Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries: Genders/Genres/Genera 3031407954, 9783031407956

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Images and Figure
Chapter 1: Bordering Genders, Genres, Genera: An Introduction
Border Theorisations: An Overview
The Volume’s Thematic Cartographies
Moving across the Chapters
References
Chapter 2: Biometric Technologies, Gendered Subjectivities and Artistic Resistance
Introduction
The Biopolitical Technology of Gender Markers
Binary-Based Biometric Technologies
(In)visibility and Artistic Resistance
Zach Blas, Facial Weaponization Suite and SANCTUM
Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Radical Love and Probably Chelsea
Ma Liuming, Visa to the USA
References
Chapter 3: ‘My tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries’: A®tivism Across the US/Mexico Border
Introduction
Linking a®tivism with la conciencia de la mestiza
‘My tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries’: A Linguistic Analysis of Border(s) (De)construction in Mexican American Slam Poetry
Methodology
Results and Discussion
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Migrant Women’s Documentary Filmmaking: Shifting Positionalities and Precarious Creativity Across Borders in the Experience of Five Latin American Directors
Introduction
Crossing the Boundaries of the Film Text/Production Divide: The Interview Method
Inside the Film: Reflexivity, Self-Discovery, and Shifting Subjectivities
A Flexible and Mobile Production Mode: Contingency, Loose Authorship, and Alternative Values
Conclusions
References
Chapter 5: ‘I’ve always thought that we are living on the cowhide’: Chen Li’s Edge as Method and Border-Queering in The Edge of the Island
Introduction
Cowhide Intimacy: Global Colonialism and Chen’s Queering of Borders
Threading and Ropewalking: Eroticizing/Inhabiting the Frontier
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: Crossing the Borders of Genders and Genres: Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater as a World-Making Narrative of Identity Reaffirmation
Introduction
Poietic Literature and Border-Crossing: An Evaluation
Crisscrossing of Genders and Genres in Freshwater
Border-Crossing and the Creation of a World-Making Narrative of Resistance
Conclusions
References
Chapter 7: Mobility, Belonging and the Utopia of a Borderless World: A Spatial and Identitarian Reading of Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers
The ‘spatial turn’ and the Recent Debordering/Rebordering Processes
Living in the Margins: Border Policies and the Global Immigration Crisis
Social Divides, Metropolitan Niches, and Intersectional Discrimination
A Brief Reflection on Genres and Literary Categories
References
Chapter 8: ‘Violent conclusion[s]’ versus ‘hopeful return[s]’: Zadie Smith’s The Embassy of Cambodia and the Performative Border-Crossing of the Narrative Voice
Introduction
Narrative Confrontations: A ‘Communal Voice’?
Textual Performativity and Its Political Potential
To Conclude: A Global/Local Critique
References
Chapter 9: Morphing Forms: Metamorphosis in Twenty-First-Century British Women’s Experimental Short Fiction
Introduction
Form
Metamorphosis
Gender
Conclusions
References
Chapter 10: ‘This particular art [is] all about walls’: Nomadic Poetics of Identity in Ali Smith’s How to be both
Nomadic Poetics of Identity
By the Edge of a Wall: Moral Conundrums and Dilemmas
On the Wall: Looking Beyond Borders
On Nomadic Reading
References
Chapter 11: Oblique Emotions and Border Intimacies in Dionne Brand’s Theory
Introduction
Footnotes and Other Borderscapes
Oblique Emotions
Border Intimacies
Re/fusing Speculative Practices
References
Chapter 12: An Unresolved Crossing: David Foster Wallace’s ‘Oblivion’
Mapping Borders
The Formal Border: From Monologue to Dialogue and Back
Thematic Borders: From Within a Dream
Stubborn Voices
References
Chapter 13: Crossing Gender: Andy Warhol’s Candy Darling, America, and Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve
Introduction
S.C.U.M and Drag Queens
Tristessa de St Ange: The World’s Most Beautiful Woman
Candy Darling
Crossing Gender and Double Drag
References
Chapter 14: Genders, GYnealogies, GYne(co)alogies of Decolonial Geo-thalasso-corpographies: A Theoretical Reflection on Interconnectedness in Gender Configurations
Introduction
From Epistemology to Gnoseology and Feminist conocimiento
Matrixial Borderspace, nepantla, and gYne(co)alogies
For a Decolonial Thalasso-corpo-graphy or a Marine Epistemology of the South
References
Chapter 15: Spivak and Sontag: Deconstructing Borders Through a Philosophical Appraisal of Literature
Introduction
Embodiment and Disembodiment
Bodies, Literary Texts, and Books
Conclusions
References
Index

Citation preview

Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries Genders/Genres/Genera Edited by Claudia Capancioni Mariaconcetta Costantini Mara Mattoscio

Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries

Claudia Capancioni Mariaconcetta Costantini  •  Mara Mattoscio Editors

Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries Genders/Genres/Genera

Editors Claudia Capancioni Department of English Bishop Grosseteste University Lincoln, UK

Mariaconcetta Costantini Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara Pescara, Italy

Mara Mattoscio University of Macerata Macerata, Italy

ISBN 978-3-031-40794-9    ISBN 978-3-031-40795-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgments

Edited collections are among those valuable collaborative undertakings in the Humanities that allow for deep sharing and sustained dialogues. We greatly enjoyed the stimulating, collegial work that this volume entailed. We owe an immense debt of gratitude to all our contributors, who helped to inform the character of the collection, and to our peer reviewers, who provided helpful directions and insights. We are grateful to the staff at Palgrave Macmillan and Springer, especially to Camille Davies and Raghupathy Kalyanaraman, for their professional support. We would like to thank Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, that granted us time and space to work at the volume in several phases of its shaping, and G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara for awarding funding that helped us to pursue this research project. We are indebted to several colleagues and friends who, in various ways and moments, offered us precious advice, including Rafe Elliott, Giulia Palladini, John Rimmer, and Headley Twidle. We would also like to express our gratitude to Anthony Farrant and Arndt Wilke for their warm encouragement and patience. Finally, our thanks to those who have guided our search for a critical language capable, in the words of bell hooks, to ‘move beyond the boundaries of domination—a language that will not bind you, fence you in, or hold you’.

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Contents

1 Bordering  Genders, Genres, Genera: An Introduction  1 Claudia Capancioni, Mariaconcetta Costantini, and Mara Mattoscio 2 Biometric  Technologies, Gendered Subjectivities and Artistic Resistance 21 C. L. Quinan 3 ‘My  tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries’: A®tivism Across the US/Mexico Border 43 Lorena Carbonara and Dora Renna 4 Migrant  Women’s Documentary Filmmaking: Shifting Positionalities and Precarious Creativity Across Borders in the Experience of Five Latin American Directors 67 Dalila Missero 5 ‘I’ve  always thought that we are living on the cowhide’: Chen Li’s Edge as Method and Border-Queering in The Edge of the Island 87 Li-hsin Hsu

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6 Crossing  the Borders of Genders and Genres: Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater as a World-­Making Narrative of Identity Reaffirmation107 Alessandra Di Pietro 7 Mobility,  Belonging and the Utopia of a Borderless World: A Spatial and Identitarian Reading of Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers125 Mariaconcetta Costantini 8 ‘Violent  conclusion[s]’ versus ‘hopeful return[s]’: Zadie Smith’s The Embassy of Cambodia and the Performative Border-­Crossing of the Narrative Voice145 Mara Mattoscio 9 Morphing  Forms: Metamorphosis in Twenty-FirstCentury British Women’s Experimental Short Fiction165 Helen Cousins 10 ‘This  particular art [is] all about walls’: Nomadic Poetics of Identity in Ali Smith’s How to be both183 Claudia Capancioni 11 Oblique  Emotions and Border Intimacies in Dionne Brand’s Theory203 Libe García Zarranz 12 An  Unresolved Crossing: David Foster Wallace’s ‘Oblivion’219 Adriano Ardovino and Pia Masiero 13 Crossing  Gender: Andy Warhol’s Candy Darling, America, and Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve237 Marie Mulvey-Roberts

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14 Genders,  GYnealogies, GYne(co)alogies of Decolonial Geo-thalasso-corpographies: A Theoretical Reflection on Interconnectedness in Gender Configurations257 Paola Zaccaria 15 Spivak  and Sontag: Deconstructing Borders Through a Philosophical Appraisal of Literature277 Chiara Scarlato Index293

Notes on Contributors

Adriano  Ardovino is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy, where he is the Head of the Philosophy, Pedagogy and Economics Department. He serves as President of the Italian Society for Theoretical Philosophy. His teaching and research interests include German idealism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, post-structuralism, aesthetic theory, philosophy of religion and philosophy of literature. In these fields, he has published numerous articles, books and translations. In 2018, he organised the first international conference on David Foster Wallace in Italy, ‘David Foster Wallace between Philosophy and Literature’. Claudia Capancioni  is Reader in English Literature at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK, where she leads the English Department. She specialises in Victorian and contemporary British literature, life, travel and women’s writing, gender, transnational, and translation studies. She has published on Sarah Austin, Janet Ross, and Charles Dickens, detective fiction and women’s suffrage, the Gothic and Anglo-Italian literary connections and the Risorgimento, Margaret Collier Galletti di Cadilhac, Elizabeth von Arnim, Michèle Roberts, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, Danny Boyle’s National Theatre production of Nick Dear’s Frankenstein, and Joyce Salvadori Lussu. Lorena  Carbonara is Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the Department of Human Studies, University of Calabria. She is the current coordinator of the transnational research group ‘S/murare il Mediterraneo’, a member of the AISCLI Board and she xi

