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China is in the midst of the fastest and largest process of urbanisation in history. Alongside the dynamism of the region’s hyperdense cities, however, are alarming levels of air pollution, recurrent stories of toxic food, contaminated waterways and intensifying popular protests concerning polluting factories and plants. Issues surrounding a sustainable urban ecology have thus become paramount in the construction of Asia’s metropolitan future. This paper, which focuses particularly on the Shanghai region, suggests that the ideas and practices of “cultivation” might be of value in the creation and imagination of a future ecological metropolis. We examine self-cultivation concretely, as a set of situated embodied practices in specific places and specific historical conditions. We also explore the abstract conceptual idea, by looking at how the modern philosopher Mou Zongsan articulated the idea of “cultivation” as a guide for life. Ultimately, we are interested in how the embodied cultural practices of cultivation can be harnessed as a strategy of re-enchantment, with the power to reconfigure urban nature in the Chinese megacity of the 21st century., International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Bd. 51 Nr. 1-2 (2020): Urban Poetics and Politics in Asia, Part II

This thesis seeks to establish a connection between abstract thought\ud and material practice. It does so by focusing on the relation between the\ud transcendental philosophy of time and the socio-technics of time-keeping\ud practices.\ud The thesis begins with a discussion of Kant's philosophy of time as\ud outlined in the Critique of Pure Reason. It argues that Kant's discovery of the\ud transcendental coincides with the development of an entirely new conception\ud of time. This new conception overturns classical thought by making a\ud distinction between the abstract form of time and the empirical phenomena of\ud movement and change.\ud The second chapter maps the transcendental philosophy of time on to\ud the history of capitalist time-keeping. This history includes: the invention and\ud development of the mechanical clock, temporal standardization and the\ud increasing importance of the equation 'time = money. The aim in bringing\ud these two spheres together is to show, both that Kant's philosophy of time\ud owes much to his empirical surroundings, and also that capitalist time can\ud only be understood through the temporal abstraction of transcendental\ud thought. This link between Kant and capitalism is blocked, however, by a\ud dividing line which separates the philosophical nature of time from the\ud empirical changes of history.\ud In order to surpass this problem the thesis turns to the work of Deleuze\ud and Guattari whose 'transcendental materialism' connects the abstract\ud production of time with empirical innovations. This is accomplished by\ud replacing the classical conception of a transcendent eternity with the\ud immanent materiality of an exterior plane. This plane - which they call Aeonis\ud composed of thresholds, or singular events which make no distinction\ud between time and that which occurs in time. The final chapter explores the\ud dawn of the third millennium - or Y2K - as constituting one such Aeonic event.