%0 Thesis %A HUANG, YU-TING %D 2019 %T "Mainlander" as an Evolving Identity: A Study of Eight Works by Taiwan's Second-generation Mainlander Writers %U https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/thesis/_Mainlander_as_an_Evolving_Identity_A_Study_of_Eight_Works_by_Taiwan_s_Second-generation_Mainlander_Writers/8061896 %R 10.26180/5cc8f666e0961 %K Taiwan %K Mainlanders %K Identity %K Chineseness %K Memory %K Literature %X This thesis examines the “mainlander" identity articulated in eight literary works published in Taiwan from 1982 to 2011 by second-generation mainlander writers, whose parents are Chinese civil war migrants. Drawing upon theories of Sinophone studies and memory studies, it argues that while these works are focused on the themes of “China” and “Chineseness”, mainlander characters are presented as profoundly informed by their life in Taiwan and unable to settle into a “Chinese” or “Taiwanese” identity. It argues that the “mainlander" identity in these texts is distinguished by its cultural hybridity and emotional in-betweenness, which contests the existing homogeneous idea of “Chineseness”. %I Monash University