info@woodslane.com.au
Contact us on (02) 8445 2300
For all customer service and order enquiries

WOODSLANE

Popular Subjects

Woodslane Online Catalogues

9781666914351 Add to Cart Academic Inspection Copy

Environmental Narratives in the Huainanzi and the Anthropocene

Description
Author
Biography
Reviews
Google
Preview
Environmental Narratives in the Huainanzi and the Anthropocene analyzes the contemporary discourse of the Anthropocene using the Huainanzi ???, an eastern Eurasian text from the second century BCE. Written to preserve and strengthen the Han Empire (202 BCE-220 CE), the Huainanzi describes a mode of rulership premised on periodizing the present as the end of history that domesticates humans and non-humans. Matthew James Hamm provides a contextualized reading of the Huainanzi's argument and uses it as a theoretical lens to read Anthropocene scholarship in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Hamm argues that--irrespective of the name or historical narrative used to describe it--the idea of the Anthropocene as a new epoch not only lacks empirical evidence, but also empowers the existing periodization of modernity to provide ideological support for environmentally destructive neoliberal structures rooted in Western European imperial orders. By doing so, the Anthropocene framework actively inhibits the transformative social change needed to address global environmental crises such as climate change and mass extinction. Consequently, this book rejects periodization as a conceptual framework for addressing those issues and advocates for greater scholarly engagement with environmental theories outside the European and Anglo-American traditions, such as the Huainanzi.
Matthew Hamm is research associate for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia.
"Exploring parallels in early Chinese history, this study attempts to show how modern rhetoric concerning the 'Anthropocene' serves to reify existing social strategies and power structures, preventing us from formulating creative responses to existential ecological challenges. It also argues that a more holistic, early Chinese conception of human beings and nature world might be a valuable resource for helping us to rethink our relationship to both our planet and our own history. This is an important and timely book." --Edward Slingerland, Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, and author of Drunk, How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled our Way to Civilization, among others
Google Preview content