College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

What can we learn from the concept and practice of environmental justice in China? Mainstream media in the U.S. often portray 21st-century China as the land of polluted air, untamed waters and rapacious development. This is only half the picture. This presentation examines the works of Beijing-based landscape architect Kongjian Yu and his firm Turenscape, whose projects of “sponge cities” and concept of “anti-planning” are informed by centuries-long practices of farming, dwelling and siting (feng shui). Instead of the vision of man-against-nature prevalent in Euro-America, premodern Chinese lives were rooted in an entirely different ecology of humans-in-nature.

This event is organized by Imagining Climate Change and the Sustainable Online Network for Global Cultural Studies (SONGS). This webinar is part of the Online Fall 2020 Symposium entitled “Global-Cultural Environmental Justice—Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives.”

Speaker: Dorothy Ko

Dorothy Ko is Professor of History and Women’s Studies at the Barnard College of Columbia University . As a historian of early modern China, her research interests have included Literature, Visual and Material culture; Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Science and Technology; Eco-Art History. She is author of numerous books, including The Social Life Of Inkstones. Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China (2017); https://vimeo.com/372881205

Response by Anna Peterson, Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida.