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Green Humanities | Outside The Matrix: Hai Fan’s Rainforest Eco-poetics



Event Date 10 Oct 2019 (Thu), 04:30 PM - 06:00 PM
Venue HSS Meeting Room 2
Organiser SoH Green Humanities cluster (Email : soh_comms@ntu.edu.sg )


Event Info

Delicious Hunger, a collection of short stories by Singapore writer Hai Fan, was selected as one of the top ten (Sinophone) books of the year by the influential Hong Kong-based magazine, Asia Weekly, in 2017. In this presentation, I discuss the “ecological” turn in Hai Fan’s writing, in particular his critique of the cultural “ecophobia” (Estok) which specifies the rainforest as an area of “darkness,” and as seen perhaps in the writings of Joseph Conrad. If, according to Weber, modernity is characterised by a “disenchantment” wrought by the increasing rationalization of social life, Hai Fan’s stories “re-enchant” nature by limning the rainforest as an area of light, joie de vivre, and mystery – all the better to foster environmental stewardship. Leaning on the work of Jason Moore, I argue that these aspects of Hai Fan’s writings elicit a critical utopianism that seeks transformed social relations. What underpins the project is an evolving eco-poetics which interweaves both aesthetic and extra-aesthetic considerations. 

Hai Fan (海凡) (b.1953) entered the rainforest in 1976 as a soldier for the Malayan Communist Party and spent the next thirteen years engaged in jungle warfare. He resumed civilian life in 1989 after the signing of the Hat Yai peace accord. 

Wai-chew Sim obtained his Ph.D. from Warwick University (UK). He has research interests in postcolonial studies. His recent work has appeared in Textual Practice, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, and Kritika Kultura.



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