Frederik Schmitz is funded for his research project on the role of emotions and sensory perceptions in memory infrastructures in Taiwan and which influence these have on parties' political support. His case study examines museums and restaurants as nostalgic memory sites run by supporters and members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). These memory sites enable visitors to take a performative part in a curated Taiwanese past and let it affect them through sensory perceptions. According to the research hypothesis, these memory infrastructures are used to gain political support through nostalgia.
This project is supervised by Jun-Prof Dr. Maximilian Mayer, who also supervises his dissertation "Feel the Party - Impacts of emotions on the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy.“