Ec(h)oing across Borders: A Dialogue between Contemporary Environmental Literature and Ecocriticism in China and the Asian North American Context

Abstract

This Portfolio Project is a dialogue between Chinese and Asian North American contemporary environmental literature and ecocriticism. The cultural exchange between China and the West has a long history that has not always been smooth or reciprocal. I argue that Chinese ecocriticism develops in a more complicated way than that of the West partly because China is currently situated in pre-modern, modern and post-modern contexts simultaneously (Huang, “A Criticism” 31). Meanwhile, ecocriticism in North America has its own problems, including that voices of writers of Chinese descent are still very much in the background. There was a belated ecocritical interest of reading Asian North American literature, which partly results from the long-standing marginalization of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians due to racial discrimination. They also lacked agency in resisting complicit colonial decisions on the environment. This project aims to promote knowledge mobilization between East and West. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the Portfolio; Chapter 2 presents an overview of Chinese ecocriticism in the last ten years, in which I not only trace the development of Chinese ecocriticism but also address its significance and limitations. Chapter 3 shifts the focus from Chinese ecocriticism to Asian North American ecocriticism. My focus is on a few select texts of Asian North American environmental literature that discuss issues around food (in)security and the resilient power of ethnically and culturally specific food choices. This chapter is meant to build a foundation for more detailed and in-depth analysis of Chinese North American environmental texts as I demonstrate in Chapter 4, which discusses foraging as a form of transgression and resilience, and Chapter 5, which discusses access to clean water. This project aims to fill some of the critical gaps in the discussion of these two literary contexts and the dialogue between them in a speedy manner and to promote Sino-Western ecocritical exchanges.