​In recent years, the East Asian democratic countries that established independent nations after World War II have all paid attention to islands/archipelagos. This has become a trend in interdisciplinary fields such as regional studies, East Asian studies, human geography, anthropology, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, and American studies. In 2019, a group of scholars, mainly from English-speaking East Asian/Southeast Asian island countries, gathered at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines to hold the first international symposium on Critical Island Studies. Currently, 12 universities in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries have jointly responded to establishing the Critical Island Studies Consortium (CISC). We understand that after World War II, these island countries faced a huge transformation in democracy and human rights after independence. Taiwan's excellent geographical location can bring together relevant scholars in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia to jointly develop a Northeast Asian/Southeast Asian humanistic perspective and reflect on the development of human rights and democracy in East Asia (including Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia) and its impact on literature and culture from the perspective of island/archipelagic critical research.