East Asian Symposium on Literature and Environment

CALL FOR PAPERS

ASIA IN ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSE

The global economic crisis descending upon the world since 2008 still shows no sign of abating, highlighting the tensions between economic growth and environmental concerns. Asia shines as a region that seems to be more effectively coping with the crisis, while the center of world economy perceptibly gravitates toward the East. How does (Asian) ecocriticism respond to this crisis? And how does the crisis impact and shape/reshape (Asian) ecocriticism? What implications, cultural, economic, literary or social, are to be adduced? We think it highly significant for Asian scholars of ecocriticism, as a community, to get together to share their views and opinions on the signs and symptoms of our times.

ASLE-Taiwan and Dayeh University cordially invite papers in Chinese or English on the following or related topics:

◎ Ecocritical readings of canonical literary (and other) texts from and

in Asia

◎ Ecocritical responses to environmental literature (and other texts)

from and in Asia

◎ Environmental pedagogy, or teaching literature and

language courses in ways which include, are influenced by,

and reflect local/Asian environmental knowledge and perspectives

◎ Responses to ecocriticism/ecocritical responses

◎ Trends in Asian ecocriticism

◎ Economy and ecocriticism

The symposium will be a one-day event held at Dayeh University in Yuanlin, central Taiwan. The campus is a 30-minute bus trip from Taichung’s High Speed Rail (HSR) station and a one-hour train trip by HSR to Taipei. Program events include the opening ceremony, keynote/invited speeches (to be announced), parallel panel sessions, a roundtable discussion, and a final banquet dinner, and perhaps a half-day local culture tour on Dec. 8.

Please submit an abstract (250 words maximum) and a brief bio (150 words maximum) toshiuhhuah.chou@gmail.com by July 1, 2012.

December 7, 2012

Host: ASLE-Taiwan

Co-hosts: Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University

        Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC), National Taiwan University

 

Proram

 

9:30–9:50 Opening Ceremony

Master of Ceremony: Hsiuhua Chou, Secretary General, ASLE-Taiwan; Assistant Professor,

National Chungshan University

Chair: Yaofu Lin, Professor Emeritus, National Taiwan University, Honorary President of

ASLE-Taiwan

Keynotes       

 

(1) 9:50 – 10:20

l   Robin Tsai, Professor and Chair of English, Tamkang University; President of ASLE-Taiwan

Topic: World Literature and Ecocriticism

Chair: Yanwing Leong, Chair, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan

University

Tea Break: 10: 20 – 10: 40

(2) 10:40-11:10

l   Simon Estok, Professor, Sungkyunkwan University

Won-Chung Kim, Professor, Sungkyunkwan University

Topic: Charting East Asian Ecocriticisms

Chair: Hsien-hao Liao, Executive Director, LTTC; Professor, Department of Foreign Languages

and Literatures, National Taiwan University

(3) 11:10-11:40

l   Masami-Raker Yuki, Professor, Kanazawa University, Vice President of ASLE-Japan

Topic: Post-Fukushima Literary Discourses on Food and Eating

Chair: Professor Yi-ping Liang, Professor, Department of English, National Normal University

Lunch: 11:40 – 1:00

1:00 – 2:30 Session (1)

Chair: Peter Huang, Professor, Department of English, Tamkang Unversity

Presenters:

1. Yalan Chang, Assistant Professor, Huafan University

Topic: Transcorporeal Ecofeminist Reading of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and Wang Shau-di’s Grandma and Her Ghosts 

2. Dong-hwan Lee, Lecturer, Gyeongin National University of Education

Topic: Animals in Man’s Nature: Reading Picture Books Through the Ecocritical Lens of Minhwa

3. Keiko Fujie, Professor, Ehime University

Topic: The first two prophetic environmental literary texts: Herman Melville’s “The Tartarus of Maids” and Rebecca Harding Davis’s “Life in the Iron Mills

4. Yingshan Chen

Topic: The Paradox of Ecology and Economy: from Spinoza’s Natural Materialism to Marx’s Historical Materialism

Session (2): 2:30 – 3:50

 

Chair: Hsiu-li Ruan, Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Chung-hsing

University

Presenters:

1. Chan-Je Wu, Professor, Sogang University

Topic: Phenomenon of ‘Sehando’ and the East Asian Ecological Identity

 

2. Shinji Iwamasa, Professor, Shirayuri College

Topic: Application of Zen’s Koan to Ecocriticism

 

3. Chingching Lee, Lecturer, Dayeh University,

Topic: Taiwanese Mountain Area as Place/Landscape Presented in Seediq Bale

Tea Break: 3:50 – 4:10

4:10 – 5:50 Roundtable: Networking East Asian Scholars of “Eco-mental” Discourse and Beyond

Chair: Yaofu Lin

East Asia, mainly China/Taiwan, Japan and Korea, is a sphere bonded/haunted by a stronger tie culturally, economically and perhaps even politically. This entanglement ought to force an awareness of a shared destiny as we attempt to cope with our ecological-enviromental (“ecomental”) problems and beyond. “Beyond” is, emphatically, not a mere tag but a central lexicon, a key word that brings into focus the open-endedness, the lack of closure, the “networkedness” of the web that is forever expanding, evolving, catching and incorporating us all. The roundtable will begin with one representative from each of the three ASLE associations and move “beyond” to involve all participants of this symposium, hoping to engage environmentally conscious East Asian scholars in a network of “ecomental” dialogue and “beyond.”

 

1. Yaofu Lin, Professor Emeritus, National Taiwan University, Honorary President of

ASLE-Taiwan

2. Doo-ho Shin, Professor, Samcheok National University, President of ASLE-Korea

3. Mayumi Toyosato, Associate Professor, Sapporo University, Secretary of ASLE-Japan

4. All participants

 

Closing Ceremony: 5:50-6:00

Robin Tsai, Professor and Chair of English, Tamkang University; President of ASLE-Taiwan

 

Banquet Diner: 6:30 – 8:00