Establishment of Keijō Imperial University, Taihoku Imperial University, and Philosophy Courses

Keijō Imperial University was Japan's sixth imperial university and first imperial university to be built outside Japan proper. In 1928 Taipei Imperial University opened with two faculties, the faculty of literature and politics and the faculty of agriculture and science. In this paper I analyze modern Sinology at Keijō Imperial University in Seoul, Korea, and Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei, Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era. First I describe the mission, ideology, and roles of the first presidents of both imperial universities. Next I elucidate the characteristics that distinguish the organization of these imperial universities between 1872 and 1879 from other imperial universities. Finally, I discuss the professors who were in charge of courses on Chinese philosophy at both universities, including the structure of the courses and the human network involved. Using this approach of tracing the flow of modern academic knowledge of Chinese philosophy, I will follow the trends from the imperial universities of Japan to those of Korea and Taiwan.