History of the Research Unit for Taiwanese Culture and Literature (TRU)

The late Professor Helmut Martin (1940‒1999) conceived of the Research Unit for Taiwanese Culture and Literature. The Research Unit was inaugurated in 2002 as a formal part of the Faculty of East Asian Studies. Dr. Christina Neder was its first director, and it was managed by Ines-Susanne Schilling M.A. The initial funding was granted by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange in Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.

TRU is a platform for scholarly exchange in the field. It houses one of the largest research libraries on the subject of Taiwanese culture and literature in Europe and continuously expands its cooperation with Taiwan experts and institutions specializing on Taiwan research. Its focus includes linguistic, historical, media-related, and political topics.

Subsequent directors have been Professor Raoul Findeisen (1958‒2017), Dr. Henning Klöter, and Dr. Rüdiger Breuer. Since 2015, Professor Christine Moll-Murata is the director of the Research Unit.

With the support of the Taiwan Ministry of Education, it is organizing a Teaching Program for History, Culture, and Languages of Taiwan for B.A. and M.A. students.

Since 2022, TRU is hosting the BMBF project "Taiwan als Pionier".

The previous activities and completed projects of TRU can be found in the TRU archive.