Global Politics on an Intimate Scale: Creating the Love Boat: Taiwan documentary

Associate Professor Valerie Soe

This is part of SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies Summer School Programme.

To register to attend please click HERE .

Abstract

Long before online dating, the government of Taiwan began the Taiwan Love Boat, a summer program that gets college-aged Taiwanese Americans closer to their history, their culture, and each other. Throughout its history the Love Boat has been a means of fostering international relations between Taiwan and the U.S. as well as a site for romance, friendship, and personal connections that transcended national borders, government policy, and cultural traditions. This documentary looks at the historical and cultural significance of the Love Boat through the eyes of its participants, their parents, and the program’s organizers, and how this strange and unique form of diplomacy has given young Taiwanese Americans a look at global politics on an intimate scale.

Bio

Valerie Soe is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Since 1986 her experimental videos, installations, and documentary films have won dozens of awards, grants, and commissions, and have exhibited around the world. Soe is the author of the blog beyondasiaphilia.com (recipient of a 2012 Art Writers’ Grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation).. Her latest film, Love Boat: Taiwan, is currently in production and has she has received a Fulbright Fellowship and a Taiwan Fellowship, as well as grants from San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Arts Commission, for the film’s production.

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: hn15@soas.ac.uk