2026 Resident Researcher Special Event [June Session] The Art of Literary 'Supplementing the Blank' in Places of Deletion, Prohibition, and Silence: Also Discussing the 'White' in Lai Hsiang-yin's (賴香吟) 'White Portrait' and Han Kang's 'White'

Between authoritarian history, prohibitive culture, and collective memory, what is often truly difficult to articulate is not just the violence itself, but also the parts that gradually become blank. This lecture will start from the White Terror, banned songs, and censorship systems to contemplate how history, in the process of translation, continuously experiences omissions, fractures, reorganization, and silence, and will propose the concept of "the art of literary supplementing the blank." The so-called supplementing the blank is not about refilling the gaps in history, but about making those parts that cannot be fully articulated still perceptible under the premise that the blank spaces remain. Through an understanding of relevant artistic cases and combining the writings about "white" in Taiwanese novelist Lai Hsiang-yin's (賴香吟) 'White Portrait' and Korean novelist Han Kang's 'White,' this talk will elaborate on how literature approaches trauma and how different creators face the blank spaces left behind after what can never be restored. Those blank spaces left behind may ultimately, in another fragmented form, continue to touch upon those things that are forever absent.

Resident Researcher Profile:
Lin Wen-shuang (林妏霜). Holds a Master's and Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Tsing Hua University. Has received the Lin Rong-san Literary Award for Fiction, the Ministry of Culture's Youth Creation Grant, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature's Taiwan Literary Research Grant, among others. Co-author of 'A Century of Birth: 1900-2000 Taiwan Literary Stories'; author of the short story collections 'Dubbing' and 'The Elephant in the Story,' and the essay collection 'Mitsushima Hikari Sleepless,' which was shortlisted for the 2022 Taiwan Literature Golden Classics Award.