本文的分析臺灣一九七○年代對日據時期臺灣新文學的重新探索與公共領域中抗日集體記憶建構的關係，指出當時在回歸鄉土文化潮流中對日據時期臺灣新文學的熱烈回顧，主要是由戰後成長或出生的年輕世代成員所進行的。這些戰後世代成員憑藉一個中國民族主義的集體經驗敘事模式，將這一段文學的往事「民族化」為在臺灣的中國人抗日的民族傳統。當時戰後世代在政治社會情境變動中重新建構日據下臺灣新文學的集體記憶，藉著探索過去以尋求當前與未來意識和行動的指引，其集體自我與集體過去的建構是相互辯證的。這種集體記憶重構的社會政治行動意涵，則是體制內改良主義的，相應於這個時期戰後世代的社會政治變革主張。對本省籍戰後世代成員而言，這種集體記憶的重構，目的在使本省人的過去及其中國性在公共對郴域獲得確認，進而使本省人的舒民身份被充分承認，獲得平等的公民權與政治權。本文最後也指出，反省們我與自我對歷史的理解如何受到特定主體位置的影響，是恰當地理解過去的必要條件。

This paper analyses how during the 1970s Taiwan’s postwar generation rediscovered Taiwanese literature written during the Japanese colonial period and how that literature represented a form of anti-Japanese resistance. I argue that the postwar generation drew upon a Chinese nationalist narrative of history to “nationalize” the island’s colonial literary past so as to claim affinity with a Chinese nationalist discourse of anti-Japanese resistance. The exploration of the past helped this generation to make sense of the dramatic sociopolitical changes affecting Taiwan in the 1970s and, in turn, to form a sense of their collective self. The dialectical relationship between collective memory and the present, however, was also infused with contemporary political meaning. I reveal how the construction of the collective memory carried politically reformist implications that reflected the postwar generation’s social and political activism during the 1970s. For members of that generation who were born in Taiwan and whose parents suffered under Japanese colonialism, the rediscovery of their colonial literary past as a form of anti-Japanese resistance constituted a political claim to “Chineseness” and therefore a demand that Taiwanese were equally full citizens of the Chinese state. This case study suggests that although such a form of subjectivity based upon the nationalization of collective memory might serve to advance immediate political goals, ultimately it constitutes a barrier to understanding Taiwan’s past and thus to enlightenment.