A Malaysian Ecocriticism Reader

“Grounded in the local, this collection also maintains a global outlook on biocultural precarities through interdisciplinary approaches. This timely publication offers a significant contribution to the environmental humanities of Southeast Asia and the Global South.” —John Charles Ryan, Southern Cross University, Australia This collection of essays brings together ecocritical interpretations of Malaysian texts – including fiction, nonfiction, and other media / cultural expressions. It includes original works by environmental activists as well as emerging and established scholars, who collectively analyse various aspects of Malaysian ecological discourse. The contributors address crucial – and often controversial – topics such as local ecological imaginations, wildlife conservation, overdevelopment, postcolonial ecological identities, biopolitics, nature and sexuality, nature and race, the commodification of nature, nature–culture embodiments and entanglements,human–animal relations, waste and materiality, human and other-than-human agency, toxicity and slow violence, self-representations as well as attitudes towards land, nativity and indigeneity, migrancy and diaspora. Readers will gain valuable insights into the ways in which environments and ecological relationships are mediated within this national space, while opening up room to theorise beyond its boundaries. Dr Agnes S. K. Yeow taught at the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, until her retirement. Her research areas encompassed topics related to the environmental humanities, including climate change literature, postcolonial ecocriticism and migrant ecologies. Wai Liang Tham has a background in English from his postgraduate studies at Universiti Malaya and is currently affiliated with the research department at New Naratif. His creative and nonfiction works have been published in NANG, PR&TA and the Southeast Asian Review of English.