Embodied Memories, Embedded Healing

Reviews / Votes

This is a superb book. In reconstructing the relationship between embodied memory and ecological consciousness in East Asian cultures, it also foregrounds the latest and exciting explorations of East Asian scholars in ecocriticism. With these contributions, this anthology will lead to a redrawing of the map of global ecological research. -- Xiao-Hua Wang, Shenzhen University Embodied Memories, Embedded Healing: New Ecological Perspectives from East Asia is an impressive collection of fifteen chapters. Collectively, it raises crucial questions concerning 'land-human affinity' and human responsibility in turbulent times of ecological crisis. Veering away from the notion of aesthetics as fetishized knowledge (e.g., Sino- and/or Cartesian ocularcentric aesthetics), this volume advocates for localized and embodied aesthetic responses as a basis for ethics, politics, and everyday cultural practices. It brings together a variety of disciplines-classical philosophy, critical animal/multispecies studies, green literary/cultural/ cinema studies, minority literary studies, and science and technology studies (STS) and Sci-Fi/Cli-fi-to cover a dazzling array of topics, including biotechnology, eco-displacement and endangered species, energy strategies, global capitalism and food industry, and land and cultural ruination, restoration, and preservation in East Asia. This book is a significant contribution to the field of East Asian ecocriticism! -- Chia-ju Chang, Brooklyn College-CUNY Ecological sensitivities in East Asia are experienced rather than conceptualized, and thus can be misleading. Presenting analytical interpretations on the viscerally and theoretically entangled ecological perspectives of East Asia, this collection offers common ground for ecocritical discussions from around the world. -- Yuki Masami, Aoyama Gakuin University In Embodied Memories, Embedded Healing: New Ecological Perspectives from East Asia, editor-contributors Xinmin Liu and Peter I-min Huang illuminate how the beliefs and practices of ancient East Asia are shaping twenty-first-century environmental consciousness. The collection features prominent scholars from around the world who offer new theoretical frameworks for ecological thinking and praxis. Readers are treated to cutting-edge research and eye-opening discussions spanning a wide variety of genres and media forms that cover a range of topics, from ancient animist beliefs to urban ecology, affect theory, and contemporary science fiction. Through various methods of analysis, each chapter makes substantial contributions to our understanding of global ecology, especially the relationship between human practices and nonhuman nature. This anthology is essential reading for anyone interested in healing the planet. -- DJ Lee, Washington State University When Hamlet rhapsodizes, "What a piece of work is a man!" it takes him only a moment to pivot from praise to disgust. His double-edged encomium to the civilized male human as the "measure of all things" offers a good starting point for consideration of this volume edited by Liu and Huang. Recalling the dilemma Einstein faced when his beautiful theory of energy led to invention of the atomic bomb, the many ways in which humankind has harmed nature are cataloged here. The Faustian bargain humans have pursued since the Industrial Revolution keeps coming back to haunt them, and now "the world is too much with us." This timely collection of dark ruminations on nature gathers 15 essays contributed by scholars of literature, media, philosophy, and geography from Asia and the US, all voicing their environmental concerns. Authors variously ponder, e.g., the origins of nature worship in Eastern philosophy or lay bare the decimation of the environment through "progress." The central theme of the collection is that homo sapiens is only part of nature and not its master. As framed by the editors, the essays illustrate that healing can begin only when human hubris can be swept aside to allow nature an opportunity to recover. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. * Choice Reviews *