The volume offers comprehensive introduction to the rapidly expanding field of Chinese ecocriticism. Drawing on Taoist and Confucian traditions of ecological wisdom and engaging with contemporary environmental humanities, this volume explores how Chinese literature, art, film, and cultural practices respond to ecological challenges from antiquity to the Anthropocene.

Organized into three sections, the book examines classical Asian philosophy and its ecocritical applications, ecocritical readings of Chinese places and species, and contemporary environmental crises through cultural texts. Chapters address topics such as ecological aesthetics, Traditional Chinese Medicine ecocriticism, Confucian ecological thought in dialogue with Thoreau, Buddhist environmental ethics, and cinematic representations of urban ecology.

By foregrounding indigenous concepts such as tian ren he yi (the unity of heaven and humanity) and integrating global theoretical frameworks, the volume demonstrates how Chinese ecocriticism enriches debates on sustainability, multispecies coexistence, and environmental justice. It bridges Chinese and Western ecocritical discourses and offers new insights into ecological aesthetics, energy humanities, and cultural responses to planetary crises.

Essential reading for researchers and graduate students in ecocriticism, environmental humanities, Asian literature and film, and comparative cultural studies, this book provides a vital resource for understanding China’s ecological imagination and its role in shaping global environmental thought

Scott Slovic is one of the world’s most prominent ecocritics and has spent more than three decades teaching, lecturing, and conducting research throughout East Asia. He was the founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) in the mid-1990s and then served for twenty-five years as Editor-in-Chief of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. He has published thirty-two monographs, edited, and coedited books and is currently Senior Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Idaho, USA.

 Lifu Jiang is Professor of English Literature and Vice Dean of the College of Foreign Languages at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. He specializes in ecocriticism and environmental humanities. His current research focuses on the Anthropocene, Cli-fi, and Traditional Chinese Medicine Ecocriticism. He is the author of the monograph Animals and Imperialism: Postcolonial Animal Studies in English Literature and more than 60 papers in Chinese and English on various aspects of ecocriticism and environmental literature.