Chang / Slovic Ecocriticism in Taiwan

Identity, Environment, and the Arts
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4985-3828-2
Verlag: Lexington Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 238 Seiten

Reihe: Ecocritical Theory and Practice

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chang, Chia-ju

Slovic, Scott

Weitere Mitwirkende

Berthaller, Hannes

Brink, Dean Anthony

Chang, Kathryn Yalan

Chou, Shiuhhuah Serena

Chu, Hueichu

Huang, Hsinya

Huang, Peter I-min

Juan, Rose Hsui-li

Lee, Yu-lin

Liang, Iping

Ralph, Iris

Tsai, Robin Chen-hsing

Tsai, Shu-fen

Yang, Ming-tu

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction - Chia-ju Chang and Scott Slovic
Section One: Island Identities, Eco-postcolonial Historiography, and Alter(native) Strategies


Going Back into a Future of Simplicity: Taiwan Aborigines’ Sustainable Utilization of Natural resources - Ming-tu Yang
(W)ri(gh)ting Climate Change in Neqou Soqluman’s Work - Hsinya Huang
Taiwanese Mountain and River Literature from a Postcolonial Perspective - Peter I-min Huang
Taiwan Is A Whale: The Emerging Oneness of Dark Blue and Human Identity in Chia-Hsiang Wang’s Historical Fiction - Shu-fen Tsai
Agrarian Origin Stories, National Imaginaries, and the Ironies of Modern Environmentalism: On Chi-Po Lin’s Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above - Hannes Bergthaller

Section Two: Slow Violence, Creative Activism, and Environmental Movements


Toxic Objects, Slow Violence, and the Ethics of Trans-Corporeality in Chi Wen-Chang’s The Poisoned Sky - Robin Chen-hsing Tsai
Imagining the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and Spectacles of Environmental Disaster: Environmental Entanglement and Literary Engagement in Wu Ming-Yi’s The Man with the Compound Eyes - Rose Hsui-li Juan
If Nature Had a Voice: A Material-Oriented Environmental Reading of The Man with the Compound Eyes - Kathryn Yalan Chang
Imagining Catastrophe: Nuclear Issues in postwar Taiwan Literature - Hueichu Chu
Pre-texts for Tree-texts, W.S. Merwin and the Trees of Taiwan - Iris Ralph
Revisiting Resistance: Urban Foraging, Public Markets, and New Organic Landscape - Serena Shiuhhuah Chou

Section Three: Animal Fiction, Avant-garde Art, and Posthumanist Ecoaesthetics


What’s in a Plant?: The Transcorporeality in Yucca Invest Trading Plant - Iping Liang
Becoming-Animal: Liu Kexiang’s Writing Apprenticeship On Birds - Yu-lin Lee
Aesthetic Configurations and Qualia in Environmental Consciousness in Contemporary Taiwanese Poetry and Installation Art - Dean Anthony Brink
Utopia in Theatre: Mulian Rescues Mother Earth - Joy Shih-yi Huang

Über Autor(innen)

Chia-ju Chang is associate professor of Chinese at Brooklyn College, The City University of New York.

Scott Slovic is professor of literature and environment and chair of the English Department at the University of Idaho.