Taipei City of Displacements

Winner of the Joseph Levenson Post-1900 Book Prize

This cultural study of public space examines the cityscape of Taipei, Taiwan, in rich descriptive prose. Contemplating a series of seemingly banal subjects―maps, public art, parks―Joseph Allen peels back layers of obscured history to reveal forces that caused cultural objects to be celebrated, despised, destroyed, or transformed as Taipei experienced successive regime changes and waves of displacement. In this thoughtful stroll through the city, we learn to look beyond surface ephemera, moving from the general to the particular to see sociocultural phenomena in their historical and contemporary contexts.

Joseph R. Allen is professor of Chinese literature and cultural studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and author of In the Voice of Others: Chinese Music Bureau Poetry and translator of Forbidden Games and Video Poems: The Poetry of Yang Mu and Lo Ch'ing.