Global Environmental Crisis, Literature, and Asia
Climate change, mass extinction of plant and animal species, and widespread pollution of sky, sea, and land make clear the extent to which humans have shaped global ecologies. This talk first overviews environmental concerns in Asia before turning to the work of creative writers from the Philippines, China, Korea, Japan, the United States, and Vietnam, exploring how literary works have grappled with East and Southeast Asian environmental crises from the local to the global.

Karen Thornber is Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, where she is also Victor and William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center and Chair of the Harvard Asia Center Council. Thornber is author of three major scholarly monographs – Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature (Harvard 2009); Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures (Michigan 2012); andGlobal Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care (Brill forthcoming 2019). Empire of Texts in Motion and Ecoambiguity both were the recipients of multiple international awards. Thornber is also an award-winning translator of Japanese poetry. Co-editor of a special issue of Literature and Medicine on World Literature and Health, a special issue ofHumanities on Global Indigeneities and Environment which was also published as a separate volume, and a volume on The Poetics of Aging in the Japanese Narrative Arts, Thornber has also published more than 70 articles on comparative and world literature, East Asian literatures and cultures, the literatures and cultures of the Indian Ocean Rim, diaspora, gender, indigeneities, postcolonialism, transculturation, trauma, and the environmental humanities and medical and health humanities. Current projects include a scholarly monograph on Gender, Leadership, and Asia; a textbook on Asian Feminisms; and a co-edited special issue of the journal World Literature on trans-Asian literatures and cultures.