Critical Arts: south-north cultural and media studies 

【Special Issue】Global thinking and regional acting: From eco-aesthetics to cultural discourses of the Asian natural environment

Guest editor

Goutam Karmakar, University of Hyderabad, India; Durban University of Technology, South Africa
GoutamK@dut.ac.za

CALL FOR PAPERS

With a common religious tradition (Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, etc.), the Asian countries share similar discourses on nature. For a long time, it has been thought that Asian cultures promoted the beauty and value of nature and affirmed the harmonious coexistence between the human and nonhuman worlds compared to the West. Nevertheless, considering the gravity of the ongoing climate crisis, these notions require reconsideration, particularly in an era characterized by anthropocentrism, capitalism, and developmental principles. Heiner Roetz (1984), Rhoads Murphey (2000), Mark Elvin (2004), and other scholars have recently pointed out that Eastern countries have a history of exploiting, abusing, and transforming nature with no less vehemence than that of Western countries, despite their discourses on ecophilia and biophilia. Over the past three decades, as economies have become increasingly interconnected internationally, developmental strategies have played an enormous role in widening the gap between the affluent and the impoverished, eroding traditional resources and knowledge systems, and compelling developing countries in Asia to embrace export-oriented industrialization (Griffin, 2003).

The structural adjustment projects of the IMF and the World Bank, which support investment-oriented developmental strategies, have a significant impact on many Asian cultures. These strategies, while benefiting local capitalists, bureaucrats, and international investors’ parent companies, also exacerbate severe transformations in the natural ecosystems. Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy (2021) have analyzed how Asian nations have developed diverse and distinctive strategies for engaging in an increasingly globalized economy.  In recent years, natural disasters and environmental crises have posed a serious threat to the social and political life of Asian countries. These crises include air pollution, biodiversity loss, and land/soil degradation in India; maritime pollution and climate change in Vietnam; severe air, land, and water pollution in China; and radioactive contamination and hot waves in Japan and Korea, among others. Countries in Asia are experiencing environmental injustices due to habitat loss, hydropower development, extractive industries, chemical agricultural activities, industrial pollution, radioactive contamination, and exposure to industrial risks. Furthermore, the unique nature of contemporary multilayered socio-political movements and notions of climate coloniality and neoliberal environmentalism has made the relationship among environmental policies, political economy, and ecological problems increasingly complex and impalpable.

These specific conditions necessitate separate and connected analyses of ecological issues that can shed light on diversified issues of climate crisis, grassroots activism, environmentalism of the marginalised communities, instances of (in)justice, politics, and policies surrounding these problems in Asian countries. Therefore, the special issue, “Global thinking and regional acting: from eco-aesthetics to cultural discourses of the Asian natural environment,” will focus on the transition from aesthetic expression to socio-cultural and political discourses in Asian countries through the popular cultural mediums (cinema, TV series, web series, and documentaries, among others), taking into account the unique characteristics of each regional culture. The issue will pose questions about the ambiguous and common eco-awareness of the public, which is continuously and profoundly affected by the distribution of power in societies.

Scholars recognized ecocriticism as an essential intellectual field as early as the 1990s, when they began studying “the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Glotfelty 1996, xviii). Today, ecocriticism has extended beyond literary analyses to include other forms of popular cultural texts, especially movies, media, and the visual arts. Moreover, audio-visual mediums, by incorporating environmental and cultural studies, render illustrations vivid and impactful, prompting viewers to contemplate the depicted issues. They also illuminate the intricacies of politics at local, regional, and national levels concerning environmental matters, thereby fostering education and cultivating environmentally conscious citizens. In the context of media explosion, neoliberalization, and multifaceted globalization in Asia, the need for a systematic and detailed analysis of diverse environmental concerns from the perspectives of culture and politics becomes even more imperative, necessitating the curation of this special issue.

