Ecocriticism in Taiwan

Key words: sustainable development, globalization, environmental justice, environmental disasters This brief article provides an overview of the recently established chapter of ASLE-Taiwan, the result of efforts and contributions made by scholars from leading universities interested in environmental issues and specializing in ecocriticism and environmental literature for more than a decade. Worthy of my special mentioning is the contributions made by the English Department of Tamkang University, one of the leading institutions focusing on ecocriticism in its PhD program. Tamkang University has held four international conferences on ecocriticism since 2000. The fifth international conference is scheduled to be held in December 2010. Many world-renowned ecocritics have been invited to attend the conferences and their papers are published in the Tamkang Review. Moreover, I’ll introduce some of the prominent ecocritics in Taiwan and their achievements in ecocriticism. Finally, I’ll deal with the impact of globalization on Taiwan and the conflict between a sustainable economy and a market-oriented economy currently confronting Taiwan. Many eco-scholars call attention to the devastating effects of the long-time pursuit of a market economy on the environment and try to push for the adoption of sustainable development as an alternative. In the wake of the tragic disaster caused by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, environmental issues are being taken more seriously in the press and are more widely debated in Taiwanese society in general. Environmental justice thus is beginning to play a more important role in ecocriticism in Taiwan right now.   Palabras clave: desarrollo sostenible, globalización, justicia medioambiental, desastres medioambientales Este breve artículo proporciona una visión general del grupo de ASLE Taiwán creado recientemente, resultado de esfuerzos y contribuciones de investigadores de universidades punteras, interesados en cuestiones medioambientales y especializados en ecocrítica y literatura medioambiental desde hace mas de una década. Merecen mención especial las contribuciones del departamento de inglés de la Universidad de Tamkang, una de las instituciones punteras que centran sus programas de doctorado en la ecocrítica. La Universidad de Tamkang ha organizado cuatro congresos internacionales de ecocrítica desde el año 2000. El quinto congreso internacional tendrá lugar en diciembre del 2010. Se ha invitado a muchos ecocríticos reconocidos mundialmente a participar y sus ponencias se publicarán en el Tamkang Review. Además, presentaré a algunos de los ecocríticos más importantes en Taiwan y sus logros en ecocrítica. Finalmente, trataré del impacto de la globalización en Taiwán y del conflicto entre una economía sostenible y una economía de mercado que Taiwán está afrontando actualmente. Muchos eco investigadores están llamando la atención sobre los efectos devastadores de la extensa búsqueda de una economía de mercado como alternativa. Tras el trágico desastre causado por el tifón Morakot en 2009, las cuestiones medioambientales están siendo tomadas más en serio en la prensa y se están debatiendo más ampliamente en la sociedad taiwanesa en general. Así, la justicia medioambiental está comenzando a representar un papel más importante en la ecocrítica de Taiwán en estos momentos.&nbsp

Canon Formation in the Study of the Environment in China and Taiwan

In his article Canon Formation in the Study of the Environment in China and Taiwan Peter I-min Huang discusses how the canon of ecocriticism taught in English studies in China and Taiwan is becoming increasingly of a local perspective by scholars who publish in Mandarin, address environmental issues specific to Mainland China and Taiwan, and thus engage with ecocriticism based on local perspectives rather than Western ones. The study and teaching of English-language literature in China and Taiwan inevitably encounters charges of neocolonialism or other argumentation that it is being used in ways that betray the legacy of past colonialist and imperialist projects. However, a growing number of ecocritics, animal studies scholars, environmental justice scholars, and ecofeminists are resisting using English for the promotion of social and political equality and they call for a middle ground between both human and other-than-human interests, capacities, and creativities

Rediscovering Local Environmentalism in Taiwan

In his article Rediscovering Local Environmentalism in Taiwan Peter I-min Huang challenges the domination of the global and the marginalization of the local. Huang argues that by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century globalism seemed to have toppled localism in ecocriticism debates. Ecocritics embraced enthusiastically such concepts as Ursula K. Heise\u27s eco-cosmopolitanism and the arguments associated with it that spoke for global forms of environmental thinking and practice. Yet, arguments for the local persist in part because of Heise\u27s constructive criticisms of it. Focusing on local environmental movements in Taiwan, Huang identifies and discusses scholarly work showing that the local is a durable concept and practice and not likely to disappear despite the denunciation of it. Moreover, referring to other recent studies, Huang argues that the global environmental imagination is indebted to local environmental movements

An Optimal Algorithm for the Maximum-Density Segment Problem

We address a fundamental problem arising from analysis of biomolecular sequences. The input consists of two numbers $w_{\min}$ and $w_{\max}$ and a sequence $S$ of $n$ number pairs $(a_i,w_i)$ with $w_i>0$. Let {\em segment} $S(i,j)$ of $S$ be the consecutive subsequence of $S$ between indices $i$ and $j$. The {\em density} of $S(i,j)$ is $d(i,j)=(a_i+a_{i+1}+...+a_j)/(w_i+w_{i+1}+...+w_j)$. The {\em maximum-density segment problem} is to find a maximum-density segment over all segments $S(i,j)$ with $w_{\min}\leq w_i+w_{i+1}+...+w_j \leq w_{\max}$. The best previously known algorithm for the problem, due to Goldwasser, Kao, and Lu, runs in $O(n\log(w_{\max}-w_{\min}+1))$ time. In the present paper, we solve the problem in O(n) time. Our approach bypasses the complicated {\em right-skew decomposition}, introduced by Lin, Jiang, and Chao. As a result, our algorithm has the capability to process the input sequence in an online manner, which is an important feature for dealing with genome-scale sequences. Moreover, for a type of input sequences $S$ representable in $O(m)$ space, we show how to exploit the sparsity of $S$ and solve the maximum-density segment problem for $S$ in $O(m)$ time.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, an early version of this paper was presented at 11th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2003), Budapest, Hungary, September 15-20, 200

Effects of Line-tying on Magnetohydrodynamic Instabilities and Current Sheet Formation

An overview of some recent progress on magnetohydrodynamic stability and current sheet formation in a line-tied system is given. Key results on the linear stability of the ideal internal kink mode and resistive tearing mode are summarized. For nonlinear problems, a counterexample to the recent demonstration of current sheet formation by Low \emph{et al}. [B. C. Low and \AA. M. Janse, Astrophys. J. \textbf{696}, 821 (2009)] is presented, and the governing equations for quasi-static evolution of a boundary driven, line-tied magnetic field are derived. Some open questions and possible strategies to resolve them are discussed.Comment: To appear in Phys. Plasma