Shortly after arriving at the University of Minnesota, Professor Joseph Allen dramatically expanded his field of research to include Taiwanese literature and culture. This move culminated in his book Taipei: City of Displacements, which this year was awarded the Levenson book prize--the most prestigious prize in modern Chinese studies.
In this book, Professor Allen traces Taiwanese colonial history through the Taipei cityscape and Taiwan's multiple periods of colonization. The Chair of the Levenson Prize committee remarked that the issues Professor Allen discusses in his book are "highly relevant to those of other postcolonial societies struggling to define their identity, as well as to other 'global cities' similarly experiencing radical physical transformations."
The presentation of the award took place at this year's Annual Meeting for the Association for Asian Studies, which is the largest Asian Studies conference in the world, and attended by thousands of scholars from the U.S., Asia, and Europe. This great achievement well represents the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Minnesota as a program supporting the most rigorous, current scholarship on Asia.
