Paper: “Care as resistance and care as hope: ecocritical affect in Tawada Yōko’s The Emissary and Fernanda Trías’s Pink Slime”

I am happy to announce that my paper “Care as resistance and care as hope: ecocritical affect in Tawada Yōko’s The Emissary and Fernanda Trías’s Pink Slime“, published in Japan Forum’s special issue on decolonising Japanese fictions, is available:

This paper explores how representations of nonhegemonic politics of care intersect with environmental degradation to reimagine human-nature relationships. Through transpacific comparative analysis of Tawada Yōko’s Kentōshi (The Emissary) and Fernanda Trías’s Mugre rosa (Pink Slime), I argue for comparative literature between Japan and Latin America as a decolonial methodology for Japanese Studies. My goal is twofold. First, I examine to what extent we can approach alternative modes of care as a way to understand the ongoing call to transform our relationships with the environment caused by the climate emergency. Second, I will argue how understanding this production in ways that defy the boundaries of area and discipline strives to put into practice an approach to Japanese studies that is organically decolonial. By integrating methodologies from transpacific comparative literature, ecocriticism, and ecofeminism, this paper contributes to ongoing efforts to decolonise Japanese Studies through expanded geographic and methodological frameworks.