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serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Iperstoria. Studi di anglistica e americanistica. She has published extensively in several national and international journals on Native American autobiography and cinema, the third-world women writers’ community in the US, a®tivism across the US/Mexico border and across the Mediterranean, and English as a Lingua Franca in migration contexts. Mariaconcetta Costantini  is Professor of English Literature at Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy, and, since 2021, a Visiting Professor at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK. Her research primarily focuses on Victorian studies, with a special interest in sensation fiction, the Gothic, and gender. She also works on contemporary literature, especially on postcolonial authors. She is the author of six monographs, several edited collections, journal articles, and book chapters, which have appeared in Italy and abroad. She co-edits the peer-reviewed open-access journal Victorian Popular Fictions and is President of AISCLI (the Italian Association of Studies of Anglophone Cultures and Literatures). Helen Cousins  is Reader in Postcolonial Studies at Newman University in Birmingham, UK. She has published widely on African literature, Black British literature, postcolonialism, and feminism in a range of international journals and edited collections with a particular interest in the Black British writer, Helen Oyeyemi. She has edited essay collections and special issues of journals and has recently been appointed as an associate editor for The Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Her current research focuses on metamorphosis in twenty-first-century British women’s writing and the representation of foxes in literary texts. Alessandra  Di Pietro  received her doctorate from the University of Bern, Switzerland, with a thesis titled ‘Contemporary Postcolonial Literatures as World Literatures: An Analysis of World-Making Narratives of Resistance’. She holds an MA in Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures from G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. She has attended various international conferences and has published reviews and articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as RSV. Rivista di Studi Vittoriani, The Gissing Journal and Altre Modernità. Libe  García  Zarranz  is Associate Professor of Literature in English in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. Her research sits at the intersection of

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literary studies in Canada, visual cultures, and affect studies, with a focus on feminist, queer, and trans approaches. She is the author of TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Cross-Border Ethics (2017) and coeditor of Living and Learning with Feminist Ethics and Poetics Today (2024). She has published in Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry, The Year’s Work in English Studies, and University of Toronto Quarterly, among other venues. Li-hsin  Hsu  is Professor of English at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Her research interests include Romanticism, Orientalism, Ecocriticism, Emily Dickinson, and Modern Taiwan Poetry. She guestedited special issues of The Emily Dickinson Journal (2021), SARE (2022), and The Wenshan Review (2017, 2023), and has published in numerous international journals, including Romanticism, Studies in American Fiction, and Concentric. Her works on space and race have appeared in several volumes, including Ephemeral Spectacles, Exhibition Spaces and Museums: 1750–1918 (Amsterdam University Press, 2021), and Romantic Environmental Sensibility: Nature, Class, Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). Pia  Masiero  is Professor of North American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Her research interests include modernist and contemporary literature, literary theory at the intersection of cognitive sciences and second-­generation post-classical narratology. She has published, among others, on Philip Roth, William Faulkner, David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, Alice Munro, Jorge Luis Borges, and Roberto Bolaño. Mara  Mattoscio is Adjunct Professor of English Literature at the University of Macerata, Italy. She is the author of Corpi affetti. Il Sudafrica di Nadine Gordimer dalla pagina allo schermo (2018) and co-editor of a special section of Feminist Media Studies on ‘Gender, Migration, and the Media’ (2018). She has published on Anglophone postcolonial literature and film, with a special focus on the intersections of race and gender and on African and diasporic authors seen from a comparative perspective. She is currently completing the first Italian translation of Ellen Wood’s Bessy Wells (1875). Dalila  Missero is Lecturer in Film Studies at Lancaster University, UK. Her work focuses on feminist cinema history, archives, transnational film networks and audiences. In 2022 she has published her first

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monograph, Women, Feminism and Italian Cinema. Archives from a Film Culture, for Edinburgh University Press. Marie  Mulvey-Roberts is Professor of English Literature at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. She is co-editor of Angela Carter’s Pyrotechnics: A Union of Contraries (2022) and editor of The Arts of Angela Carter: A Cabinet of Curiosities (2019). She co-curated the exhibition Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter, co-produced two musical adaptations from Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, the subject of her Massolit film for schools, and co-organised a guided walk on Angela Carter’s Bristol. Currently, she co-curates the website getangelacarter.com and helps run the Angela Carter Society, which she co-founded. C.  L.  Quinan  is Lecturer of Gender Studies (School of Culture and Communication) at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Their research expertise lies in trans studies, queer theory, and critical security studies. Quinan is the author of the book Hybrid Anxieties: Queering the FrenchAlgerian War and its Postcolonial Legacies (2020) and co-editor of the volume Homonationalism, Femonationalism, Ablenationalism: Critical Pedagogies Contexualised (2021). Dora  Renna, PhD in Modern Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures, is a Research Fellow in English Language and Translation at the University of Ferrara. Her main research interests are applied linguistics, corpus linguistics, language variation, intercultural pragmatics, discourse analysis, and multimodality. She has published a book on language variation and multimodality, and numerous papers on audiovisual translation, systemic functional linguistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatic aspects of intercultural interactions. Chiara  Scarlato  is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Theoretical Philosophy at Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. She is the author of a monograph on David Foster Wallace entitled Attraverso il corpo: Filosofia e letteratura in David Foster Wallace (2020) and has published and presented widely on issues concerning aesthetics and the philosophy of literature. Paola Zaccaria, Professor of Anglo-American Literature at the University of Bari until 2019, is an activist in gender and human rights, and a

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co-founder and President of the Italian Society of Literary Women. She was visiting scholar at several US universities. She coordinated the ‘Gender Archives’ project (2011–2017), which she founded, and the international research project ‘Un/walling the Mediterranean’ (2009–2017). Her teaching and research activities deal with Border and Diaspora Studies, Visual Studies, Translations/Transpositions/Transcodifications; Decolonial Gnoseologies, Border critical thinking, Geocriticism, women’s poetry, Chican@, African-American and Caribbean Literatures; Feminist/ Gender/Migration and Race Studies. She translated into Italian and edited Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera (2022).

List of Images and Figure

Image 2.1 Image 2.2

Image 2.3 Fig. 11.1

SANCTUM (2018), Zach Blas. Commissioned by Matadero Madrid for Tentacular Festival. (Image source: https:// zachblas.info/works/sanctum/. © Zach Blas) Probably Chelsea (2017), Heather Dewey-Hagborg. Exhibited at Fridman Gallery, New York. (Image source: https://deweyhagborg.com/projects/probably-­chelsea. © Heather Dewey-Hagborg) Ma Liuming, Visa to the USA. Exhibited at Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam. (Image source: Photograph by the author) Image from Theory (2018, p. 4)

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CHAPTER 1

Bordering Genders, Genres, Genera: An Introduction Claudia Capancioni, Mariaconcetta Costantini, and Mara Mattoscio

Border Theorisations: An Overview Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries—Genders/Genres/Genera is a collective study of the multiple meanings that borders can acquire in human experience and knowledge. Drawing upon border studies theories, this volume offers a wide-ranging interpretation of what borders and boundaries have come to signify in the contemporary world, from the reality of national confines to the abstract reimagining of socio-cultural divides and

C. Capancioni (*) Department of English, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK e-mail: [email protected] M. Costantini Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Pescara, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. Mattoscio University of Macerata, Macerata, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_1

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artistic borderscapes. More specifically, it engages with the formation, reformation, and dynamic becoming of identities across boundaries of disparate kinds, across gender and sexual categories, typologies of species, textual and narrative edges, linguistic frontiers, arts and genres frames. In dealing with these themes, the collection adopts the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodologies developed by border theorists, whose contributions have become increasingly influential. This introduction consists of three parts, respectively outlining current theoretical debates on borders (first  part), exploring the entanglements among the chapters (second part), and offering an overview of the various themes and concepts with which the volume engages (third part). Before delving into the contributions’ specificities, we want to reflect on the current expansion of border studies—a field marked by intersections between political geography, history, philosophy, and sociology, which has grown at a fast pace in the twenty-first century. An important moment of acceleration of the development of border studies was the 1980s’ ‘spatial turn in literary and cultural studies’ (Tally 2013, p. 3), when the relevance of spatiality was reassessed in ways of appraising and conceptualising experiences of being in the world. This moment was described by Michel Foucault as follows: ‘The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed’ (1986, p. 22). The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union, and other geopolitical and economic phenomena, including globalisation, induced many to believe in utopian possibilities of generating a borderless world, in which people might move freely and no longer be constrained by boundaries of any kind. These possibilities ignited reflections on the artificiality and oppressiveness not only of national borders but also of political and social divides. They thus strengthened aspirations to undo frontiers, to move across boundaries, and, even more provocatively, to turn borderlands into sites of activism and self-affirmation. It was within this fertile terrain that, in the last decades of the twentieth century, feminist, postcolonial, gender and race theorists—such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and bell hooks—started to develop alternative views of border-crossing, bridging, or living at the border in terms of resistance and empowerment. Aspirations towards openness and fluidity of movement were curbed by renewed processes of closure and rebordering during the twenty-first century, as a consequence of 9/11, waves of mass migration, financial crises,

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and global pandemics, which led to a new proliferation of national borders, walls, and social divisions. In opposition to these processes, theorists and artists have continued to explore the liberating and creative stimuli derived from overcoming and transforming different types of boundaries. Their collective efforts have contributed to pushing forward border studies and to giving artistic shape to heterogeneous experiences of living at/ across borders. In line with these theorisations and artistic productions, our volume aims to investigate different intersections of border concepts and representations, offering a relevant selection of works dealing with, and moving across, borders. Our understanding of borders is informed by insights coming from fields as diverse as political geography, philosophy, critical theory, aesthetics, and gender and race studies. In agreement with Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2013) and Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary (2015) among others, we see borders not as static objects, but rather as dynamic processes under constant negotiation. Their function is not simply to delimit or resist the passage of people or objects; they are also ‘parameters that enable the channelling of flows and provide coordinates within which flows can be joined or segmented, connected or disconnected’ (Mezzadra and Neilson 2012, p. 59). Such filtering or differentiating function points in turn to what Étienne Balibar (1996) identifies as the world-making nature of borders, or their ability to construct space, place, and the life that surrounds them. This function is directly connected with power mechanisms which, while limiting individuals, also fuel dissent and activist intervention. The complexity of these dynamics has become more evident in a century like ours, faced by such planetary threats as climate change. To put it in Gaia Vince’s words, we live in a ‘nomad century’ and need to develop new survival strategies and solutions, including climate-driven migrations toward regions that are fitter for human habitation (2022, p. xi). Instead of looking for such solutions, some institutions and politicians tend to reaffirm the traditional rigidity of borders once postulated by western cartography by reinforcing physical barriers that prevent people’s free movement. While goods and information are increasingly circulated on a global scale, individuals are confronted with obstacles and exclusionary practices that are exemplified by the wall at the US-Mexico border (la frontera) or the Gaza-Israel barrier. In view of recent border studies, however, we are discouraged to perceive such obstacles and practices as fixed. As Amilhat Szary argues, territorial demarcations are ‘always undergoing “debordering” and “rebordering” processes that can affect them in any point of

