Ecocriticism in East ASIAN

1. Presented by Wiwin Malinda
An Introduction to East Asian
Ecocriticism
Simon C. Estok
Critical Theory

2. - Profession at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul
- Widely recognized as having expanded the
definition of the term “Ecophobia” from its usage
in psychology to a broader set of applications in
the environmental Humanities.
- Taking the September 18, 1988 definition George
F. Will offered in a Chicago Sun-Times article
entitled “The Politic of Ecophobia” as “the fear
that the planet is increasingly inhospitable,”
- Current work on “Ecophobia and Covid-19”
explores how pandemics are environmental event
that are or can be a direct result of our dietary
habits.
SIMON C. ESTOK
http://simonestok.com/

3. Introduction
01
- ASLE-US ( the Taiwanese branch of the Association for
the Study of Literature and Environment) biennial
conference offered first real focus in English on East
ecocriticism. Growing consensus has to do less with
rejection of western environmental theory, ethic, and
approaches. What we choose not to translate is as much a
form of resistance as what we do.

4. - As a Canadian, it was hard for him not to notice what seemed a very
different culture south of the 49th parallel. American culture and scholarship
spread like Acacian in South Korea. One seems to lack the sense of humility
that I was accustomed to seeing in Canada.
- In 2008, he spoke about similarities between Canada and Korea as each
country looks in the enormous face of cultural power the United States
presents. These questions grew, both in me and in the communities where he
worked and visited. With this volume, we will make it easier from them to
listen.
- Volume includes 12 Original essays from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and
China. Mainstream ecocriticism has not given a lot of attention to voices
beyond the ken of Anglo-European intonations. This book modestly hopes to
contribute enormously to the developing area of ecocritical studies.
-The essay in this book work within an understanding that the history of
ecology is a history of relatively one-way flows.
-They organized the book according to the national contexts out of which the
contributors wrote: one each of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. There
are four section that constitute the core of the book; rather than diving in the
contents thematically, we have organized them thematically.

5. 3. Taiwanese
Section
1. Japanese
Section
Chapter 8, 9, 10
Chapter 2, 3, 4
4. Chinese Section
2. Korean
Section
MAIN CONCEPTS
Chapter 11, 12, 13
End with afterword in
Chpater 14
Chapter 5, 6, 7

6. Japanese
Section
01
Chapter 2
Mizu no oto no kioku (Remembering the Sound
of Water: Essays in Ecocriticism, 2010) by
Masami Yuki is a translation into English of an
essay originally written and published only in
Japanese. Yuki carefully rejects the Western
essay model in this chapter.
-Yuki shows that Morisaki employs the idea of
ecological identity as a theoretical framework
and examines his diasporic exploration of
language and identity. She argues that what we
call "ecological identity" does not simply concern
human relationship with the natural world but
should include more comprehensive issues of
self and others.

7. Japanese
Section
01
Chapter 3
Ishimure's major works include Paradise in the
Sea of Sorrow (1969), Story of Camellias (1976),
and Lake of Heaven (1996). Her distinctive
narrative methods are rooted in local traditions of
storytelling.
Chapter 4
-Kitaro Morita argues that Greta Gaard's 1997 paper "Toward a Queer
Ecofeminism" was long-awaited by ecofeminists interested in queer theories
and those interested in ecofeminist theories. Morita offers one of the only
examples of queer green theorizing yet to come out of East Asian ecocriticism.
-Morita confirms Gaard's observation that straight ecofeminism has often
lacked the variable of sexuality and that there is a need to dismantle dualisms.
Morita examines Hiromis Ito's 1991 poem "Matsuri [festival]" based on
"queering of the green" and shows the possibility of a utopia where women,
the nonhuman, and queers are muatually liberated.

8. Korean
Section
o2
Won-Chung Kim argues that ecocriticism has
been limited by predominantly Western
viewpoints on literature and environment. He
argues that it should be enlarged to a
multicultural and transnational discourse, which
considers not only Western viewpoints but also
elements about the non-Western world.
Shin argues that it is vital to understand the
economic, social, and political circumstances of
modern Korea as a kind of a dialectical struggle
between preservation and development. After
making a case for broadening ecocritical
visions, Shin examines the Cheonggyecheon
Restoration project and its discourses from the
perspectives of environmentally sustainable
urban development.
Chapter 5

9. Korean
Section
o2
Chan-Je Wu addresses the ecological
implications of the geopolitical division of the
Korean peninsula. She argues that literature
has produced discourses about the loss and
recovery of identity. One of the things Wu is
able to do is look at the growing importance of
digital media as they relate with environmental
ethics.
Chapter 7

10. Taiwan
Section
03 Peter I-min Huang compares indigenous American
writer Linda Hogan and Taiwanese writer Sheng Wu.
He argues that both writers are concerned about the
blurring between what is real and what is not. The
author argues that we need to have "a tangible sense
of connection to the material world".
Chapter 8

11. Taiwan
Section
03 Serena Chou examines the work of second-
generation Taiwanese nature writer Mingyi Wu. Much
of what Wu is about is balance in his A Fascination
with Butterflies and The Dao of Butterflies. Chou asks
whether Wu's conceptualization of the wild could be
understood as a concern for ecology.
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Yalan Chang argues that the famous Taiwanese novel
The Butcher's Wife (Shafu) can be read through an
ecofeminist lens. Chang shows how the intricate
relationships among sexism, misogyny, and ecophobia
are highlighted in Shafu. This analysis benefits and
opens up the spectrum of Taiwanese eco literature.

12. Chinese Section
The Chinese expression of ecological aesthetics has
displayed a significant understanding of the ecological-
systemic holism, Yang maintains. Yang argues for the
need for continued development of Chinese ecocriticism.
The theories that have developed reveal their influences,
both traditional Chinese and contemporary Western.
04
Chapter 11
Professor Lily Hong Chen argues that Yingsong Chen's
Shennongjia stories are actually proposing an
environmental ethic that leaves little room for human
privilege. Chen's concern for and representations of both
humans and animals confuse boundaries between human
and nonhuman in productive ways.
Chapter 12

13. Chinese Section
Xiangzhan Cheng argues that humanity must overcome
and transcend anthropocentric value standards and
human aesthetic preference. Ecological appreciation
revises and strengthens the relationship between
aesthetics and ethics in traditional aesthetics. The two
guiding principles of ecological value for ecological
aesthetic appreciation are biodiversity and ecological
balance.
04
Chapter 13

14. Chinese Section
-Harvard's Karen Thornber argues that ecocritic have
limited themselves almost exclusively to creative texts
written in Western languages. She argues that East
Asian and other non-Western literatures ultimately
cannot be examined in isolation. Examining these
networks will be an important part of our ecocritical, if not
literary future.
-Thornber's book is the first of its kind to offer original
essays from East Asian scholars speaking for
themselves to a Western constituency. In an age when
globalization is trumpeted so loudly, this kind of work is
profoundly important, he says. The active engagement in
the book with questions about sustainable development
speaks lucidly to concerns that promise only to grow
insistent.
04
Chapter 14 - Afterword

15. Literary ecology, like a plant, is a
science that studies the mutual
relationship between a plant and its
environment. Literature is a plant.
Literature is green grass.

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Resources:
- EAST ASIAN
ECOCRITICISM
By SIMON C ESTOK &
WONG-CHUNG KIM
- Metodologi Penelitan
Ekologi Sastra
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