Echopedia

North American Taiwan Studies Association NATSA (北美臺灣研究學會)

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North American Taiwan Studies Association NATSA (北美臺灣研究學會)

Identity Snapshot

  • English: North American Taiwan Studies Association NATSA
  • Chinese: 北美臺灣研究學會
  • Era: Contemporary
  • Geography: Taiwanese American community
  • Core roles: Community organization (TAH directory)

The North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA) is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in California, established and operated by overseas Taiwanese and North American Ph.D. students and recent graduates interested in studying Taiwan. NATSA organizes an annual conference that is the largest academic event on Taiwan Studies in North America, providing scholars and students with a regular forum for intellectual exchange. The organization addresses the marginalization of Taiwan Studies in American academia, where most East Asian departments focus primarily on Chinese, Japanese, or Korean Studies. NATSA views Taiwan not merely as an area of study but as a lens through which to deepen understanding of human societies and global conditions, particularly given Taiwan’s unique position as an intermediary region between Chinese, Japanese, American, and broader East and Southeast Asian influences.

Timeline (corpus-linked, deepen-x 2026-09-14)

  • c. 1994 — founded, implied by the 20th anniversary conference in 2014 (see CFP below).
  • 2011-06-17 — annual conference in Pittsburgh announced in the community press: |NATSA Pittsburgh conference record — evidence the annual-conference tradition was already running 13+ years before the 20th anniversary.
  • 2012 — the 18th annual North American Taiwan Studies Conference is recorded in the community press: |18th annual NATSA conference record (2012-06-09) — an independent count that pins the first conference to c. 1994/95, corroborating the c. 1994 founding implied by the 2014 20th-anniversary CFP.
  • 2013-01-04 — call for papers for the annual conference: |NATSA CFP 2013 record.
  • 2014-01-10 — call for papers for the 20th anniversary conference (already linked below).
  • 2014-10-12 — profiled in the TAH Foundation directory (already linked below).
  • 2024 — welcoming plenary session features memoirist Kim Liao on her book Where Every Ghost Has a Name and her grandfather Thomas Liao (Liao Wen-yi), per the community-press conversation record |“Where Every Ghost Has a Name”: Kim Liao in conversation with Cosette Wu — the conference platforming an independence-movement family memoir shows NATSA’s forum engaging directly with the movement’s own memory work.
  • 2025 — the annual conference is still a living forum for the movement’s younger scholars: a Taiwanese American memoirist cites it as formative, “what I learned at NATSA this year—to relate rather than compare” in |We Build Museums So We Can Someday Stop Building Cages — evidence the association shapes how the community frames transitional justice and memory today.

复核（deepen-x slice 09150500-17，2026-09-15）：全語料庫重掃（NATSA／北美臺灣研究學會）命中集合不變——TAH 目錄故事、works/index、及已引於 2025 條目之 memorial-park 散文；無新材料可吸收。

复核（deepen-x slice 09150600-7，2026-09-15）：SKIP-with-reason——重掃命中集合仍為 TAH 目錄故事 vault 頁、works/index、memorial-park 散文，三者均已吸收並連結於上；無新材料。

复核（deepen-x slice 09150700-3，2026-09-15）：SKIP-with-reason——重掃 NATSA 字面命中集合不變（TAH 目錄故事頁、works/index、memorial-park 散文，均已吸收）；中文詞僅命中與本會無關之書目頁，無新材料。

复核（deepen-x slice 09160109-1，2026-09-16）：重掃（North American Taiwan Studies）發現此前列未收之 2012 年第 18 次年會紀錄，已補入 Timeline（獨立印證首屆約 1994/95）；2013 CFP 頁 CFP 2013 與 2014 CFP NATSA2014 CFP 均已在 Timeline；其餘命中為已吸收頁，無其他新材料。

Sources

Vault Cross-References (absorbed 2026-09-14)

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