Canon Formation in the Study of the Environment in China and Taiwan

Abstract

In his article "Canon Formation in the Study of the Environment in China and Taiwan" Peter I-min Huang discusses how the canon of ecocriticism taught in English studies in China and Taiwan is becoming increasingly of a local perspective by scholars who publish in Mandarin, address environmental issues specific to Mainland China and Taiwan, and thus engage with ecocriticism based on local perspectives rather than Western ones. The study and teaching of English-language literature in China and Taiwan inevitably encounters charges of neocolonialism or other argumentation that it is being used in ways that betray the legacy of past colonialist and imperialist projects. However, a growing number of ecocritics, animal studies scholars, environmental justice scholars, and ecofeminists are resisting using English for the promotion of social and political equality and they call for a middle ground between both human and other-than-human interests, capacities, and creativities.