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space and at any time, simultaneously’ (2015, p. 18). This awareness also invites us to shift our attention from topographical delimitations of national states (the border as a line drawn on a map) to the notion of ‘borderity’ conceived by Amilhat Szary and Frédéric Giraut to indicate what ‘makes a border’ (2015, p. 10), which includes the functional and symbolic relations of individuals with borderscapes. This is certainly the case of underprivileged migrants, who ‘take the border with them’ (p. 12) constantly redefining their identities in their attempts to move across national confines. The proliferation of meanings associated with borders is coupled with new theoretical uses of related terms, such as ‘edges’ and ‘margins’, to articulate a variety of contemporary human experiences. The condition of being on the edge, for instance, is typically understood as one involving a high degree of tension and possibly the risk of a rushed movement down a precipitous slope. Yet, being on the edge also calls for more complex understandings, in which a liminal positionality and potential movement do not necessarily entail haste and danger. According to Edward Casey, for example, being on the edge is ‘a special case of being in-between edges’, with the ‘in’ of the ‘in-between’ implying the ‘sense of interiority or inwardness’ that is active in ‘experiences of in-habitation or in-dwelling’ (2008, p. 5). In other words, the margins of life or space can be the location of profound knowledge, of the kind only acquired through the act of residing on that limen. Significant changes have also occurred in these terms’ functionality, as evidenced by the morphing of ‘border’ into a verb that best expresses its performative and world-shaping power. Henk van Houtum and Ton van Naerssen (2002) use ‘bordering’ or ‘b/ordering’ to highlight the processual dimension connecting borders to mechanisms of ordering (and othering) the world. This ambiguous performative notion has been further elaborated by scholars in social sciences, cultural and gender studies, and literary theory, not only in metaphorical ways but also to address the identity-­building effects produced by boundaries. Both gender and sexuality are in themselves also methods of bordering, as evidenced by the interweaving of gender, ethnic, and national categorisations on the heated scene of current migratory flows. As Enrica Rigo explains, borders ‘do not function as linear boundaries [but] hierarchize people’s movement according to gender-constructed roles’ (2017, p. 11). In other words, a hierarchy of deservingness is built between gendered-male migrants, who tend to be portrayed as a threat for arrival societies, and gendered-female

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migrants, often represented as subjects without agency and, sometimes, as unwilling victims of sexual trafficking (Mattoscio and MacDonald 2018). Tales of trafficked women have, for instance, ended up constructing many forms of female mobility as ‘high risk’ and morally unadvisable, with the notable exception of domestic work (Schaeffer-Grabiel 2011). Furthermore, sexuality is an additional axis around which cross-border movement is policed. As Billy Holzberg, Anouk Madörin, and Michelle Pfeifer contend, the heteronormativity of the border implies an ‘investment in the regulation and control of sexuality [as] a key strategy for the violent capture, containment and regulation of mobility and movement’ (2021, p.  1487). ‘Methodological heteronormativity’ has sometimes informed even solidarity movements which, in trying to help refugees, have tended to construct an ‘ideal [heterosexual and reproductive] subject of solidarity’ (Carastathis and Tsilimpounidi 2018, p. 1121). A seminal exploration of these processes was offered, in the 1980s, by Anzaldúa, who theorised on the intermingling of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and language in lived experiences at/of the border. Especially relevant is the emotionally and affectively charged space that she calls ‘borderland’. If a border is ‘a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge’, a borderland is for her ‘a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition’ (Anzaldúa 1987, p.  3). Discriminated individuals in borderlands are thus viewed as part of ‘los atravesados […]: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-­ breed, the half dead; in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the “normal”’ (p. 3). Despite its negativity, such marginalisation is also interpretable in affirmative ways, as demonstrated by Anzaldúa’s own experiences. A queer woman speaking seven languages and grown amidst two composite cultures (Anglo-American and Mexican with strong indigenous influences), she does not see in this condition only a source of those ‘hatred, anger and exploitation’ typical of la frontera. Rather she is convinced that living in the borderland activates ‘new faculties’ and awakens ‘dormant areas’ of her consciousness (p. vi). Inspired by the forgotten female Aztec deities, Anzaldúa lays stress on the challenging figure of la mestiza, who stands at a juncture where ‘phenomena tend to collide’ and divergent forms of thinking emerge as opposed to ‘convergent’, or strictly analytical, western models of reasoning (p. 79). Scholars marginalised by colonial, racial, and heteronormative practices are at the forefront of the revolutionary understanding of borderlands

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proposed by Anzaldúa.1 A prominent example of such scholars is intersectional feminist bell hooks, who reconceptualised being at the margin as positioning oneself in a ‘space of radical openness’ that grants new ways of seeing reality (1989). On the basis of her experiences in growing up in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, at the time of official racial segregation, hooks claims a position of epistemological marginality as productive. In her view, the liminality of a life demarcated by barriers showed her the co-­dependence of margin and centre, and consequently the wholeness of the world we inhabit. As a result, hooks sees marginality not merely as a site of deprivation, but also as a space of resistance and production of counter-­hegemonic discourses. An additional b/ordering process relevant to the volume is the one concerning the cultural and artistic boundaries between objects and their representation, between representation and production, and between production and fruition. For Johan Schimanski and Stephen Wolfe, for instance, artistic forms themselves are bordered, being ‘paradoxically both incomplete and whole, folded in on themselves, presented in frames, and approached via thresholds’ (2017, p. 5). This liminality also characterises art forms, genres, and styles, which constitute ‘the outer medial borders of artworks, and both experiment and negotiate with different border concepts’ (p. 5). Moreover, the fruition of a cultural object—in the form of reading, watching, listening, etc.—can be interpreted as an act of border-­ crossing, because it entails crossing the medial borders of a text, as well as the epistemological border of interpretation. The application of border theories to acts of reading, watching and, more generally, interpreting products of human creativity is, therefore, one of the many fruitful contributions offered by border studies which, especially in the last few decades, have further enriched the toolbox we need to approach, understand, represent, and reimagine the world we live in.

The Volume’s Thematic Cartographies This volume aims to widen the aforementioned theorisations on borders by examining their entanglements with confining constructions of human identity and disciplinary categories that remain still dominant. In particular, it calls into question established models of gender, notions of narrative genres, and typological  genera of borders in contemporary literary, 1

 See, for example, the decolonial feminist perspective articulated by María Lugones (2003).

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artistic, philosophical, and socio-political discourses. Arts and theory produced at the borders—spatial, identitarian, and disciplinary ones—continue to be too often overlooked or misappropriated by mainstream cultures. It is instead our aim to follow Toni Morrison’s invitation to ‘[stand] at the border and [claim] it as central’ (1998). We intend to centre this volume on the very subjectivities, texts, artistic phenomena, critical discourses, and academic debates that stem from, and are circulated across, the transitional spaces of multiple boundaries. The fourteen chapters that follow interrogate boundaries and boundary-­ crossing not only in terms of geographical frontiers and the physical acts of trespassing, but also as discursive constructs that police and categorise border-crossing subjects, on the one hand, and identify artistic genres and academic disciplines as fixed, sealed-in ways of understanding the world, on the other. Taking inspiration from the multiple meanings of the Italian word genere (which stands for ‘gender’, ‘genre’, and ‘typology’/‘genus’ simultaneously),2 the authors reflect on the enclosing typological nature of borders and border imagery, and on the significance and potentialities of crossover phenomena taking place in borderlands, in the fields of visual and performative arts, film production, literature, anthropology, sociology, politics, and philosophy, among others. The width and multi-disciplinary approach of the chapters mark the distinction of this volume with respect to other studies which, drawing upon Mary Louise Pratt (1992) and other postcolonial/decolonial theorists, have interpreted borderscapes mainly from geopolitical or social perspectives. By using a variety of critical tools, source materials, and interpretations of the notion of border, this collection aims, instead, to engage with a wider range of recent discourses on artworks, texts, identity-­ making processes, and other phenomena coming from different areas and cultural experiences across the African, American, Asian, and European worlds, especially in relation to Anglophone cultures. Additionally, the chapters’ case studies offer fresh ideas for innovative syllabi within the humanities. In line with academic educational debates on decolonising the curricula, the volume provides frameworks that are deliberately interdisciplinary and intermedia, explores works encompassing multiple styles or 2  Etymologically derived from the Latin genus, generis, ̆ the Italian genere is a cognate of the Latin words gigne ̆re (to generate), as well as of the Greek γένος (ancestry), γένεσις (origin), and γίγνομαι (to be born). If associated with edges of any kind, genere strongly emphasises the generative quality of margins and liminality.

