Ecocriticism in Taiwan

Identity, Environment, and the Arts

Scott Slovic editor Chia-ju Chang editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Lexington Books

Published:1st Jun '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Ecocriticism in Taiwan cover

Ecocriticism is a mode of interdisciplinary critical inquiry into the relationship between cultural production, society, and the environment. The field advocates for the more-than-human realm as well as for underprivileged human and non-human groups and their perspectives. Taiwan is one of the earliest centers for promoting ecocriticism outside the West and has continued to play a central role in shaping ecocriticism in East Asia. This is the first English anthology dedicated to the vibrant development of ecocriticism in Taiwan. It provides a window to Taiwan’s important contributions to international ecocriticism, especially an emerging “vernacular” trend in the field emphasizing the significance of local perspectives and styles, including non-western vocabularies, aesthetics, cosmologies, and political ideologies. Taiwan's unique history, geographic location, geology, and subtropical climate generate locale-specific, vernacular thinking about island ecology and environmental history, as well as global environmental issues such as climate change, dioxin pollution, species extinction, energy decisions, pollution, and environmental injustice. In hindsight, Taiwan's industrial modernization no longer appears as a success narrative among Asia's “Four Little Dragons,” but as a cautionary tale revealing the brute force entrepreneurial exploitation of the land and the people. In this light, this volume can be seen as a critical response to Taiwan's postcolonial, capitalist-industrial modernity, as manifested in the scholars’ readings of Taiwan's "mountain and river," ocean, animal, and aboriginal (non)fictional narratives, environmental documentaries, and art installations. This volume is endowed with a mixture of ecocosmopolitan and indigenous sensitivities. Though dominated by the Han Chinese ethnic group and its Confucian ideology, Taiwan is a place of complicated ethnic identities and affiliations. The succession of changing colonial and political regimes, made even more complex by the island’s sixteen aboriginal groups and several diasporic subcultures (South Asian immigrants, Western expatriates, and diverse immigrants from the Chinese mainland), has led to an ongoing quest for political and cultural identity. This complexity urges Taiwan-based ecoscholars to pay attention to the diasporic, comparative, and intercultural dimensions of local specificity, either based on their own diasporic experience or the cosmopolitan features of the Taiwanese texts they scrutinize. This cosmopolitan-vernacular dynamic is a key contribution Taiwan has to offer current ecocritical scholarship.

This timely volume provides a clue to understanding the outpourings of environmentalism.... With the landmark publication of this volume, the study of Taiwan’s environmental literature and arts has emerged as a legitimate research field. * The International Journal of Asian Studies *
Ecocriticism in Taiwan is a remarkable collection of fifteen essays that expertly introduce and rigorously analyze the longstanding commitment of Taiwanese artists, academics, and activists to confronting local and global ecological challenges. Captivating sections on the alternative strategies exhibited by Taiwan’s aboriginal societies, creative activism and environmental movements, and avant-garde art and posthumanist ecoasethetics draw long overdue attention to Taiwan’s cosmopolitan vernacularism and contribute significantly to promoting a transnational environmental consciousness. -- Karen Thornber, Harvard University
In the 1990s, Taiwan embraced, nurtured, and globally networked the field of ecocriticism.  In this long-awaited volume, Chang and Slovic bring the island’s most renowned ecocritical leaders together with fast-rising scholars to illustrate Taiwan’s significant and continuing contribution to the field. Among the thought-provoking topics and vexing issues discussed are Han Chinese poetry, Taiwanese aboriginal cultures and arts, women’s nature writing, food, deforestation, and documentary film.  Readers will discover why Taiwan is rightly recognized as one of the intellectual epicenters of ecocriticism. -- Joni Adamson, Professor, Environmental Humanities, Arizona State University, and co-editor, Keywords for Environmental Studies
Taiwan has long been a powerhouse of global ecocriticism, but the full depth and breadth of scholarly work on the island has never been available to Anglophone critics - until now. The editors’ term ‘cosmopolitan vernacular ecocriticism’ encapsulates the impressive range of relationships to place, land, nation, and planet articulated in this wonderfully illuminating collection. -- Greg Garrard, University of British Columbia Okanagan

ISBN: 9781498538275

Dimensions: 239mm x 162mm x 23mm

Weight: 522g

238 pages