Hartnett and Dodge publish essay celebrating Taiwan's Free Speech Hero

Published: Aug. 8, 2025 By

Based on six years of archival sleuthing, museum visits, and interviews with activists and former political prisoners, Drs. Stephen J. Hartnett and Patrick Shaou-Whea Dodge, from the Department of Communication, have published "'Choose the Good and Be Stubborn': Celebrating Nylon Cheng, Memory Activism, and the Fight for Democracy in Taiwan."

Published in the interdisciplinary Rhetoric & Public Affairs, the article chronicles how activists and memory workers have turned Nylon Cheng's 1989 self-immolation into a founding moment in the history of free speech in Taiwan and a touchstone for the nation's fight for democracy.

See the article at DOI 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.27.3.0093.