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genres, and questions canon-formation ideologies by focusing on artists, writers, and thinkers who are positioned at the margins and/or eager to challenge categories. This collection is designed to include bordering/debordering/border-­ crossing themes as diverse as migration, transnational mobility, geopolitical tensions, postcolonial and diasporic relations, racism, classism, gender and sexual marginalisation, and animal life. Drawn from several fields of knowledge, these heterogeneous themes prove the complexity of the many bordering dynamics that shape human experiences in today’s world and affirm difference, multilocality, multiplicity as empowering ways of being. What the volume shows is that, whilst borders are systems of oppression that limit people’s freedom and mobility and intensify mechanisms of domination and exploitation, they are also important sites of contention, activism, and change. The instability and continuous shifting of borders and boundaries implies that in borderlands new interstitial phenomena are born—at the level of consciousness, politics, and embodied life—containing the seeds of alternative realities. Resistance against discriminations often germinates at national and social borders and, from there, spreads all around having a far-reaching impact on people’s interpersonal relations and identity formation. Although these mechanisms of oppression and resistance have roots that go back in time, the volume centres on their contemporary manifestations, analysing phenomena that have occurred from the second half of the twentieth century to the present day. A leitmotif of the collection is the exploration of the double-binding effects of gender boundaries, which especially affect the lives of specific groups like women and non-binary individuals. These discriminatory effects are also shown to be potentially transformative, as the sufferings of biased categories may trigger processes of affirmation and agency. As the volume demonstrates, resistance against the very social walls erected to substantiate biases generates forms of artistic commitment that draw nourishment from border experiences, such as art exhibitions denouncing practices of discrimination of non-binary identity (Chap. 2), artivistic slam poetry (Chap. 3), migrant women’s first-person documentaries (Chap. 4), and literary elaborations of exclusionary and traumatising processes of gendering. The latter are objects of investigation of many contributors. Some concentrate on literary expressions of masculine violence and feminine rebellion (Chaps. 12 and 13), others focus on novelistic responses to gender classifications felt as inadequate, examining texts that challenge

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and redefine the borderland positioning of women or other marginalised subjects (Chaps. 9, 10 and 11). Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 examine literary representations of intersecting practices of gender and imperial coercion through the double lenses of gender and postcolonial studies. Besides confirming the power of denunciation of poetic and narrative texts, these chapters highlight literature’s world-making capacity, i.e., its power to undo oppressive practices imaginatively, turning them into sources of self-­ awareness and agency that promote change and transformation for individuals and communities alike. These thematic threads are only some of the motifs selected and researched in the chapters, which all together provide a multi-layered depiction of the identity-making processes triggered by bordering practices in a variety of contexts and situations. As hinted above, these processes are examined in relation to the ways they are represented in different media and arts (literature, film, performance and visual arts), as well as to their manifestations across media and genres, as exemplified by the slam poetry performances analysed in Chap. 3. A hybrid form of artistic activism that questions political and gender discriminations, the poetry performed by Latin American women artivists at the US-Mexican border spotlights the debordering effects of inter-artistic and intermedia productions, which prove to be effective vehicles for envisioning alternative ways of being and interacting with others. Experiments with genres and subgenres conducted within a single medium or artistic form are also discussed throughout the volume, which offers wide-ranging examples of contemporary attempts to move beyond the borders of normative categories and to use less canonical forms, often in fertile combination with others. A case in point is the reflection on the structural flexibility and semantic potentiality of short fiction triggered by Chaps. 8, 9 and 12, which interpret the form’s ductility as a suitable vehicle for representing marginal experiences, encouraging reflections on the discursive potentiality of this narrative form. The intentional broadness of scope and content of the collection is reinforced by the theoretical variety of the chapters, which make use of different conceptualisations of borders, boundaries, edges, and margins, showing how these interconnected notions originate in, and develop across, multiple intellectual fields—from geopolitics to psychology, from sociology and philosophy to artistic and literary criticism. Seminal border notions—such as those elaborated by Walter Mignolo, Mezzadra and Neilson, Achille Mbembe, and Anzaldúa, among others—are applied

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recurrently throughout the volume and constitute its theoretical backbone. Within the single chapters, however, these notions are variously employed and connected with ideas of being at the margins/crossing margins drawn from other fields of knowledge, including gender and race studies, and narratology. Richly heterogeneous, the conceptual framework created by the juxtaposition and intersection of border/boundary/margin notions strengthens the volume’s project of ‘rethinking identities across boundaries’, which thereby comes to include also the rethinking of theorists’ worldviews, self-positioning, and linguistic choices. This inclusiveness is explicitly dealt with in Chaps. 14 and 15, which invite readers to reflect on the porosity of theoretical boundaries and the empowering effects of creating bridges between what are commonly perceived as discrete concepts. Chapter 14, in particular, offers an interesting experiment with the crossing of scholarly divisions of gender, race, geopolitics, and art, proposing new linguistic formulas and new conceptual links derived from fruitful dialogues across categories of thought.

Moving across the Chapters In line with the volume’s objective, the sequence of the chapters is not the result of a process of border-drawing meant to (re)create disciplinary or thematic groupings. Their arrangement is rather determined by the interconnections and multi-layered conversations established among them. Our intent, in organising the volume’s contents, is to chart ways in which the chapters dialogue with one another and, at the same time, to propose further intersections of voices, themes, approaches, and conceptual threads. The richness and thought-provoking quality of these crossings are highlighted in the next paragraphs which, while introducing the chapters’ specificities, also pay attention to the visible and hidden connections existing among the volume’s contributions. Chapter 2 by C.L. Quinan deals with real experiences of border-­crossing made by gender diverse individuals in today’s world, focusing in particular on the obstacles created by biometric security technologies and surveillance practices. Through an analysis of data collected in 2018–2019 by interviewing fifteen participants who identified as trans and non-binary, Quinan demonstrates that technologies used at national borders are instruments of discrimination and constraint of individuals’ mobility and self-determination, as they are encoded with assumptions about gender, sexuality, race, and ability. These discriminatory policies are however

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contested by recent forms of artistic resistance, such as artwork installations and exhibitions, which expose the lack of objectivity of modern border practices. Effective examples of this artistic-activist resistance are provided by three works by Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Zach Blas, and Ma Liuming, which Quinan selects and examines to demonstrate art’s potential to ‘interrogate the complex relationships between technology, surveillance, and power’ (p. 37) and the ways in which these relationships affect people crossing borders. Experiences of border-crossing and living at the border are at the core of Chap. 3, in which Lorena Carbonara and Dora Renna study artivism across the US-Mexican border. By selecting the works of six female artivists performed between 2016 and 2019, at the time of Donald Trump’s wall-based campaign, their chapter investigates slam poetry’s ‘ability to enact border porousness both in terms of form and content, crisscrossing genres, cultures, and instances of identity’ (p. 47). In line with Anzaldúa’s theorisation of the conciencia de la mestiza, Carbonara and Renna demonstrate that this kind of poetry creatively links self-reflection with social action, promoting resistance to geographical and political confines, and the creation of a collective consciousness of how violent actions committed at border are manifestations of gender, class, and ethnic oppression. The power of this hybrid performative poetry is evidenced by utilising discourse analysis and systematic functional linguistics which, applied to the selected corpus, reveal the importance of language’s agency in raising awareness among subaltern individuals and communities moving across the border. Transnational mobility is also at the centre of Dalila Missero’s chapter that explores another form of creative representation of migrant women’s experiences: the first-person documentary. In reflecting upon the professional, economic, and socio-cultural boundaries of this filmic subgenre, Missero focuses on five Latin American women directors whom she interviewed in 2021, offering a thematic analysis of their answers regarding issues of positionality, agency, and mobility. The interviews also provide insights into these directors’ affective and material conditions, especially as women precariously working in a still male-dominated field. In addition to examining aesthetic and creative aspects of the interviewees’ documentaries, also in relation to the so-called ‘cinema of Me’ (Lebow 2012), the chapter considers issues of self-reflexivity and subjectivity of migrants positioned across multiple borders, shedding light on the directors’ choice of the documentary as an experimental form at the margins, a space of

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negotiation and resistance. Border theoretisations by Mignolo (2011), as well as by Mezzadra and Neilson (2013), are applied to show the complexities of the personal experiences made by the five women documentarists, both as migrant subjects and as professionals working within a global film industry that is still characterised by ‘geographical, economic, and gender asymmetries’ (p. 82). Drawing on Mezzadra and Neilson’s (2013) notion of ‘border as method’, Li-hsin Hsu’s chapter explores the ‘edge’ poetics of contemporary Taiwan poet Chen Li, positioning him as a world-making poet. Hsu offers a close analysis of three poems from The Edge of the Island (2014), the English translation of Chen’s 1995 poetry collection. After introducing the complex history of Taiwan—from European colonisation to the present-day cross-strait tensions—the chapter demonstrates that Chen’s works about the island contribute to our understanding of using the border as a conceptual tool of resistance and decolonisation at a time  of increasing border control and territorial contestation. Used as a noun as well as a verb, ‘edge’ is, for Chen, not only a geo-political border, but also a malleable space of liberation from colonial hierarchical dominance. What Chen’s poetics suggests, therefore, is the possibility of creating new spaces for multi-ethnic and multicultural co-existence. In Hsu’s view, such reconfiguration is achieved by ‘queering’ the convention of border, thereby applying to Chen’s poetry notions elaborated by Hannah McCann and Whitney Monaghan (2020). The gender-crossing imagery of Chen’s poems includes effective metaphors of threading and sewing which, as Hsu argues, enact multiple levels of border-crossing, combining the erotic with historical memory and the geo-political. Such metaphors recall the figurative language adopted by Virginia Woolf in Orlando, which personifies memory as a seamstress that ‘runs her needle in and out, up and down, either and thither’ (1993, p. 55). In ways similar to Hsu, Alessandra Di Pietro applies border studies theories to a specific postcolonial context—in this case Nigeria—to explore the complex signification of the border as a space of both oppression and resistance. To unravel this complexity, Di Pietro analyses Freshwater (2018), the debut novel of Nigerian-Tamil writer Akwaeke Emezi, who identifies as a non-binary trans person. Rooted in Igbo culture and spiritualism, Freshwater narrates experiences of migration and transnational encounters to represent the multifaceted reality of decolonisation and the porousness of borders in today’s globalised world. These dynamics, rendered in terms of physical and spiritual border-crossings by Emezi, amount

