Southeast Asian Ecocriticism

Theories, Practices, Prospects

Edited by John Charles Ryan - Contributions by Tran Ngoc Hieu; Dang Thi Thai Ha; Richard Li; Li-Ru Lu; Wasinrat Nualsiri; Ignasi Ribó; Chitra Sankaran; Jeffrey Santa Ana; Thanya Sangkhaphanthanon; Jason Paolo R. Telles and Chaiyon Tongsukkaeng

Southeast Asian Ecocriticism presents a timely exploration of the rapidly expanding field of ecocriticism through its devotion to the writers, creators, theorists, traditions, concerns, and landscapes of Southeast Asian countries. While ecocritics have begun to turn their attention to East and South Asian contexts and, particularly, to Chinese and Indian cultural productions, less emphasis has been placed on the diverse environmental traditions of Southeast Asia. Building on recent scholarship in Asian ecocriticism, the book gives prominence to the range of theoretical models and practical approaches employed by scholars based within, and located outside of, the Southeast region.

Consisting of twelve chapters, Southeast Asian Ecocriticism includes contributions on the ecological prose, poetry, cinema, and music of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The authors emphasize the transnational exchanges of materials, technologies, texts, motifs, and ideas between Southeast Asian countries and Australia, England, Taiwan (Formosa), and the United States. From environmental hermeneutics, postcolonial studies, indigenous studies, and ecofeminism to critical plant studies, ecopoetics, and ecopedagogy, the edited collection embodies the dynamic breadth of interdisciplinary environmental scholarship today.

Southeast Asian Ecocriticism foregrounds the theories, practices, and prospects of ecocriticism in the region. The volume opens up new directions and reveals fresh possibilities not only for ecocritical scholarship in Southeast Asia but for a comparative environmental criticism that transcends political boundaries and national canons. The volume highlights the important role of literature in heightening awareness of ecological issues at local, regional, and global scales.

Lexington Books

Pages: 324 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-4597-6 • Hardback • November 2017 • $136.00 • (£105.00)

978-1-4985-4598-3 • eBook • November 2017 • $129.00 • (£99.00)

Series: Ecocritical Theory and Practice

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Nature, Literary Criticism / Critical Theory / Ecocritical Theory, Social Science / World / Asia, Literary Criticism / Asian / General

Southeast Asian Ecocriticism

Theories, Practices, Prospects

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Southeast Asian Ecocriticism presents a timely exploration of the rapidly expanding field of ecocriticism through its devotion to the writers, creators, theorists, traditions, concerns, and landscapes of Southeast Asian countries. While ecocritics have begun to turn their attention to East and South Asian contexts and, particularly, to Chinese and Indian cultural productions, less emphasis has been placed on the diverse environmental traditions of Southeast Asia. Building on recent scholarship in Asian ecocriticism, the book gives prominence to the range of theoretical models and practical approaches employed by scholars based within, and located outside of, the Southeast region.

Consisting of twelve chapters, Southeast Asian Ecocriticism includes contributions on the ecological prose, poetry, cinema, and music of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The authors emphasize the transnational exchanges of materials, technologies, texts, motifs, and ideas between Southeast Asian countries and Australia, England, Taiwan (Formosa), and the United States. From environmental hermeneutics, postcolonial studies, indigenous studies, and ecofeminism to critical plant studies, ecopoetics, and ecopedagogy, the edited collection embodies the dynamic breadth of interdisciplinary environmental scholarship today.

Southeast Asian Ecocriticism foregrounds the theories, practices, and prospects of ecocriticism in the region. The volume opens up new directions and reveals fresh possibilities not only for ecocritical scholarship in Southeast Asia but for a comparative environmental criticism that transcends political boundaries and national canons. The volume highlights the important role of literature in heightening awareness of ecological issues at local, regional, and global scales.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 324 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-4597-6 • Hardback • November 2017 • $136.00 • (£105.00)

978-1-4985-4598-3 • eBook • November 2017 • $129.00 • (£99.00)

Series: Ecocritical Theory and Practice

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Nature, Literary Criticism / Critical Theory / Ecocritical Theory, Social Science / World / Asia, Literary Criticism / Asian / General

Author

John Charles Ryan is postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Arts at the University of New England in Australia and honorary research fellow in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 An Introduction to Southeast Asian Ecocriticism
John Charles Ryan
Chapter 2 Ecocriticism, Hermeneutics, and the Vanishing Elephants of Thailand
Ignasi Ribó
Chapter 3 Filipino Ecological Imagination: Typhoon Yolanda, Climate Change, and Imperialism in Philippine Poetry and Prose
Jeffrey Santa Ana
Chapter 4 Imaging Indigenous Relationships With Nature: The Case of Igorot Music Videos
Jason Paolo R. Telles
Chapter 5 Terror, Narrative, and Ecology in Merlinda Bobis’s Novel Fish-Hair Woman
Chitra Sankaran
Chapter 6 Environmental Consciousness in the Ecopoetry of Angkarn Chanthatip: A Reading of “Sieng Sontana Jaak Panang Tham” from Hua Jai Hong Tee Ha (The Fifth Chamber of the Heart)
Chaiyon Tongsukkaeng
Chapter 7 Sense of Place and Nostalgia for Homeland in Rewat Phanphiphat’s Poetry
Thanya Sangkhaphanthanon
Chapter 8 From Padauk to Hyacinth: Literary Botany, the Agency of Plants, and the Contemporary Poetry of Myanmar
John Charles Ryan
Chapter 9 Listening to Nature, Rethinking the Past: A Reading of the Representations of Forests and Rivers in Post-war Vietnamese Narratives
Tran Ngoc Hieu and Dang Thi Thai Ha
Chapter 10 Sowing Seeds: Phytocriticism and the Botanical Dimensions of Indonesian Literature for Children and Young Adults
Richard Li and John Charles Ryan
Chapter 11 Transnational Paradigm: Teaching Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony in Thailand
Wasinrat Nualsiri
Chapter 12 Economics, Ecology, and Desire: Delineations of Formosa and Neighboring Southeast Asian Countries in Three Nineteenth-Century Travelers’ Natural Histories
Li-Ru Lu
Epilogue Ziggy Stardust and the Irrawaddy Dolphin: Prospects for a Transboundary Ecocriticism in Southeast Asia
John Charles Ryan

Reviews

This edited collection of essays is a crucial and exciting contribution to ecocritical scholarship for many reasons.... Certainly, this timely and important anthology facilitates critical debates around Southeast Asian environmental issues and highlights the creative and innovative work of both mainstream and minority writers and thinkers who might otherwise remain largely unknown to the rest of the world. While ecocritics lament the lacuna in Southeast Asia where world ecocritical studies is concerned, especially with the prominence of studies on Indian and East Asian literatures, this book successfully addresses and fills that gap, hence fulfilling one of Ryan’s primary goals..... The other contributions in the book encompass a wide scope of topics, tropes and genres, ranging from forests and rivers to travelogues and children or young adult literature, adding grist to the mill. This, along with the meticulous insertion of cross-references between chapters in the interest of coherence, adds to the book’s many merits. All in all, this considered and insightful book is a landmark in ecocriticism and will doubtless draw critical attention to the environmental realities of Southeast Asia.
— SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English

Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects is a welcome new addition to ecocritical (environmental criticism) scholarship, which has become a booming field but remains stubbornly focused on Western-language materials. Southeast Asia has been almost entirely neglected in the field, making this volume truly valuable.
— Karen Thornber, Harvard University