There existed diversified, confused and incompatible viewpoints on revealing the history of Taiwan while different studies and researches were conducted. The consequence was diverse explanations upon this important period of Taiwan, from year 1949 to year 2000. A novel concept was developed to interpret and identify the discourses of Taiwanese nationalism through fine arts. This is a brand new approach in studying Taiwan¡¦s history and in correlating aesthetics to politics as well. This dissertation tried to demonstrate the relationship between political text and fine art text in order to identify history of Taiwan based on the discourse of nationalism. According to different periods of leadership and their discourses of nationalism, four stages were identified between 1949 and 2000. They were: Stage I (CKS ruling period, 1949-1975):¡¦ Overlap¡¦ and¡¦ backlash¡¦ between Anti-communism esthetics with Modernism Aesthetics ; Stage II (CJG ruling period, 1975-1988):¡¦Transition¡¦ and ¡¥conversion¡¦ between Modernism Aesthetics with Provincialism Aesthetics; Stage III (Early LTH ruling period, 1988-1996): ¡¥Delitescence¡¦ and ¡¥variation¡¦ between Provincialism Aesthetics with Localism Aesthetics; Stage IV (Late LTH ruling period, 1996-2000):¡¦Reconstruction¡¦ and ¡¥deepness¡¦ between Localism Aesthetics with Subjectivity Aesthetics. This research tried to bring back the hidden and/or forgotten memory by re-discovering and tracking down alternative pathways of text. History was re-described and rebuilt in order to establish the new identity of Taiwan. The contemporary core of Taiwan¡¦s politics lies in the discourse of nationalism, and the challenge of relating aesthetics to it through self-examination of history is huge. This research also provides a new approach to verify the difference between the political reality and what¡¦s in people¡¦s mindset. Employing aesthetics as an emotional or symbolic entity to express political issue is a strong statement of cultural hegemonies. The development of Taiwanese aesthetics started from a passive acceptation of post-colonialism to an active transformation of subjective new culture.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a chain of events hit Chinese society that led to the crisis of identity. Nationalism became a new ideology that substituted Marxism as a source of identity for both state and society. This paper aims at defining differences between nationalism at the level of state and popular society, demonstrating how these versions of nationalism interact in discourses and what the implications of these interaction are on the legitimity and position of the communist party.

Despite already thirty years after gaining independence, Ukraine is still having difficulties forming an integral and united national identity. The language issue in Ukraine is a vivid example of the problem Ukraine is confronting. Numerous efforts have been made with the aim to strengthen the role of the Ukrainian language, but the presence of the Russian language in Ukraine is still strong. Furthermore, the battle between these two languages often provokes huge public debates, and the debates do not revolve around the language use itself, but usually associate it with the wider debate of the Ukrainian common memory. Although much research has been devoted to analysing the narratives of relevant language laws, the discourses of Ukrainian politicians, or public opinions of the language issue and their links with people's political orientation, this thesis will focus on the discourses of media, an equally important site which represents and reproduces everyday nationalism. By adopting the methodology of critical discourse analysis, this work aims to uncover what are the common themes behind the everyday debate on the language issue in Ukrainian media and what are the typical mechanisms and strategies in the language use of media discourses to facilitate propagating their language ideologies. After a...