The Literary Ecology of War: Moving Bodies, Technics, and Senses in Sinophone Literature (NeMLA)
Philadelphia
Organization: NeMLA
Event: NeMLA
This panel session critically examines literary representations of modern warfare, focusing on the mobilization of human and non-human bodies, technologies, and knowledge in the Sinophone context. Upon reflecting on how war pushes human technology and culture into new stages, and on how literature stands against or collaborates with war violence, this panel is grounded in modern warfare’s central role in reconfiguring technological systems of production and circulation and in restructuring the human sensorium of perceiving and experiencing. To forward a thorough understanding of the literary ecology of modern warfare, this panel takes literature as a heuristic tool to explore four issues resulted from war: the accelerated speed of life, the massive displacement of bodies, the excessive experience of sensory overload, and the uncanny intimacy between the human and the non-human.
This panel brings together multiple disciplines such as Asian literature, cultural history, STS, diasporic studies, and media studies. The interdisciplinarity of this panel strives to undo the violence of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism by examining literary texts, historical archives, and media contents. Presented as a collective intervention to understand humans, non- humans and their involuntary movements in war, this panel ultimately proclaims Sinophone literature as a fertile ground to reflect on the complexity of war and humanity since the lasting effect of war has never expired in Asia.
https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21120
Qi Hong