The Taiwan Studies Programme is delighted to announce that Thomas B. Gold, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley will be presenting in the 2016/17 series of Taiwan Studies lectures on “State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle 30 Years On”.

Speaker biography

Thomas B. Gold is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1981. He also served as Associate Dean of International and Area Studies and Chair of the Center for Chinese Studies at Berkeley. Tom got interested in China as an undergraduate at Oberlin College. After graduating he taught English at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He then received a Masters in Regional Studies-East Asia and a PhD in Sociology, both from Harvard University. In February 1979, while at Harvard he was a member of the first group of American exchange students to study in China, spending a year at Fudan University in Shanghai. Prof Gold’s research focuses on many aspects of the societies of East Asia, primarily Taiwan and mainland China. In the largest sense, he examines the process of the emergence of the increasingly empowered and autonomous individual and a private sphere in authoritarian societies. His book, State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle (1986) is a standard work in the field. He continues to research social change in Taiwan since the end of Martial Law in 1987.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception at 6.30pm. To register, please email Mandy Felton.