【6月8日】Capitalism’s Corporal/Corporate Waste: Documentary Redemption and Hope
“英华人文系列讲座”第104讲
讲座题目：Capitalism’s Corporal/Corporate Waste: Documentary Redemption and Hope
主讲人：Chia-ju Chang
主持人：陈琦
时间：2017年6月8日（周四）14：00-16：00
地点：虹口校区会议中心英伦厅
主办单位：英语学院
内容提要：
Whether today’s modern societies are capitalist,socialism (or capitalism) with Chinese characteristics, non-human animals in these societies are victims of the current unbridled process of the global market economy. Animals become caught up in the eternal loop of production, consumption, and post-consumption - a journey as capital, garbage, or anything else except as sentient beings with affective capacities. One way to look at the emerging field of animal humanities is not only as a discursive engagement to reassess the human-animal divide, but more proactively, as most cultural criticism does, as a way to also generate politicalor social change.
This articlesets out to render a more positive tone by asserting that, in dealing with contemporarysystematiccreation of animal capital and wasted animal,the film mediumis more effective when perceived as an agent of redemption.The documentary genrein particular is capable of helpingnon-human animals break awayfrom the viscous loop of the capitalist production chain through its visual, investigative, and other cinematic apparatus. In developing the idea of documentary redemption and hope, I first trace, by way of Nicole Shukin’s work, the entanglements of animals in the early film industry whereanimals are exploitedmaterially by this industryand conceptually exploited for the advancement of a capitalist manufacturing process. Here, I seefilmic redemption, at arudimentary level,as a self-redemptive one:to redress/make amendsfor the material practice of the traditional film practice through the shift to digital film. The second idea ofanimal redemption is examined in light of animal documentaryactivism.What narrative and aesthetic strategies do filmmakers use to prompt post-cinematic change or action? What affects are appropriate for an animal advocacy film? In recognizing the potential negatives of documentaries to traumatize, terrorize,and numb the audience by cataloging the cruel reality of animal violence and suffering, I contend that the documentary genre actualizes its activist potential when it is conceived as a positive and affective technological apparatus of hope and aspiration.The following films (mostly documentaries) from multiple localities will be discussed:The Plastic Cow (India), Three Flower/Tri-Color(China),Twelve Nights (Taiwan), The Ivory Game (Australia), and four Asian Black Bear rescue documentaries from Australia, China, and Vietnam.
主讲人介绍：
Chia-ju Chang teaches at the department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Courses she teaches include translation, literature and film. Her scholarly and research interests include literary and poetry translation, animal literary and cultural studies, ecocriticism, ecofeminism, ecocritical (or green) cultural and film studies, Buddhist environmental ethics and Zen aesthetics. She has published several scholarly articles in both Chinese and English in different academic journals as well as scholarly anthologies. Her poetry translation has been published in Poetry Sky, ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment).