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to processes of socio-cultural unlearning that deconstruct westernised systems of power and knowledge. As Di Pietro demonstrates, moreover, Emezi reconfigures traditional categories of gender and literary genre in relation to border-crossing, thereby confirming the poietic capacity of literature in creating alternative spaces and identities. First of all, Freshwater challenges gender binaries by telling the coming-of-age story of a young Igbo-Tamil woman who, like the author, combines multicultural and multi-ethnic identity with gender fluidity. Secondly, the novel is the result of a cross-generic experimentation with the Bildungsroman, the psychological novel, and autobiographical writing. These intersections open up alternative ways of being and world-making that are in line with the concept of ‘world literature’ theorised by Pheng Cheah (2016), a concept which, in the chapter, is fruitfully applied to interpret the protagonist’s evolution into a borderless, genderless individual. Cheah’s theorisation of postcolonial world literature is also used in Chap. 7 by Mariaconcetta Costantini, who investigates Behold the Dreamers (2016), the debut novel by Cameroonian-American writer Imbolo Mbue. Besides showing how the novel’s capacious structure challenges generic boundaries, Costantini focuses on Mbue’s representation of border-­ crossing in terms of both oppression and resistance, demonstrating that the realistic depictions of exclusionary practices are counterbalanced by utopian projects of a more inclusionary, borderless world. Mostly set in New York City at the time of the 2008 global financial crisis, the novel tells the story of a Cameroonian family of migrants who interact with the members of a US affluent white family. Their interpersonal relations unveil the illusoriness of two powerful myths—globalisation and the American Dream—revealing how the consequences of socioeconomic troubles are combined, for migrants, with additional obstacles to mobility and self-­ development. These obstacles include US anti-migrant policies, racialised urban cartographies, and gender limitations faced by female migrants, who suffer the humiliating effects of intersectionality. As Costantini argues, the novel also offers ways out of these constraints by delineating metropolitan niches or borderlands, in which people of different ethnicities meet and create temporary affective bonds. These niches confirm the dynamic character of the border, suggesting the possibility of reading Mbue’s novel as an example of ‘postcolonial world literature’ capable of opening up an ‘ethicopolitical horizon’ for the present world (Cheah 2016). The nexus connecting ethics to politics is also at the core of Mara Mattoscio’s chapter, which studies Zadie Smith’s novella The Embassy of

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Cambodia (2013). Mattoscio interrogates the borders of European empathy and responsibility around migration as explored in the novella, which chronicles the everyday hardships of an Ivorian migrant girl in suburban London, questioning the discursive construction of the British/European ethics of belonging. Mattoscio emphasises how, besides thematising migration at the level of representation, the novella proposes a significant border-crossing at the level of form. By juxtaposing and overlapping two different narrative voices with remarkably different styles, the text continuously blurs the borders between the protagonist’s perspective and the unreliable collective voice of her new neighbourhood community. The latter’s performative quality challenges Eurocentric consciousness with its questionable mix of apparent empathy and factual irresponsibility. Furthermore, by mixing elements of the theatrical monologue, the Greek tragedy, and the reportage with the novella form, the text often crosses the borders of generic conventions, highlighting the ambiguities and fallibility of monolithic discourses on integration and belonging. What the chapter suggests is that the gender implications of these textual experiments point to the co-constitutive nature of gendered, racial, territorial, and socio-­ political borders on the contemporary scene of global migration. The poietic capacity of short fiction is also highlighted by Helen Cousins in Chap. 9, which shows that twenty-first-century British women practitioners of this literary form (Sarah Hall, Daisy Johnson, Irenosen Okojie, and Helen Oyeyemi) question and resist traditional, androcentric, and anthropocentric representations of the female body through metamorphosis. In her analysis of carefully selected short stories, Cousins demonstrates that, by portraying women who occupy the borderland between the human, the natural world, and imagined realities, these authors explore the permeability of boundaries between humans and other non-human forms. This exploration of the porous borders between genera challenges more traditional views of metamorphosis, inviting a rethinking of westernised ontological notions of ‘what it is to be human’ (p. 167). Owing to its focal point on women’s experiences of metamorphosis, Cousins’s chapter also deals with the complexity of gender categories. What she shows is that, by reinterpreting a long literary tradition of anthropomorphism in new ways, these stories turn the othering of women into a strategy to expose gender oppressiveness or to envision new forms of being and living that transcend fixed gender identities. Observations on the blurring of genders and genera are coupled with considerations on the malleability of the short story form and its suitability to represent experiences of being at

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the border. The chapter ultimately suggests that, in the present world, ‘humans need to be reducing the borders fixed by hierarchical thinking and connect heterarchically to the world as equals across them’ (p. 181). Further reflections on literature’s poietic capacity are offered by Claudia Capancioni, whose chapter intersects Mezzadra and Neilson’s border method with Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic theory, to delve into the complexities of Ali Smith’s How to be both (2014). The chapter centres, in particular, on the novel’s motif of the wall, which is key to its plasticity in rethinking inadequate humanist concepts of subjectivities, especially gender and sexuality. Smith pushes the generic borders of the novel and astutely combines literature with visual arts, music, and technology. On a structural level, the novel’s diegesis is divided by a wall: it consists of two unconnected narratives with very different protagonists—Francescho in Renaissance Italy and George in contemporary London—who are however connected by artistic ambitions and by their defiance of socio-cultural expectations. As Capancioni argues, the border is an epistemological device in How to be both. It is a multidimensional poietic space of transition and metamorphosis, of encounter and exchange, which encourages readers to question dualisms while they navigate multiple possibilities to establish links between the two stories. Reading this novel therefore becomes an exercise in nomadic thinking, a way of discovering what lies underneath the surface and of empathising—through border-crossing experiences— with migrants’ own experiences. Owing to these strategies, Smith’s novel manifests literature’s ability to reconceptualise the spaces between self and other and, in doing so, affirms the pluralities, differences, and complexities of being human. The dynamics between self and other continue to be explored in Chap. 11, whose object of scrutiny is the 2018 novel of ideas Theory by Black Canadian writer Dionne Brand. Influenced by the theories of Sara Ahmed, Libe García Zarranz explores the ungendered narrator’s oblique emotions resulting from experiences of mobility and orientation/disorientation. The focus of her analysis is what she identifies as the novel’s ‘border intimacies’, which signal ‘the paradoxical relation between emotion and motion’ (p. 205). García Zarranz underlines how Brand characterises the narrator as a subject positioned at an angle, divided between theory and practice, between the quest for knowledge (exemplified by their never-­ completed PhD thesis) and the interaction with different lovers who act as mediators of affect. In addition to representing physical spaces of liminality connected with the narrator’s positioning, Brand frames the narrative

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around footnotes conceived as borderscapes that simultaneously orient and disorient the reader, drawing attention to the inner self, as well as to race and gender issues. These footnotes and other narrative devices also problematise the question of the novel’s genre, confounding the boundaries between fiction and scholarly writing. As García Zarranz argues, finally, Theory can be viewed as a novel that interrogates the boundaries of academia, offering a sharp critique of its inequitable practices and hierarchies, and inviting readers ‘to question learned habits and disciplinary borders’ (p. 216). Chapter 12 also pivots around questions of form, with special attention for experiments with the short story. Adriano Ardovino and Pia Masiero unravel the structural complexities and ambiguities of David Foster Wallace’s ‘Oblivion’ (2004), providing an in-depth, linguistic analysis that reflects upon this short story’s intentional generic and typological border-crossings. They closely examine the challenging narratorial strategies adopted by Wallace, demonstrating that the American writer’s formal experimentation creates a readerly dizziness that raises interpretative and ontological questions. More specifically, they argue that Wallace invites readers ‘to inhabit the liminal space of being across borders’ (p. 235), to untangle the textual intricacies and, in doing so, to reflect on the porousness of those confines dividing wake and dream, consciousness and unconsciousness, serenity and anxiety. Their chapter also examines the traumatising gendered power relations of a couple, Randall and Hope. The sleep problems they experience are a means through which Wallace interrogates different boundaries, turning the woman’s oneiric experiences into suggestions of a potential sexual abuse that, never fully addressed, adds another element of uncertainty and disquiet to the story. Misogyny and sexual abuse are central themes in Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve (1977) analysed in Chap. 13, in which Marie Mulvey-­ Roberts traces significant intersections between Carter’s 1969 travel to the US and the novel’s gender-crossing figures of Evelyn/Eve and Tristessa. As Mulvey-Roberts contends, ‘[t]he novel not only encompasses the crossing of gender and national boundaries but also of genres whereby biographical material merges into fiction’ (p.  254). In her view, Carter drew inspiration from the US turbulent social and cultural context of the time, and especially from the revolutionary activism of S.C.U.M., to shape characters that perpetrate or suffer sexual violence, and are forced to constantly redefine their gender identity. An innovative element of the chapter is the suggestion that a model for Tristessa was Candy Darling, a

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transgender drag queen in Andy Warhol’s circle. Mulvey-Roberts’s reading of this character brings together the theories of Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler to evince Tristessa’s negotiations across gender boundaries in a context that echoes the late-1960s clashes between reactionary homophobic and transphobic forces and a counterculture of sexual liberation. Gender identity is a thematic nucleus of Chap. 14, which combines it with multiple theorisations of borderlands and anti-border resistance. Sharing her conceptualisation of ‘gYne(co)alogies’ as a way to overcome the boundaries of traditional feminist categories, Paola Zaccaria offers a thought-provoking comparison between Anzaldúa and Israeli theorist-­ artist Bracha Ettinger. The links Zaccaria traces between gendered notions of transitional states developed by the two theorists—i.e, nepantla space and matrixial borderspace—emphasise the productivity of a liminal understanding of consciousness, and prove the value of establishing fresh dialogues between activists belonging to distant geo-cultural and professional areas. A further connection proposed by Zaccaria is that between Anzaldúa’s transAtlantic and Ettinger’s transMediterrean spaces of theorisation. Interpreting the sea as a space of both separation and suturing, and the gendered experience of border-crossing as a productive ‘gyno-corpo-­ graphy’, Zaccaria proposes to embrace the critical perspective of a transfeminist marine epistemology of the South. Her chapter traces the roots of this new epistemology in the ideas of various decolonial feminist thinkers who, between 1980 and 2010, laid the foundations of border studies that continue to influence today’s imaginaries and scholarship. The volume closes with a chapter on the relevance of a philosophical approach to literature in the reconceptualisation of borders. Here Chiara Scarlato reflects on the US reception of French deconstructive theory which, in the second half of the twentieth century, promoted a rethinking of the notion of border through a critical assessment of both the author-­ reader relationship and the act of reading. By comparing aptly selected works by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Susan Sontag, Scarlato investigates their understanding of the double process of embodiment and disembodiment which is at stake during the fruition of literary texts. In particular, the chapter makes use of Spivak’s critical work to analyse Sontag’s private diaries and notebooks. In doing so, Scarlato not only establishes connections among texts belonging to different genres, but also interrogates the process of fruition of cultural objects, which is interpreted as an act of border-crossing. The chapter’s reflections on the

