The McGill Taiwan Week - Discovering Taiwan: Philosophy, Art, and Taiwanese Culture - was held from October 5 to 9, 2015. The event was jointly organized by the Department of East Asian Studies at McGill University, the McGill University Library, the East Asian Studies Students’ Association, and the McGill Taiwan Students’ Association, and generously sponsored by the Ministry of Culture’s Taiwan Academy Contact Points Spotlight Project through the Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada (TECO in Canada).

This year’s McGill Taiwan Week featured five activities: a book exhibition, two distinguished lectures by guest speakers from Taiwan, a film night screening of KANO, the Taiwanese Food Festival, and an art competition. Close to 500 people took part and the feedback from the participants, professors, and other attendees at the different events were mostly extremely positive. A collegial atmosphere prevailed during the week, and brought people together.

The goals of the McGill Taiwan Week event are: to promote Taiwanese culture on campus, to expand communication between scholars at McGill and those at universities in Taiwan, to introduce the culture of Taiwan and its philosophical and aesthetic perspectives to the McGill community, to provide our students there with an opportunity to develop their own interpretations of Taiwanese culture and further define the nature of their Taiwan identity. It also provides the organizing committee with useful event coordination experience which is sure to be useful their future endeavors in academia and other fields. The Taiwan Week was very successful from the practical logistics aspect, and especially in terms of the intellectual discussion generated.

The Taiwan Week activities help spread understanding of Taiwan and support the development of Taiwan Studies at McGill. The foundation for Faculty Excellence in Taiwan Studies was set up by McGill University in collaboration with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada (TECO) in 2012. It promotes excellence in teaching and research by post-doctoral scholars in the Taiwan Studies field in the Department of East Asian Studies.