CJRC Event: Forests, Waters, and Cities: Approaches to the Environment in Japan and Global Contexts [Saturday, March 9]
Saturday March 9, 2013 CJRC Hybrid Japan Innovation Lab Forests, Waters, and Cities: Approaches to the Environment in Japan and Global Contexts An interdisciplinary symposium on the humanities and the environment in Japan and global contexts Location: East Asian Seminar Room (110C), Doheny Memorial Library, USC Time: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Please RSVP by email to [email protected]
Description: As climate change, resource depletion, and the environment have moved from the margins to the forefront of our concerns in the twenty-first century, those of us engaged in the traditional humanities are increasingly compelled to rethink how we approach our various specializations and disciplines. Japan and China, the main focus of the symposium, present their own unique challenges. Often associated in the popular mind with ideas of living in harmony with nature, Japan and China also include some of the most engineered environments in the world. The symposium brings together scholars from across the humanities, including history, religion, and literature, in order to rethink established or traditional concepts and hopefully stimulate new approaches to talking about the environment in Japan, China, and their global contexts.
PANEL ONE (10:00am)
Writing the Borneo Rainforest: Eco-poetic Sinophone Modernism Brian Bernards, USC Taking a Lot of Shit: The Political Economy of Nightsoil in 20th Century Beijing Joshua Goldstein, USC Japan's post-3.11 Grassroots Sustainability Movement: Ecovillages and Transition Towns W. Puck Brecher, Washington State University-Pullman Discussant: Anne McKnight, UCLA PANEL TWO (1:00pm) The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities Ursula Heise, UCLA Karma, Mount Sumeru, Atoms, and Plants: 'Nature' in Buddhist Doctrine and its Environmental Implications Fabio Rambelli, UC-Santa Barbara Discussant: Haruo Shirane, Columbia University PANEL THREE (3:00pm) A New Satoyama Discourse: Reinvented Cultural Interactions with Forests and Mountains in Japan Masami Yuki, Kanazawa University The Power of Place: Religion, Science, and the Environment in the Thought and Activism of Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941) Clinton Godart, USC Weedy Places: Some Thoughts on the Imagination of Forests and Gardens in Japanese Literature David Bialock, USC Co-Sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the USC East Asian Studies Center