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dynamic dialogue between the two theorists reveal new possibilities of thinking bodies and/as texts and confirm the relevance of philosophy in tackling the complexity of human experiences which literature envisions. With Spivak and Sontag, we are reminded of the remarkable legacy of pioneering theorists who, since the second half of the twentieth century, have reflected upon the borderlines between the personal and the political, reshaping and widening the intellectual horizons of our times. Their ground-breaking theorisations have been coupled with activist pursuits that brought attention to what is at the margins and gave centre stage to borders, boundaries, and borderscapes of various kinds. Particularly relevant is their political valorisation of difference, mobility, and exchanges, which reimagines the idea of being at the border in terms of resistance and engagement. In drawing together all the chapters’ thematic and theoretical crisscrossings, the volume thus underscores the powerful role that borders play in the current globalised reality. It shows that they are sites of tensions, conflicts, negotiations, positive interactions, and vital collaborations in the face of today’s economic, socio-cultural, political, and environmental challenges. Placed within academia, finally, this rethinking of border functionality entails reshaping scholarly and educational perspectives. It calls for our urgent trespassing and transformation of the borders of academic practice. Furthermore it invites us to reinvent theoretical and pragmatic approaches to existing categories and cartographies, in order to envision alternative epistemologies.

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Casey, Edward S. 2008. Edges and the in-between. PhaenEx 3 (2): 1–13. Cheah, Pheng. 2016. What is a world?: On postcolonial literature as world literature. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Chen, Li. 2014. The edge of the island: Poems of Chen Li. Trans. Fen-ling Chang. Taipei: Bookman Publishing. Emezi, Akwaeke. 2018. Freshwater. London: Faber and Faber. Foucault, Michel. 1986 (1984). Of other spaces. Trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16: 22–27. Holzberg, Billy, Anouk Madörin, and Michelle Pfeifer. 2021. The sexual politics of border control: An introduction. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44 (9): 1485–1506. hooks, bell. 1989. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 36: 15–23. van Houtum, Henk, and Ton van Naerssen. 2002. Bordering, ordering and othering. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 93 (2): 125–136. Lebow, Alisa. 2012. The cinema of me: The self and subjectivity in first person documentary. London and New York: Wallflower Press. Lugones, María. 2003. Pilgrimages/peregrinajes: Theorizing coalition against multiple oppressions. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Mattoscio, Mara, and Megan C. MacDonald. 2018. Introduction: Gender, migration, and the media. Feminist Media Studies 18 (6): 1117–1120. Mbue, Imbolo. 2016. Behold the dreamers: A novel. London: HarperCollins. McCann, Hannah, and Whitney Monaghan. 2020. Queer theory now: From foundations to futures. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. Between inclusion and exclusion: On the topology of global space and borders. Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4/5): 58–75. ———. 2013. Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mignolo, Walter D. 2011. Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On (de)coloniality, border thinking and epistemic disobedience. Postcolonial Studies 14 (3): 273–283. Morrison, Toni. 1998. Toni Morrison: Uncensored. Interview by Jana Wendt. Accessed 20 June 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ0mMjII22I. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial eyes. London and New York: Routledge. Rigo, Enrica. 2017. Re-gendering the border: Chronicles of women’s resistance and unexpected alliances from the Mediterranean border. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 18 (1): 173–186. Schaeffer-Grabiel, Felicity. 2011. Transnational media wars over sex-trafficking: Abolishing the ‘new slave trade’ or the new nativism? In Circuits of visibility: Gender and transnational media cultures, ed. Radha Sarma Hegde, 103–123. New York: New York University Press.

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Schimanski, Johan, and Stephen F. Wolfe. 2017. Intersections: A conclusion in the form of a glossary. In Border aesthetics: Concepts and intersections, ed. Johan Schimanski and Stephen F. Wolfe, 147–169. New York: Berghan. Smith, Zadie. 2013. The embassy of Cambodia. London: Hamish Hamilton. Smith, Ali. 2014. How to be both. London: Penguin Books. Tally, Robert T., Jr. 2013. Spatiality. London and New York: Routledge. Vince, Gaia. 2022. Nomad century: How to survive the climate upheaval. London: Allen Lane. Wallace, David Foster. 2004. Oblivion. Boston: Little Brown and Company. Woolf, Virginia. 1993 (1928). Orlando: A biography. London: Penguin.

CHAPTER 2

Biometric Technologies, Gendered Subjectivities and Artistic Resistance C. L. Quinan

Introduction Representing Taiwan at the 58th Venice Biennale, artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang exhibited the multimedia artwork 3×3×6 (2019) to depict the global digital surveillance landscape wherein subjects consensually supply surveillance structures with data, images, and preferences through social media platforms that in turn monitor us. Curated by trans writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado, Cheang’s intervention reimagines the exhibition space as a panopticon and weaves stories about ten inmates— characters who are queer, transgender, and gender-fluid incarnations of historical figures like Casanova, Foucault, and the Marquis de Sade. The artist, however, subverts the traditional panopticon: it is the all-seeing visitors themselves who are controlled, becoming prisoners of artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and social media. Cheang and Preciado developed a high-tech installation, whose participatory element is

C. L. Quinan (*) School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_2

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deliberately concealed to emphasise the danger that lurks behind the regimentation of control. As the exhibition highlighted, these hyper-­modern dynamics and systems have particular impacts on queer and trans bodies. This chapter draws inspiration from the ways in which both artistic and ethnographic work highlight the particular effects that such (digital) panopticons have on gender and sexual minorities. I take as a point of departure the fact that trans and non-binary people face obstacles to mobility and migration, making experiences of border-crossing challenging or even impossible. These challenges often include increased identity verification due to mismatches between gender presentation and sex/gender markers or photos in legal documents as well as interrogation upon passing through biometric checkpoints that build binary sex/gender into their operationalisation (Hamidi et al. 2018; Keyes 2018). For instance, millimetre-wave body scanners (first introduced in 2007 and now prevalent in both domestic and international airports worldwide) require passenger screening personnel to interpret every traveller’s gender by pushing a button for either female or male as they approach the machine. Individuals who do not match the security agent’s gendered reading and interpretation activate various security responses. In this way, security systems control and monitor the boundaries between male and female, and surveillance technologies construct the figure of the dangerous subject in relation to normative configurations of gender, race, and able-bodiedness. By mobilising narratives of concealment and disguise, heightened security measures frame gender nonconformity as dangerous or threatening to national security (Beauchamp 2019; Quinan and Pezzack 2020). This framing has real-life consequences for trans and non-binary individuals, who, in being labelled as suspicious, may be detained, interrogated, and humiliated. Intersecting forms of oppression (often based on racial, ethnic, and religious background) also exacerbate such obstacles to free movement and mobility (Haritaworn et al. 2014; Quinan and Bresser 2020). Recent legal reforms and policy advancements that recognise non-­ binary gender—in particular, the X gender marker in official documentation—have allowed non-binary individuals to access legal recognition that accurately reflects gender identity and have attempted to rectify some of the problems faced when crossing international borders. The list of countries that have adopted non-binary possibilities in passports is growing and now includes Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, India, Malta, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the United States. Globally, it

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can be expected that this trend will continue, as more and more nations are exploring the implementation of the non-binary X marker in passports and other documents. While this changing landscape might suggest improved human rights (including the right to mobility and migration), it is critical to interrogate how such legislative developments may have knock-on effects—including heightened surveillance—when considered alongside advanced biometric-based border securitisation. This landscape presents a conundrum: as governance strategies become more inclusive, bureaucratic structures and security technologies create challenges for gender-nonconforming individuals. With the rise of advanced biometric technologies, the surveillance and targeting of populations who do not match racial and gender norms—in particular, people of colour and trans and non-binary individuals—have dramatically increased in recent decades. Built on a framework that is fundamentally interested in categorising populations, biometrics trace their legacy to anthropometry, which reduces humans to statistical averages in order to sort them into desirable and undesirable groups, often based on presumed correlations between physical characteristics and ethnic backgrounds. Biometric technologies like body scanning and facial recognition technologies are built on similar ideas and are, in essence, being used as arbiters of objective truth in determining identity. Cultural studies scholar Joseph Pugliese writes that ‘Not to produce a template is equivalent to having no legal ontology, to being a non-being; you are equivalent to subjects who cannot be represented and whose presence can only be inferred by their very failure to be represented’ (2005, p. 14). In other words, in the increasingly biometrically determined world in which we live, one has to be digitally legible to the state in order to lay claim to rights. To put it more bluntly, one must be biometrically readable to exist at all. This dynamic is one of recognition and is undoubtedly also inflected with gendered norms. Similarly, trans studies scholar Eric Plemons underscores the relational and existential nature of gender and social recognition: ‘If recognition is the means through which sex/gender becomes materialized and naturalized, then the conditions of recognition are the conditions of gender: I am a man when I am recognized as a man’ (2017, p. 10). By extension, recognition technologies like facial analysis exert power in shaping who counts as a man or as a woman. Although LGBTIQ legal recognition has long been a topic of academic and activist investigation and analysis, it has, as of late, taken on a renewed sense of urgency as laws and policies around the world have been

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attempting to be more inclusive of gender and sexual minorities (Raj and Dunne 2021; Stanley 2017). This evolving legal landscape is reflected in the recent proliferation of scholarship on questions of recognition—both legal and social—of LGBTIQ individuals, a body of work that has drawn attention not only to the harms that such legislative and policy interventions intend to correct but also to the challenges and paradoxes that they simultaneously provoke. Building upon feminist and queer theory that has problematised social, legal, and institutional recognition, the chapter approaches the topic of gendered recognition by focusing on how the biopolitical mechanisms of legal gender recognition and biometric technologies recognise—and, hence, legitimise—some identities but not others. The second section of this chapter draws on a series of semi-structured interviews (15 in total) that I conducted in 2018 and 2019 with trans and non-binary respondents to evaluate experiences with border-crossing. The sample was global, and participants resided in Europe, the Middle East, Central America, and Oceania. The interviews aimed to assess gender-­ diverse people’s opinions on existing options for declaring gender at federal levels and to gather hopes and desires for future sex/gender registration practices. Another important theme of the interviews was trans and non-­ binary experiences within border security structures (including biometric technologies like body scanners). In the third section, I move to an analysis of biometric technologies to further problematise the consequences of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmically driven surveillance that underlie contemporary governance structures. After analysing the recognition technologies of gender markers and biometrics, in the final section I turn to practices of creative resistance by artists like Heather Dewey-­ Hagborg, Zach Blas, and Ma Liuming, who each draw public attention to this contemporary landscape and offer illustrative examples of how (gendered) recognition can be contested and reconceived through art.

