Commentary

This commentary begins with a review of the status and development of the burgeoning field of environmental humanities, of which ecocriticism (literature and environment studies) is an important subfield. The authors call for more attention to environmental humanities on a global scale, beyond the confines of Western academia. The second part of the commentary discusses the individual essays collected in this special issue of Comparative Literature Studies which together not only reveal ecological consciousness and eco-writing as having been a vibrant part of East Asian culture throughout the ages but also promote new understandings of world literature.