Part 1: (Kuei-fen Chiu)
Issues for Chinese ecocinema studies
- Please pick one of the required readings and upload 1 question to I-learning
- Watch the “film for discussion” in the library and upload 1 question for discussion to I-learning.
- The 2 questions should be uploaded by 2PM on Friday
- Mid-term report of 2500 words on an eco-film of your choice. Report due on April 30.
Week 1 3/2 Topic: Introduction: issues for Chinese ecocinema studies
“Introduction: Revisiting the field of Chinese ecocinema,” in Sheldon H. Lu and Haomin Gong ds., Ecology and Chinese-Language Cinema (Routledge, 2019)
Watch Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from above
Week 2 3/9 Topic: “Definition and Theory: What is Ecocinema?”
Readings:
(1) Scott MacDonald , “The Ecocinema Experience,” in Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, and Sean Cubit teds., Ecocinema Theory and Practice, New York and London: Routledge, 2013, 17-42.
(2) David Ingram, “The Aesthetics and Ethics of Eco-film Criticism,” in Ecocinema Theory and Practice, 43-62.
(3) Christopher Hitt, “Toward an Ecological Sublime.” New Literary History 30.3: 603-620.
Film for discussion: Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from above (Chi Po-lin)
Week 3 3/16 Topic: “Ecodocumentary Making in Taiwan”
Readings:
(1) Kuei-fen Chiu, “Mapping Taiwanese Ecodocumentary Landscape: Politics of Aesthetics and Environmental Ethics in Taiwanese Ecodocumentaries ”
(2) Michael Hsiao, “Environmental Movements in Taiwan,” in Asia’s Environmental Movements: Comparative Perspectives. 1999, 31-54
(3) Robert Weller, “Discovering Nature,” in Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China and Taiwan, 2006.
Film for discussion: Nimbus
Week 4 3/23 Topic: “Indigenous culture and Taiwanese ecodumentaries”
Readings:
(1) Rachel Stein, “Disposable Bodies: Biocolonialism in the Constant Gardener and Dirty Pretty Things,” in Framing the World: Exploration in Ecocriticism and Film, 2010, 101-115.
(2) Caskey Russell, “Wild Madness: The Makah Whale Hunt and Its Aftermath,” in Postcolonial Green: Environmental Politics and World Narratives, 2010, 157-176.
Film for discussion: Mayaw Biho, “Children in Heaven.”
Week 5 3/30 no class
Week 6 4/6 Topic: “transnational ecocinema” (Kuei-fen Chiu)
Readings:
(1). Pietari Kaapa, “Transnational Approaches to Ecocinema: Charting an Expansive Field,” Tomy Gustafsson and Pietary Kaapa eds, Transnational Ecocinema: Film Culture in an Era of Ecological Transformation, 21-43.
Film for discussion: “Dolphons Etude: Taiwan’s Choice (dir. Chien Yu-chun,2013) Reef case.
Part II: (Huei-chu Chu)
Text Book: Eva Horn, Hannes Bergthaller. 2020. The Anthropocene: Key Issues for the Humanities. Routledge.
Class Structure
Students have to submit a question sheet with five questions about the pre-class readings when they come to the class. The class begins with an oral presentation by a student and then open to discussions.
Week 7 4/13 Ch.1 Introduction, Ch.12 Conclusion
Watch:奇蹟背後
Week 8 4/20 Ch.2 Definitions, Ch.3 Genealogies
Week 9 4/27 Ch.4 Nature and culture
Watch:噤聲三角
Keywords:
Week 10 5/4 environmental ethics (Kuei-fen Chiu)
(1) “environmental ethics”: Holmes Rolston III, “Feeding People versus Saving Nature?” in Environmental Ethics: an Anthology, 451-462.
(2) “environmental ethics” Holmes Rolston III “Value in Nature and the Nature of Value,
In Environmental Ethics: an Anthology, 143-153.
Week 11 5/11 Ch.5 The Anthropos
Watch: Kanakanavu 的守候
Week 12 5/18 Ch.6 Politics
Watch:沈沒之島
Week 13 5/25 Ch.7 Aesthetics
Week 14 6/1 Ch.8 Biopolitics, Ch.9 Energy
Watch:脫口罩找藍天
Week 15 6/8 Ch.10 Scales I: The planetary
Week 16 6/15 Ch.11 Scales II: Deep time
Watch: 刪海經
Week 17 6/22 Transnational Ecocinema on Nuclear Issues (Hui-Chu Chu)
Lynch, Lisa. “’We Don’t Wanna be Radiated’: Documentary Film and the Evolving Rhetoric of Nuclear Energy Activism.” American Literature 86.3 (September 2014).
Watch:原來我們不核
Week 18 6/29 End-Term paper discussion.
