By Allie Highsmith

Professor Lev Nachman is a professor new to the International College of Innovation (ICI) and the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS). From the US originally, he received his PhD in Political Science from the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine), and his Master’s degree from Hopkins-Nanjing in International Studies. Prior to coming to NCCU, he was a visiting fellow at National Taiwan University (NTU) from 2020-2021 in Sociology and was the 2021 Hou Family Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Fairbank Center for China Studies. 

Some of Professor Nachman’s recent work focuses on political participation and protest, and survey work and political opinion. One article, “How China Divides the Left: Competing Transnational Left-Wing Alternative Media on Twitter” was co-authored with a political communications professor at NTU, Adrian Rauschfleisch, and another colleague, Brian Hioe, and it’s about how China as a political topic is talked about in leftist, anti-imperialist spaces, particularly in the US. Ultimately, they found that there was huge variation of how leftists talk about China online, challenging the assumption that all leftists are sympathetic to China. Another article, “A Red Flag for Participation: The Influence of Chinese Mainlandization on Political Behavior in Hong Kong,” was completed with colleagues from UC Irvine, Nathan Chan and John Mok. Together, the authors conducted three survey experiments in Hong Kong before, during, and after the 2019 anti-extradition protests. Professor Nachman and his colleagues believe they have some of the last data conducted before the national security law went into effect. Now, social scientists don’t really do much research in Hong Kong anymore because it’s unsafe and unethical to ask Hong Kongers the types of questions that most social scientists would be interested in studying. Finally “How are People Feeling in the Most Dangerous Place on Earth?” was also a survey project asking Taiwanese people about their perceptions of threats from China. Despite Western perception that Taiwanese people are overly apathetic about the reality of threats from China, actually Professor Nachman and his colleagues found that people in Taiwan have a pretty accurate understanding of what’s going on. 

Professor Nachman’s research is all about Taiwan, but why did he choose Taiwan? His uncle was a Chinese major in the 1970’s, at a time when he wasn’t able to go to China, so he came to Taiwan instead, where he met Professor Nachman’s aunt. When Professor Nachman was in college at University of Puget Sound, he took Mandarin 101 and ended up really liking it, then studied abroad in Taichung in 2012 at Tunghai University. During that time, he met friends who participated in the Sunflower Movement and his research agenda fell into his lap. The rest is history. 

Since this is Professor Nachman’s first year at NCCU, he’s only taught four classes so far. Last semester, he taught Introduction to Global Studies in ICI and Asia Pacific Regional Development in IDAS. This semester he’s teaching Political Sociology and Contemporary Foreign Policy of the Asia Pacific in IDAS. 

Looking forward, Professor Nachman wants to think more about transitional justice through a different lens than what’s been talked about most these days. One topic he is especially interested in is how authoritarian states conceptualize democracy during a transition to democracy, particularly as the KMT compares to eastern Europe and former Soviet states and how they write the history of their transition to democracy. He has two upcoming book projects, one of which, completed jointly with Johnathan Sullivan, a professor at the University in Nottingham, will be an introduction to Taiwanese politics for people who know nothing about it, coming out later this year.

When asked about his favorite part of his job, Professor Nachman explained that he loves being part of a scholarly community full-time, and the luxury of getting to ask big questions in an academic setting. There’s many people to talk about big questions with at the university, and Taiwan is one of the best places to be an academic because there’s no limit to the kinds of research you can do, especially as it pertains to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Professor Nachman cited a few junior scholars that have inspired his current work, like Wei-Ting Yen at Franklin & Marshall College and Kevin Wei Luo, who he met doing his postdoc at Harvard. Scholars like these have inspired and pushed Professor Nachman to be better at what he does. He feels that his cohort of new junior faculty has tried to create a supportive environment that pushes everyone to be their best selves. 

When he’s not working, Professor Nachman likes to reminisce on his former tenure as a music performance major in college by going to live music shows and supporting local artists in Taiwan. Additionally, he enjoys activism and politics and the connection that many activists have to the music scene in Taiwan. He loves Muzha and the Taipei Zoo, even holding office hours there once last semester. Outside of Taipei, he explained that he’s always had a soft spot for Taichung since he was able to study abroad there when he first became involved in Taiwanese politics. 

▲Taipei Zoo / Photo credit to Professor Lev Nachman

Professor Nachman speaks English and Mandarin fluently, but also has some experience with Japanese, Cantonese and Taiwanese. He actually started learning Japanese before Mandarin but found it harder to learn. He felt that it was important to him to learn some basic Cantonese due to the work he does in Hong Kong so that having some grasp of Cantonese is a level of respect even if all parties speak either English or Mandarin. Taiwanese has been a long road for Professor Nachman but, similarly to Cantonese, he finds that trying with Taiwanese is respectful and secondarily useful to his career studying Taiwanese politics. His advice: languages are hard and fluency is a spectrum. Try to be as immersed as possible. He cites his success in doing intensive language programs where there was only Mandarin being spoken.