The Biopolitical Technology of Gender Markers I want to open this section with the reflections of my respondent Aman, who is in their 20s, identifies as gender-fluid, and lives in the Middle East.1 When asked to share their opinion on the inclusion of gender in identity documents, they stated:

1

 As consented to by participants, all names have been changed to protect anonymity.

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I think they [countries] should just figure out a way to cancel it, but altogether, and if they can’t, they should do like—I think Australia did that, they added a third category, like male, female, and X—so that should be applied everywhere as a first step towards the abolishment of the whole gender thing on papers […]. The difference is that they added a third category. It would still not be satisfying enough for many people. Like, being identified as gender X might be offensive for some. And, so removing it altogether would be a better option. […]. But if they are not going to do that, then at least add the third option.

Although we might detect a waffling tone, Aman’s words capture a complex conundrum. When it comes to state practices of categorising sex and gender, should we aim to abolish the system or to reform it? Moreover, Aman speaks to the significance of self-determination and being able to change legal gender classification to reflect gender identity. This sentiment was recurrent in the interviews I conducted and was also confirmed by a recent survey in Australia that targeted trans and gender-diverse communities. In the survey analysis, being able to change gender and name through a simple administrative procedure was the top-ranked priority out of 28 options (exceeding healthcare or employment) amongst all respondents (ACON 2019). One important theme of the interviews I conducted was the emotional effects that border control and surveillance practices have on trans, non-­ binary, and gender-diverse people, including consequences for mobility and everyday experiences of moving through the world. Most participants also reflected on steps that could be taken to improve the mobility of gender-diverse people, including institutional changes and socio-cultural awareness. While many of my participants stated that they had experienced trouble when travelling, including being questioned, body searched, and humiliated because of documentation that did not meet the expectations of security personnel or border technologies like body scanners, a number of others indicated they have never experienced issues because they have developed strategies to prevent questioning. Others also actively conceal their gender identity (often through dress and presentation) by travelling as a gender that matches their documentation but does not align with their identity (see also Quinan and Bresser 2020). Fearing confrontations with security personnel and biometric technologies, several binary-­ identifying trans participants also avoided travelling during their transition and/or when their appearance did not match with their travel documents.

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The theme of finding strategies to pass through border security was particularly prominent. Alex, who is a lawyer from Central America working in human rights, identifies as genderqueer and non-binary and uses she/her pronouns. Because of her work, she travels internationally regularly. Her gender expression has resulted in several troublesome experiences while travelling: ‘It even has happened to me’, she says, ‘that they told me [at the border] that my documents were not mine […]. Like: “Are you sure this document is yours? Show me another identity document, because you don’t look like a woman”… These kinds of things’. She mentions that the most difficult experiences have always happened in Europe or the United States, the worst being at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport: Even this one time, precisely in Holland, leaving the country, I was detained and taken to a little room where I was interrogated—I don’t know what that is, a room in Schiphol, in Amsterdam, where everything was made of metal. And I was there for about 45 minutes, while they asked me if that was my real identity document … that has been the only airport in the world where I have ever been stopped for that reason.

In this regard, she recognises that having a non-binary or ambiguous gender expression has been grounds for questioning and harassment. But Alex belongs to an ethnic minority group, and non-normative gender cannot be disaggregated from bias based on race and ethnicity, not to mention stereotypes about Central Americans that circulate in popular culture. These intersecting forms of discrimination represent further obstacles to mobility. Asked about strategies to navigate border-crossings in security assemblages that target gender and racial difference as threatening, Alex explains that as soon as she passes by border security, she tries to talk with the most feminine voice possible: ‘I prefer to go with a blouse, or something with more cleavage, and talk …’. When asked about strategies for travelling and crossing borders, another of my respondents, Gael, a bi-national EU citizen in their late 20s who identifies as non-binary transmasculine, stated: I try not to do anything that draws attention. I don’t do anything that is outside gender normativity. For instance, I don’t know, wearing nail polish… I wouldn’t do that when travelling or crossing borders, to avoid any problem. And these are things I would do in my daily life in the city, but

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when travelling I try to make my gender expression more normative so people don’t pay attention to me.

Asked if they have ever changed the way they travel given this challenging and often unsafe climate, Gael stated: ‘Well yes, when I was … I mean, when I was read more “in the middle”, the bike was to me […] a safe space. Because if I was in a bus or in the subway, it was like an enclosed space in which people would stare at me, and I would feel very observed’. Within these constraining governance frameworks and securitisation paradigms, however, I also identified spaces for resistance and self-­ affirmation cultivated by some of my participants. Gael gave their impression about the process of changing the way their gender was registered in their home country and the importance they feel in being precisely recognised as trans, which for them became an activist stance: It would have been much easier if I had wanted to change my sex status […]. But I did not want to change my sex identification, because I don’t identify as a man either […]. That is, I don’t identify as woman or man, so I saw no point at all in changing it. Plus, if I change it, I disappear for the state as a trans person. So in this sense it was a form of activism for me […]. Because when you change your sex most of the time they kill you [legally] and create a whole new birth certificate […]. In this way, you disappear as a trans person.

Not only are technologies used to monitor, control, and restrict the border, but as Gael’s comment emphasises, technologies (including forms of documentation) are also creatively used, repurposed, or resignified by trans and non-binary individuals to negotiate, manoeuvre, and resist these state-based biopolitical and necropolitical mechanisms. Asked about how they would like to have their gender identity recognised in their legal documents, Gael responded: ‘I would remove any mention of gender. That is, in my utopian ideal, I would erase it. In my ideal of something that could be reached, I think that the ideal would be to include a third option, an X, or a zero, or whatever’. In Gael’s formulation—perhaps similar to Aman’s conceptualisation above—the X does not represent a new non-binary identity category. It is, instead, a blank space, which may then allow for privacy to—or even decertification of—state interventions into one’s gendered life (see Cooper 2023; Cooper and Renz 2016).

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At the same time, however, alternative options like the X could (inadvertently or not) target trans and non-binary individuals. Another respondent, Tim, who lives in Northern Europe and describes himself as a genderqueer trans guy, stated that he ‘couldn’t care less’ about the state’s picture of his gender. However, it did occur to him that registration could be handy for situations where you can ‘prove’ your gender by showing your passport. He was, however, not in favour of including too much information in passports. He said that if, hypothetically, there were six gender options, then the state is going to have significantly more information about how you identify. He stressed that this may be delicate information that could be politically dangerous. This was echoed in an interview with Nienke, a Dutch trans woman, who finds that registration in general is historically sensitive (she named the example of the registration of Jews in World War II). Because of the ‘obsession with registration’, she feels like she is increasingly being set apart as a separate group. She did eventually choose to register as female, precisely because it can ‘be nice to pull out my passport when someone does not believe me’. She said she feels safer when her passport has a female marker, precisely because it makes her more comfortable that public officials and other people who rely on official information immediately know that she is a woman. Indeed, as Nienke’s comments underscore, the social and institutional demand for gendered recognition and legibility cannot be overstated. Judith Butler articulates how this itself is a question of survivability: ‘some people very much require a clear name and gender, and struggle for recognition on the basis of that clear name and gender. It is a fundamental issue of how to establish and insist upon those forms of address that make life liveable’ (Ahmed 2016, p. 490). At the same time, many respondents emphasised that simply adding categories and gender markers may not rectify obstacles to the mobility of trans and non-binary people unless it is part of a wider strategy that tackles transphobic and cis-­ sexist norms that pervade society (Serano 2007).

