Eco-garden-Lab:
Gardens and Environmental Humanities
Situated at the intersections of human and other-than-human, the scientific and the artistic, gardens are ideal sites for more-than-human relationship building and cross-disciplinary engagements. They have long been contentious spaces of cultivating, nurturing, and at the same time controlling and resisting. In the time of climate crisis and escalating threat to biodiversity, the garden has also been seen as “a barometer of climate change” (Sandilands, 2018).
Eco-garden-Lab aims to enhance urban community engagement and promote biodiversity and sustainability in Hong Kong. Drawing on and highlighting the crucial contribution of humanistic inquiries to ecological thinking, this project asks how the rethinking of the garden through an Environmental Humanities lens may contribute to a multispecies space while resisting a human-centred way of gardening. What is the role of the arts and humanities in cultivating the community’s sense of belonging and rooting in the current period of constant change? Might gardening, digging, seeding and composting be practised as a mode of care-making? How might humanities enquiries foreground plant agency and their production of meaning?
We envision the EdUHK garden as a site to reclaim, repair, and experiment with a wide group of participants from students and researchers to urban gardeners, writers and artists. To achieve this, the project will carry out an array of educational activities grounded in the physical and digital space of the Eco-garden at EdUHK.
Our Team
Dr Jamie WANG
Research Assistant Professor
Jamie Wang is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong. She is an interdisciplinary researcher, writer and poet in the environmental humanities, urban studies and multispecies studies. Jamie is author of Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories for Singapore (MIT Press, 2024). She is also editor of the journal Feminist Review.
Dr Kelly TSE
Assistant Professor
Dr Kelly Yin Nga Tse is Assistant Professor of English at the Education University of Hong Kong. She researches world literature, colonial and postcolonial writing, gender studies, and the environmental humanities, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Her work has appeared in platforms such as Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, The Oxford History of the Novel in English, amongst others.
Dr Man Lut CHAU
Assistant Professor
Dr CHAU, Man Lut is Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong. On top of teaching, Dr. Chau is enthusiastic about research and creative writing. His research articles are published in academic journals, including Sino-Humanitas and Journal of Chinese Literature. He published nine literary works, including Travels in N (fiction) and The Embroidery Bird (poetry anthology). Dr CHAU is author of Fickle Cityscape: A Discussion on Post-97 Hong Kong Youth Writers' Fiction (Chung Hwa Book Company, Hong Kong, 2024).
Mr Thomas AU
Project Officer
Eco-garden at EdUHK
Established in 2016, the Eco-garden, reimagined as a physical site and
a speculative and experimental hub, serves to facilitate the University’s development of environmental studies, provide education for sustainability, and enhance students’ knowledge and awareness of environmental protection. It is well-positioned to congregate human and other-than-human species for a range of pedagogical activities within the broad purview of the interdisciplinary field of the Environmental Humanities.
More information on Eco-garden at EdUHK
Department of Literature and Cultural Studies
Firmly rooted in Hong Kong, a city with a rich history of intercultural encounters, the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies (LCS) at EdUHK pursues regional leadership in literary, cultural, and historical studies. Through strong commitment to the research activities of its staff, to interdisciplinary engagements, and to intercultural and international exchange, the Department aspires to become a prominent site of quality higher education and academic excellence.
Department of Science and Environmental
Studies
The Department of Science and Environmental Studies (SES) is an academic department promoting studies in Science and Environment Studies, Science and Environmental Education, STEM Education as well as curriculum studies of Science and General Studies (GS). The Department focuses on research and scholarly activities in the major areas of Science and Environmental Education. It strives to achieve excellence in nurturing competent professionals in the disciplines of Science and General Studies.