Anru Lee, "Haunted Modernities: Gender, Memory, and Placemaking in Postindustrial Taiwan" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)
On the podcast today, I am joined by Professor Anru Lee, who is professor of anthropology at John Jay College, the City University of New York. Anru will be talking about her new book,\xa0Haunted Modernities: Gender, Memory and Placemaking in Postindustrial Taiwan,\xa0which was published just last year in 2023 by University of Hawai\u2019i Press.\nHaunted Modernities\xa0interrogates the nature of shared expressions of history, sentiment and memory as it investigates the role of the tragic death of twenty-five unwed women who drowned in a ferry accident on their way to work in factories in Taiwan\u2019s Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone. By exploring the ways in which the deceased young women were perceived to \u201chaunt\u201d the living and the diverse renovations recommended, Professor Anru Lee illuminates how women workers in Taiwan have been conceptualized in the last several decades. In their proposals to renovate a memorial tomb in honor of their death, the interested parties forged specific accounts of history, transforming the collective burial site according to varying definitions of \u201cheritage\u201d as Taiwan shifted to a postindustrial economy, where factory jobs were no longer the main source of employment. Their plans engaged with acts of remembering\u2014communal and individual\u2014to create new ways of understanding the present.\xa0Haunted Modernities\xa0is a beautiful piece of scholar work that elucidates how \u201chistory\u201d and \u201cmemory\u201d are not simply about the past but part of a forward-looking process that emerges from the social, political, and economic needs of the present, legitimized and validated through its associations with the past.\n\ufeffDr. Suvi Rautio\xa0is an anthropologist of China.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies