“Ecological and Environmental Turns: (Re)mapping China’s Socioeconomic Landscape through
the Lens of Eco-cinema”
February 13th, at 3:30 PM. Via Zoom (Meeting ID: 849 3379 7202. Passcode: TWzCu4)
How might we redefine the relationship between nature and culture to go beyond binary
oppositions and anthropocentric perspectives? How can we establish interdisciplinary
crossings between environmental and cinema studies? How should we reconsider environmental
issues as transnational and global interactions? And to what extent can our research
and teaching in the humanities help to provide our students with the means to better
understand the alarming changes in the world around us?
In response to these questions, Ecological and Environmental Turns invites readers
to make turns away from an anthropocentric view of the world towards ecological-environmental
perspectives. To do so, the manuscript calls for pragmatic turns: specifically, to
the environment, the landscape, the material, and the animal world.
Dr. Shu-chin Tsui is Bowdoin Professor of Asian Studies and Cinema Studies at Bowdoin College. She is
the author of Eco-Environmental Turns: (Re)mapping China’s Sociocultural Landscape
through the Lens of Eco-cinema; Gendered Bodies: Toward a Women’s Visual Art in Contemporary
China; (En)gendering: Chinese Women’s Art in the Making (editor); Women Through the
Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema and extensive list of book
chapters and journal articles. Her research and teaching interests extend across interdisciplinary
fields, such as film studies, visual culture studies, and environmental documentaries.