Ecologizing Taiwan: Nature, Society, Culture–Call for Papers
Co-edited by David Wang and Andrea Bachner
The International Journal of Taiwan Studies, cosponsored by the European Association of Taiwan Studies and Academia Sinica, is a principal outlet for the dissemination of cutting-edge research on Taiwan. We are currently inviting submissions for a special issue titled Ecologizing Taiwan: Nature, Society, Culture.
This special issue proposes Taiwan as a point of departure to situate ecological thought and think beyond contemporary bio- and eco-politics. Extending the definition of ecology to encompass social relations and human subjectivity as well as environmental concerns, we propose to put all we do, think, and feel about Taiwan in the context of the whole to which we belong: the human, nonhuman, and post-human Sinosphere as well as the earth.
Current environmental and humanitarian crises have given rise to critiques of anthropocentric thinking that urge us to redirect our attention to nature, the environment, and the planet. But some of the ways of censuring our age as the Anthropocene might themselves fall into anthropomorphic, even anthropocentric patterns of thought. Hence, a critique of the Anthropocene needs to contextualize: to think from the ecological and culturally specific to the ecosystem of our planet and to humanity in general.
Taiwan has always been situated at the dynamic intersection of natural, historical, and humanistic ecologies. We invite contributions that might reflect on the “situatedness” of Taiwan with regard to the questions such as:
- indigeneity and the environment
- archipelagos as biotopoi
- the bio- and eco-politics of (different) colonialism(s) and neo-liberalism(s)
- rethinking cultural constellations as (or with the help of) ecological patterns
We seek papers of 6000-8000 words for the special issue. Please submit abstracts (200 words) for review by March 15, 2018. Papers are due on September 1, 2018.
Please contact Andrea Bachner <andreabachner@gmail.com> and
David Wang <dwang@fas.harvard.edu>