Shu-Mei Shi: Bridging Taiwan and the World through Sinophone Scholarship
As a Yushan Scholar at NTNU and a globally recognized leader in comparative literature, Professor Shu-mei Shi has worked since 2016 to deepen academic ties between Taiwan and the international scholarly community. A graduate of NTNU’s Department of English and now the Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Humanities at UCLA, she has returned to her alma mater as Honorary Chair Professor in the Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, with a vision to elevate Taiwan’s global academic presence through the advancement of Sinophone Studies, Taiwan Studies, and new directions in comparative literature.
“I think the greatest achievement of my academic life is creating the framework of Sinophone Studies,” she says. “It’s not simply nomenclature; it represents a worldview.”
Sinophone Studies doesn’t center on a single language or geographic region. Instead, it focuses on the multiplicity of Chinese-speaking communities worldwide: in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and beyond. For Shi, this field is not a reaction to traditional Chinese studies, but a broadening of perspective that reflects linguistic complexity, lived experience, and cultural specificity. “Taiwan has at least three Sinophone languages: Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and standard Mandarin. They're all distinct. That’s why we need a framework that can hold this kind of diversity.”
Shi has been instrumental in bringing this framework into mainstream academia. Despite early pushback from scholars invested in a monolithic, China-centric narrative, Sinophone Studies has steadily gained traction across Europe and North America. Today, it informs scholarship in comparative literature, history, sociology, and media studies. Columbia University’s recent publication of Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines: A Reader marks a new milestone, expanding the reach of the field into disciplines such as anthropology, music, and political science.
Since returning to her alma mater as a Yushan Scholar, Shi has been deepening her long-standing collaboration with NTNU, including her role in co-leading the NTNU–UCLA Taiwan Studies Initiative. Her work bridges comparative literature, Sinophone theory, and Taiwan Studies. In 2023, she taught a summer course on Sinophone Studies that brought together more than fifty participants from across Taiwan, including early-career faculty and graduate students from fields such as sociology, English, and Taiwanese literature.
For Shi, Taiwan’s academic strength lies in its complexity and in its distinct voice. “The term ‘Chinese’ as used globally tends to flatten difference. But the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan is different from that spoken in China, and it’s just one part of our linguistic ecosystem. To represent Taiwan accurately, we need more precise terms and broader frameworks.”
The motivation behind her work is not just academic—it is cultural and strategic. At a time when technology dominates public conversation, she argues that Taiwan’s strength lies in its content, and that it must create intellectual space internationally by asserting its art, literature, and ideas. “Technology is a medium. What gives it meaning is the content: the culture, the stories, the language,” she explains. “AI needs content, and content comes from human creativity. Without people, and without the humanities, there is no content. And Taiwan’s uniqueness lies precisely in this content.”
Shi also believes Taiwan needs to strategically position its scholarship within broader academic conversations, especially in the West, where Taiwan-related research often gets overshadowed by discussions of China or U.S. policy. “The global academic community pays limited attention to Taiwan unless it’s about semiconductors or geopolitics,” she notes. “But if you study Taiwan in comparison with other Sinophone regions like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, you expand the field and bring Taiwan into a broader conversation.”
That spirit of connection is evident in her ongoing work with NTNU. She’s currently helping plan an international conference on Comparative Island Studies, drawing connections between Taiwan and other archipelagos such as the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands. She’s also supporting new cross-university collaborations, inviting NTNU faculty to UCLA for exchanges, guest lectures, and research workshops. “It’s exciting,” she says. “These partnerships are building NTNU’s presence globally.”
And to students just starting out, she has straightforward advice. “Read widely and deeply,” she says. “Don’t chase trends. If you follow what excites you, what gives your life meaning, it won’t feel like a job. It will feel like your life.”
At the core of Shi Shu-Mei’s work is a belief in the agency of language and in the capacity of Taiwan’s rich intellectual and cultural landscape to shape international thought. Through careful scholarship and community building, she’s creating a framework that not only redefines how we think about language and identity, but how Taiwan can speak for itself on the world stage.