Thus, this issue aims to bring together scholars around the globe who are working on Asian environmental issues from the perspective of cultural studies as well as the intricate relationship between creative and artistic pieces and ecological policies. The goal is to engage with recent discussions, scholarships, and theoretical developments on environmental humanities and cultural studies in Asia, particularly those pertaining to the relationship between global and Asian ecocriticism, environmentalism, and justice frameworks from diverse, borderless, and planetary perspectives. Therefore, this issue invites submissions on topics that include but are not limited to:

• Implementation of environmental policies using cultural tropes in pre-modern Asian societies
• Ecological issues in contemporary Asian cultural mediums and how they relate to current regional policies and social justice
• Ecological concerns in Asian culture raised in the context of neoliberalization and globalisation
• Ecological awareness and arguments in Asian cinema, within the context of the global media explosion
• Asian cultural studies as a way to foster optimism for ecological preservation efforts
• Cultural studies as a medium for environmental education in Asian countries
• Bioregionalism, Asian cinema, and Indigenous ecologies
• Database analysis on how Asian ecocinema and other mediums make an impact on the viewers
• Political economy, ecology, and analysis of policies through cultural tropes in Asia

About the Journal

Critical Arts is a peer-reviewed journal publishing 6 numbers annually, in the general fields of communication, cultural and media studies, art and digital culture and critical indigenous qualitative methodologies. Three of the six numbers are reserved for general issues and single submissions. Three are allocated to theme issues. Recent topics include ‘Brand China’, the ‘Ethnographic Turn in Art’, ‘African Cultural Studies’ and ‘Media and Empire’. Critical Arts seeks conceptual freshness, textured writing, and experiential analysis which draws readers into its articles, narrative themes and its theoretical explorations. 

Critical Arts encourages articles that can potentially influence the ways in which disciplines think about themselves. Our niche includes critical inter-hemispherical dialogues generated within South-North and East-West relationships. The Journal addresses how people, institutions and constituencies cope within, resist and engage this relational nexus. Early authors included Nobel Laureates JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer. Later, Stuart Hall, Richard Collins, Ntongela Masilela, Handel Wright, Hopeton Dunn, Kris Rutten and Njabulo Ndebele have featured amongst our authors. Critical Arts is subscribed to by over 13 000 university and other libraries in South Africa, Africa, the USA and Europe via Taylor & Francis and UNISA Press.

Submission Instructions

Proposals of 500 words (excluding bibliography) and a 100 word bionote should be sent to the Guest Editor, Goutam Karmakar (goutamkrmkr@gmail.com; GoutamK@dut.ac.za), no later than April 30, 2025. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the Guest Editor.

 IMPORTANT DATES

• Deadline for abstracts: April 30, 2025
• Notification of abstract acceptance: May 31, 2025
• Submission of full manuscripts: October 31, 2025

Articles should be no longer than between 7,500-8,000 words in length, inclusive of the abstract of 150 words, 6 keywords, references, figure captions, and footnotes. All completed articles must be initially emailed to the guest editor, and following their feedback, submitted to the journal’s online submission portal for external review. Please check “Instructions for authors” for further details: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rcrc20

Please be informed that, for this special issue, following acceptance, APFs of 450 ZAR per page (including VAT) will be applied to articles by authors affiliated to South African universities and institutions. Authors are not expected to pay the charges themselves but should approach their institutions to access available resources, or they may use their own research funds. The journal’s acceptance of contributions does not depend on the willingness of institutions or authors to pay. Authors who cannot access funding can apply for a waiver by emailing the journal’s editorial coordinator at criticalarts@ukzn.ac.za upon the paper’s acceptance.

As the issue focusses on cinemas, series, and documentaries on environmental issues in Asia, it will be highly appreciated if the potential contributors discuss their selections of cultural mediums to avoid repetition and highly discussed areas/issues, given that unnoticed and overlooked areas should be considered. Thus, if you have any notes of interest or would like to discuss the aims and scope of your proposed submission, please contact the guest editor via email before the submission of your abstract.

About the guest editor:

Goutam Karmakar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, School of Humanities of the University of Hyderabad, India. He is also an honorary research associate at the Faculty of Arts and Design, Durban University of Technology, South Africa.