Angol
The very existence of Taiwan is precarious. In the shadow of Chinese success, Taiwan has become increasingly marginalized with its democratic values, economic success, culture and national identity under constant threat of termination. The Last Isle looks at film, popular culture and contemporary life in Taiwan to explore the affective impact of its precarious existence in relation to China. Starting with Taiwanese New Cinema in the 1980s, a point where most Taiwan film scholarship ceases, it interrogates relatively unknown contemporary films to unravel recurring themes of melodrama, multilingualism and conflict-resolution to understand the marginalized position of Taiwan within global cinema. The second part of the book explores rituals everyday life to look at the consumption of western-style food and drink, rituals of death and the growth of an English education system in Taiwan before exploring the conflicted identity of the Taiwanese diaspora in American. The affective impact of Taiwan's geographical and political precarity acts as a lens for larger, global anxieties around the growth of China.
