ASIAN 6677 - Ecocriticism and East Asia in Global Context

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

I. Yi.

This interdisciplinary seminar examines the relationship between literature and the environment in an East Asian and global context. We will explore key questions and approaches in the fields of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities as they relate to ecological change in Korea, China, and Japan. How does literature make environmental crises, their effects on sentient beings, and the earth itself more visible? In what ways does storytelling give voice to changing relationships between humans and the more-than-human world? We will consider the role that Asia, which houses over half of the world’s population, has to play in our current age of mass extinction often called the Anthropocene. We will examine how poets, novelists, filmmakers, artists, nonfiction writers, and critics in East Asia have responded creatively to environmental changes. The seminar also recognizes and centers the significant conceptual contributions Indigenous thinkers and perspectives have contributed to ecocriticism, a field which has historically given disproportionate attention to Western literatures and theoretical perspectives. We will engage in particular with Indigenous theories and stories from Asia and the Americas to inform our discussions of place-making and cultural traditions as they have transformed in response to displacement, urbanization, migration, and changing environments. (LL)

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