, this talk asks how military power becomes visible or invisible. It also explores how American servicemen’s bodies, movements, and everyday encounters carried U.S. power beyond the physical boundaries of military bases.

Presented by Hong-Bing Wang

Focusing on Taiwan’s Hehuan Mountain Dark-Sky Park, this presentation explores issues involving landscape, scientific knowledge, and Indigenous peoples. It will introduce and trace the historical development of the Hehuanshan region in Taiwan, including Japanese colonial rule, the authoritarian control exercised by the postwar KMT government, tourism development following the lifting of martial law, and the controversies that arose after the establishment of the Dark-Sky Park. 

Alongside this discussion, Hong-Bing will share their experience with facilitating a teaching activity in a university general education course. Based on Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT), using a teaching method called “Negotiation Theater.” Through role-playing, negotiation, and debate, students represent different actors, including Indigenous peoples, astronomy organizations, tourism operators, local governments, plants and animals, the starry sky, and universities. Participants will be guided through this method and how it might be applied in different educational settings along with guidance for teachers developing related curricula and lesson plans.

Presented by Hui-Hsin Kuo

Most people picture Taiwan through Taipei 101, cities, or night markets — but nearly 70% of the island is mountainous. This talk introduces Taiwan as a mountain island and explores how mountains shape its geography, Indigenous cultures, environmental history, and everyday life. Participants will explore how mountains shape settlement, mobility, and everyday life on the island. The ways in which Indigenous communities, environmental change, and state policies shape mountain landscapes. As well as how forests, trails, and peaks shape ideas of nature, identity, and belonging.

Hui-Hsin will guide teachers through a discussion of how to connect this webinar to their classroom and students through a discussion on teaching island geography through maps, landscape, and spatial storytelling. This discussion will include a case study on human-nature relationships in Taiwan and a classroom activity focused on landscape observation through photography and visual journaling.

Presented by Ying-Hsuan Ting

Taiwan’s cacao industry offers a compelling example of rural transformation and agricultural diversification. This presentation explores how Taiwanese agriculture shifted from production-oriented farming to value-added and multifunctional rural development. Although Taiwan is not traditionally known as a cacao-producing region, farmers in Pingtung have developed a distinctive tree-to-bar model that combines cultivation, fermentation, processing, and chocolate making within the same local production chain. This shift emerged in part from the decline of older crops such as betel nut, and it reflects broader changes in Taiwanese agriculture toward higher value-added production, place-based branding, and rural revitalization. 

Pingtung cacao has also gained international attention through award-winning chocolates and innovative farming practices. As a result, this is not only a story about cocoa, but also about how Taiwan’s rural communities adapt, create value, and connect local agriculture to global markets.