Keynote Speakers
Meet the conference Keynote Speakers and learn more about them by clicking on their names for brief biographical profiles.
Martijn Manders Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University (LEI)
Martijn Manders obtained a Ph.D. in 2017 at Leiden University with his dissertation on underwater cultural heritage management in the Western Wadden Sea. Manders has worked in the field of maritime archaeology for over 30 years. Starting his career in Alphen aan den Rijn at the Department of Underwater Archaeology (AAO), he moved on to the Netherlands Institute for Maritime and Underwater Archaeology (NISA) in Lelystad before joining the Cultural Heritage Agency, where his professional activities traverse the intersection between policy and research. He has advised several countries and major institutions on management and research and is also a board member of the renowned International Committee on Underwater Cultural Heritage (ICOMOS-ICUCH). Policies, international conventions, assessing the significance but also shared heritage, cognitive landscapes and cultural diplomacy in maritime heritage management are amongst the subjects that he researches.
How Shipwrecks Still Connect Us: A Dutch Programme to Manage VOC Ships Around the Globe
In 1624, the Dutch established their presence on Formosa, the island of Taiwan. They managed to stay there until 1662, but constantly had to fight their place with local and Chinese opponents. The economic benefits, however – being so close to the Chinese mainland and strategically also well positioned for Japan – were worth the trouble. Taiwan is one of the many places the Dutch East India Company (VOC) settled for longer or shorter time. These places were connected by ships by trading from the Netherlands, but also through a network of interasiatic markets. Many ships wrecked and now tell us a story of interconnectivity, economic gain, hardship, struggle, violence, the building of the largest company in the world and even globalism. The history of the world lies for a large part on the seabed! This underwater cultural heritage has universal values, connects countries and people and therefore needs to be taken care of. In the Netherlands, we therefore have decided to create a program specifically dealing with Dutch shipwrecks overseas. Besides working together with the coastal states to manage these sites, we also use the wrecks as a starting point of cooperation to learn from each other. Of course, technically, we can show each other what we are capable of, but just as interesting is to learn from one another about how we view the world and historical events in which we were involved. These different angles are vital for the understanding of who we are. They give us insight into the good and the bad; they mirror our common views. They may even alter our vision of the past and who we are now. This presentation will give some insights into the international cooperation we have built that relates to VOC shipwrecks and collections. Examples of excavations will be given, what they told us, taught us, and how we have used the past for future cooperation and benefit.
Keywords: VOC, underwater cultural heritage, shipwrecks, globalism
Shunya Yoshimi (吉見俊哉) Department of Tourism and Social Construction, Kogakuin University
Shunya Yoshimi is Professor at Kokugakuin University, Emeritus Professor at University of Tokyo and Chairman of the University of Tokyo Press. He has been actively involved in urban studies and media studies from a performative approach, playing a central role in Japan’s cultural studies. He has a long history of teaching at the University of Tokyo and has held various positions such as Dean of the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, Director of Center for Research and Development of Higher Education, and Vice President at University of Tokyo. Currently, he serves as President of Japan Society for Digital Archive and Chairman of Tokyo Cultural Heritage Alliance. His major works include Dramaturgy of City (Koubundo), Politics of Exposition (Chuko-Shinsho), Capitalism of Voice (Kodansha), Pro-America/Anti-America (Iwanami-Shinsho), Post-Postwar Society (Iwanami Shimbun), Atoms for Dream (Chikuma-Shinsho), Out America (Kobundo), Geopolitics of the Visual City (Iwanami Shoten), Scales of History (Shueisha-Shinsho), Living in Trump’s America (Iwanami-Shinsho), After Cultural Studies (Seidosha), Olympics and Postwar Japan (Kawade Shobo Shinsha), Aerial Bombing (Iwanami Shoten), Tokyo as Loser (Chikuma Shobo), Good-bye Todai (Shueisha-Shinsho)etc.
America in Taiwan/Japan: Historical Reconsideration on 19th Century West Pacific
In the 19th century, East Asia became entangled in the global imperialistic power struggle of the West. As I. Wallerstein has pointed out, since the explosive expansion of the Age of Exploration that bound the world under Western dominance, the hegemony in the world system shifted from Spain to the Netherlands, then to the British Empire, and eventually to the United States. However, in the Pacific Rim region, from the Japanese archipelago to the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, the influence of Spain and the Netherlands persisted until the 19th century, with the United States eventually replacing them.
In other words, while Japan and Indonesia were closer to the Netherlands, the Philippines was closer to Spain, and Taiwan was closer to Qing China, by the end of the 19th century, American influence had expanded in the western Pacific. Japan, having experienced this influence through the “Black Ships,” eventually rose as a military empire in East Asia, invading Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and the islands of the South Pacific.
In this keynote address, while considering such a significant historical perspective, I would like to reassess what “America” meant for the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, and Taiwan from the 19th to the 20th century.
Keywords: World system, Pacific Rim, imperialism, America, Japan
Alexander Adelaar Asia Institute, University of Melbourne (UoM)
Dr. Alexander Adelaar is a Principal Fellow in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne and a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Asian Studies, Palacký University (Olomouc, Czech Republic. He obtained a PhD degree from Leiden in 1985. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities Australia and associated member of the Académie Malgache (Madagascar). His research is on the structure and history of Austronesian languages, with emphasis on varieties of Malay and the languages of Borneo, Madagascar and Taiwan. He is currently engaged in a study of the linguistic and migration history of Madagascar. Since his retirement from the University of Melbourne in 2009, Dr. Adelaar has been a research fellow at Institutes of Advanced Studies in Belgium (2010) and the Netherlands (2013-14), the National Museum of Ethnography in Osaka (2011), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (2014-15), the University of Cologne (2016, 2017, 2019), and Palacký University in Olomouc (2019-present). Dr. Adelaar is the author of Proto-Malayic. The reconstruction of its phonology and parts of its morphology and lexicon (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1992), Salako or Badameà. Sketch grammar, texts and lexicon of a Kanayatn dialect of West Borneo (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005) and Siraya. Retrieving the phonology, grammar and lexicon of a dormant Formosan language (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011). He is also one of two co-editors of The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar (London: Routledge, 2005) and of the Guide to the Malayo-Polynesian languages (Oxford University Press 2023).
Siraya: The Academic and Political Impact of a Dormant Language Over the Last Four Centuries
The Siraya were the Formosans who interacted most closely with the Dutch during the latter’s colonisation of western Taiwan (1627 to 1661). This paper gives an overview of the history of their language (also called Siraya) from the time of Dutch colonisation until the present. Although Siraya ceased to be spoken towards the end of the 19th century, it did have a considerable influence on ethnology and linguistics, which were burgeoning sciences at European universities and other learned institutes prior to the 20th century. The paper also relates how in the last two decades the Siraya people have been engaged in re-discovering their ethnic identity and revitalising their traditional language. It discusses the effects of these successful endeavours on Taiwanese politics, minority rights, and the awareness of an independent Formosan-related identity, which is growing.
Keywords: Siraya, language revitalization, minority rights, identity
