Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

What can we learn from the concept and practice of environmental justice in China? Mainstream media in the U.S. often portray twenty-first-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 Tu-renscape, 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.

Dorothy Ko is Professor of History and Women’s Studies at the Barnard College of Columbia University (https://barnard.edu/profiles/dorothy-y-ko). 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.

For more information about the event visit the SONGS website.