About Me

I am a Taiwanese PhD student at Saint Louis University working on the history of the American Revolution, focusing on the political culture of New York Loyalism.

Almost every time when I go to a conference, I get the same questions: "Why do you study US history?" "Why do you choose to study the American Revolution?

Back when I was in Taiwan, most publications of U.S. history were translated from American books, and were about WWII and other more contemporary themes, probably because these topics were hot, and were more relevant to our current world. There were some books about the Revolution, the Constitution, and Civil War, but most of them were not very scholarly. When I was in college, we had one U.S. history professor in our department, just like there might be some Chinese or eastern history professor in history departments in U.S. Her research interest was mainly on Taiwan-American diplomatic relation, and later shifted to how American popular culture influenced modern China. In her U.S. history survey class, I read Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the first time, and wrote a paper to analyze this text as a primary source. Interestingly, this homework opened a door for me and later set up the basic tone of my research career so far. Later, I further broadened my knowledge of U.S. history when I served as her teaching assistant in U.S History and Films class.

My master thesis in Taiwan was on Edmund Burke's American policy. While I was writing my master's thesis, I figured out that I had less passion in British history, but I really wanted to know more about the other side of the Atlantic. So after I received my master's degree at National Taiwan University. I went to Utah State University to get another master's degree in US history. I am really grateful for USU giving me this opportunity to begin my American academic journey.

Some of you might know the ambiguous political situation between Taiwan and China. I am not trying to teach the history of Modern China right here. So for my purpose, let me just simply put it in this way: In Taiwan, there are two major political forces that support either an united China or an independent Taiwan. When I read the writings of Loyalists, and the debates between the Patriots and Loyalists, they immediately caught my eyes. I found a lot of similarities among the arguments of Loyalists and KMT in Taiwan, they both cared, or at least argued, more about social order, peace, trading interest, and regard themselves to be more genteel than the other group.  So these similarities caught my interest and got me to study Loyalists, the losers in the Revolution.

Am I trying to find a realistic political solution through historical research? Yes and no! No, I don't think I alone can find the solution to such a complex issue. But passion is among one of the most important motivations to academic research. Before we research, we have to care what we research on and recognize the significance of our research topic. My personal background made me see the significance of Loyalist studies. Academic scholars, who usually self-labelled as progressive, tend to focus on the more progressive agenda in human history, but relatively ignore the conservative side of history. Trying to understand the culture of Loyalism, or the culture of counterrevolution, is a good beginning to the understanding of the non-progressive in today's world. This world is not shaped by the progressive agenda alone, but by the interaction between the progressive and conservative. So, yes, I hope my research on the Loyalists will eventually contribute to a political solution to this troubled world in this age of polarization.