Hsu Hsueh-chi

Hsu Hsueh-chi (Chinese: 許雪姬; born 1953) is a Taiwanese historian. She is a distinguished research fellow of the Academia Sinica and holds an adjunct professorship within National Taiwan Normal University's Graduate Institute of Taiwan History.^[1][2]

A native of Penghu County, Hsu earned a doctorate in history from National Taiwan University. She specializes in the 228 incident of 1947 and ensuing White Terror period.^[3][4] In 1991, the Executive Yuan convened a committee to investigate the 228 incident, and asked her to contribute.^[5][6] Hsu provided oral histories to what became the Research Report on the 228 Incident.^[7][8] Throughout her career, Hsu has asked for continued transparency regarding historical documents relating to the 228 incident.^[9] She was invited to discuss an upcoming exhibition at the 228 Memorial Museum that eventually opened to visitors in 2011.^[10] Hsu served as the director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History [zh] from 2005 to 2011, and was reappointed in 2017.^[11] While Hsu was director in 2011, the institute set up an exhibition titled "Her History in Taiwan," focusing on the role of women in Taiwan from 1795 to 1950.^[12] In 2014, Hsu lent support to a petition against revisions to high school history textbooks backed by the Ministry of Education, stating of the Ma Ying-jeou presidential administration, "They just do whatever they want. Their intention and anxiety to incorporate Taiwan into China is easy to see."^[13] The next year, she set up an exhibition titled "A Jail Beyond the Prison Walls" at Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, focusing on women and their family members jailed or executed during the White Terror.^[14] Hsu was nominated to serve on the Transitional Justice Commission in April 2018.^[3][15] In materials written for review by the Legislative Yuan, she opined that the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall should remain standing to serve as a reminder of past authoritarianism, with its statue of Chiang Kai-shek moved to the Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park, suggesting an arts library or human rights museum in its place.^[16] Hsu's nomination was approved in May 2018.^[17][18]

Hsu's book The Compilation of Historical Data from the Secrecy Bureau on the 228 Incident, meant to "unveil the truth" about the uprising, has not yet been released.^[19] Her completed work includes a biography of Chuang Shu-chi,^[20] a book about the March 2 incident [zh] in Chiayi,^[21] and the foreword to the 2015 edition of Lin Hsien-tang's Travel Writings from around the Globe.^[22]

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This page was last edited on 8 July 2023, at 13:55