Binary-Based Biometric Technologies Referencing the societies of control in which we currently live, Gilles Deleuze wrote that while the state renders human beings calculable but also disciplined, ‘what is important is no longer either a signature or a number, but a code […]. The numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information, or reject it. We no longer find

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ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become “dividuals”, and masses, samples, data, markets, or “banks”’ (1992, p. 5, original emphasis). Indeed, this datafication and algorithmic surveillance underlies contemporary governance structures, particularly in the face of legal reforms to trans and non-binary recognition like those named above. Indeed, many of my participants expressed concern about—or were indifferent to—non-binary gender markers given that border security technologies like body scanners and facial recognition are constructed on the basis of binary conceptualisations of sex and gender. In juxtaposing the X gender marker as a policy-level intervention in identity documentation with biometrics that rely on binary constructions of gender, it becomes clear how current border security structures frequently pose a challenge for those not conforming to gender norms. This dynamic also falls along racial and citizenship lines. Although proponents of biometrics claim the technology is neutral and based on predictive algorithms, human assumptions about race and gender are encoded into their operational elements, which are calibrated to whiteness and binary gender (see Browne 2015; Keyes 2018; Magnet 2011; Pugliese 2005). While security technologies have long tended to focus on the identification of specific objects considered weapons and security threats, in the post-9/11 era surveillance practices have homed in on human bodies as the prime locales of threat. This approach has been made possible through advanced passenger screening by biometric technologies. A consequence has been that those who fall outside of markers of normative race, gender, sex, religion, and ability (i.e., those who are not white, cisgender, secular, and/or able-bodied) become targets of biometric technologies, while those who are seen as normal and productive citizens pass easily through visible and invisible security checkpoints. In this sense, technology has become entangled within and productive of practices of gendering and racialisation. Using the concept of Failure to Enroll (FTE), Pugliese (2005) encapsulates the practical effects of biometric technologies on non-normative groups. FTE refers to the process by which the ‘normal’ can be enrolled or authenticated in biometric systems, while the non-normative ‘stand to throw into crisis the very biometric relation between physis and technè, body and machine, epistemology and ontology, and whiteness and its others’ (Pugliese 2005, p. 2). Pugliese goes on to question the assertion that biometrics are both convenient and efficient in authenticating identity, arguing that this convenience ‘is so indissociably tied to a racialised

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technè/“technical efficiency” that it must be seen as another instantiation of unacknowledged whiteness; […] it becomes evident that the “natural convenience” and “technical efficiency” of these biometric systems are not guaranteed for non-white subjects’ (p. 2). But I want to extend this even further to argue that these tools are infrastructurally calibrated to cisness and to binary gender norms, expectations, and assumptions. As Hunt and I have argued elsewhere, Pugliese’s framework focuses on racialised dynamics; however, there is an important overlap with gender, as his formulation of ‘unacknowledged whiteness’ and ‘non-white subjects’ can be respectively substituted with and applied to ‘unacknowledged cis-ness’ and ‘trans and non-binary subjects’ (Quinan and Hunt 2022, p.  212). Indeed, these biometric technologies foreground tensions between visibility and invisibility and highlight the ways in which trans and non-binary people simultaneously disappear and are hyper-visible. These are political technologies that have discriminatory effects. Institutions utilise biometrics to ‘enact institutionalized forms of state power upon vulnerable populations’ (Magnet 2011, p. 9), and assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, and ability are encoded by scientists into the operational elements of the technologies, which are not constructed to deal with multiple and/or intersectional identities, including those that diverge from white, cisgender, able-bodied norms. In Discriminating Data: Correlation, Neighborhoods, and the New Politics of Recognition, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun argues that ‘the links between facial recognition technology and eugenics are not only thematic or aspirational, but also methodological. They are rooted in eugenic methods, such as linear discriminant analysis, developed in the early twentieth century to discriminate between classes and races of people’ (2021, p. 333). Facial analysis software, for example, has been critiqued for its racial biases, as it is often unable to read darker skin tones because cameras are optimised for lighter skin (Buolamwini and Gebru 2018). Under the cover of national security, biometric systems—including fingerprinting, full-body scanning, facial recognition, iris scanning, gait analysis, and voice recognition—have become central to international migration and travel (Hodge et al. 2019). E-passports, also called biometric passports, are embedded with a microchip that is encoded with biometric data (including information that is used by facial recognition systems at border checkpoints) through which they verify the identity of the holder. But digital biometric technologies have also proliferated outside border checkpoints, as the scanning of bodies—in whole or in part—have become

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a quotidian part of our lives with which we inevitably engage, often without our explicit consent (Tucker 2014). This proliferation has meant that the biometric border is increasingly seeping into our everyday lives, including in sites like medical clinics, smartphones, social services, and social-­ networking apps (Quinan and Hunt 2022). Facebook’s photo-tagging system, which automatically identifies people in users’ photos, relies on these sorts of facial recognition and analysis technologies. Seemingly designed to make our lives easier and save time (think of Pugliese’s ‘natural convenience’ critique), this tool has allowed Facebook to amass one of the world’s largest digital face databases. This has, however, prompted such serious concerns about privacy, regulation, and misuse that the company announced in November 2021 that it will shut down the service. Jerome Pesenti, vice president of AI at Facebook’s parent company Meta, stated that it will be discontinued due to ‘many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society […] every new technology brings with it potential for both benefit and concern, and we want to find the right balance’ (Hill and Mack 2021). Although Facebook says it will delete the face-scan data of one billion users, these facial recognition templates have already circulated widely and have been used extensively to train artificial intelligence software. Concerns about algorithmic bias have also caused other corporations (including Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon) to pause the sale of their own proprietary facial recognition technologies. Harvesting of face data is particularly salient in the context of trans and non-binary subjectivities and medical transition processes. Because hormone replacement therapies (HRT) undergone by some trans people change facial structure, computer scientists and engineers have become interested in gathering face data from trans individuals in order to train the technology. In other words, trans people are made into objects of study (largely without consent) and are viewed as challenge sets around which machine-learning can take place (Quinan and Hunt 2022). This has taken on renewed urgency with the emergence of highly advanced AI image-generator technologies like Dall-E 2 and Midjourney, which are able to generate realistic images of (fake) trans individuals, but ones that exacerbate stereotypical notions of what a transgender woman or a transgender man looks like.

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(In)visibility and Artistic Resistance Based on the above analysis, the most natural next step in this argument might appear to be a critique of the harms caused by these technologies (both legal and biometric). While this is an important work to do, I want to instead propose that we think about gender-diverse bodies as not only restricted by biometric technologies but also challenging the fixity of biometrics, thereby revealing the instability of relying on body-based data. Marquis Bey, for instance, writes about the transformative and generative potentials of technologies writ large: From electronic technologies to somatechnics, technologies enable, and it is an enabling that can thrust outward in myriad ways that can be read through variegated valuations. This is thus to say that insofar as gender is cast binaristically, technologies, broadly speaking […] can enable other kinds of gender embodiments. Technologies can usher in other-than genders. (Bey in Aizura et al. 2020, p. 144)

What might it mean to take a cue from Bey and think about these gendered technologies as ‘enabling’? To help respond to this question, I want to return to the seeming imperative to be seen that itself underlies both legal recognition and biometric legibility by looking to a collection of artistic-activist work. A handful of exhibitions and installations have recently taken up related questions around gender, crossing borders, and biometric technologies by contesting dominant modes of recognition and the notion of visibility as progress. In this sense, I am interested in how modern technologies can also function as situated sites of contestation and resistance. Amongst an increasingly securitised landscape, artistic forms of resistance can offer a means of subverting and resisting discriminatory policing and surveillance practices by posing alternative visualisations that reveal and challenge their supposed objectivity. Zach Blas, Facial Weaponization Suite and SANCTUM UK-based American artist Zach Blas suggests invisibility as a resistance strategy and asks if we should strive for creative techniques that precisely queer the law and biometrics. Rather than looking to the dominant forms of representation as a means for recognition and social change, invisibility would be a tool for making oneself unaccounted for (Wevers 2018).

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Echoing Foucauldian notions of visibility and biopower, for Blas, ‘transparency, visibility, and representation to the state should be used tactically, they are never the end goal for a transformative politics but are, ultimately, a trap’ (Blas and Gaboury 2016, p. 158). While invisibility (not unlike visibility) is itself a privilege that, I would argue, is unevenly distributed, Blas’s work attempts to refuse a politics of visibility as well as biometrics’ standardisation of identity. Tied up in debates around recognition are broader issues of representation and visibility, and in the context of trans and non-binary identity, this poses complicated questions that are well encapsulated by Eric Stanley as follows: ‘how can we be seen without being known and how can we be known without being hunted?’ (2017, p. 618). In other words, trans and queer visibility has often been regarded as a mark of progress or inclusion, but it is critical to acknowledge that this has occurred alongside heightened violence towards—and exclusion of— trans of colour bodies and identities (Gossett et al. 2017). Two of Blas’s projects—Facial Weaponization Suite (2011–2014) and Face Cages (2013–2016)—contest biometric recognition and the inequalities that these technologies promulgate by constructing masks that trick or dodge facial recognition systems. One piece entitled Fag Face Mask is generated from the face data of queer men and is a response to studies that purport to recognise sexual orientation on the basis of facial features through rapid facial recognition techniques. While this sort of ‘AI gaydar’, as Devon Schiller (2020) calls it, is built on essentialist notions of prenatal hormones as influencing sexual orientation, Paul B. Preciado reminds us that humans remain at the centre of assumptions about gender and sexuality: ‘if machine vision can guess sexual orientation it is not because sexual identity is a natural feature to be read [but because] we are teaching our machines the language of technopatriarchal binarism and racism’ (cited in Schiller 2020). In addition to implicitly critiquing these sorts of purportedly scientific approaches to understanding sexuality, Blas’s work also underscores the activist potential of biometric artistic interventions, as the masks are created in workshops modelled on the facial data of participants and are then used for public interventions and performances. In another creative intervention entitled SANCTUM (2018), Blas explores body scanning technologies ubiquitous in airports (see Image 2.1). In this 2018 audio-video artwork installation, Blas uses the generic mannequin of the millimetre-wave body scanner and moves the scanners out of the airport and into a queer environment that is ‘at once a prison-­ house of algorithmic capture, a sex dungeon with no genitals, a weapons

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Image 2.1  SANCTUM (2018), Zach Blas. Commissioned by Matadero Madrid for Tentacular Festival. (Image source: https://zachblas.info/works/sanctum/. © Zach Blas)

factory, and a temple to security’.2 Blas’s reframing gestures towards full-­ body scanning technology’s germination in prisons and other disciplinary systems, thereby highlighting how its development and use have originated from carceral (rather than security-based) contexts (Quinan and Pezzack 2020). Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Radical Love and Probably Chelsea While Blas primarily works with digital recognition technologies, interdisciplinary artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s creative practice engages with what might be considered the next frontier of biometric surveillance: forensic DNA phenotyping. In Radical Love (2016) and Probably Chelsea (2017), Dewey-Hagborg uses forensic reconstruction to critique the ways in which gender has been integrated into biometric technologies. These two installations took shape after PAPER Magazine began a 2015 profile on the former US Army soldier, whistleblower, jailed activist, and trans woman Chelsea Manning. As she had been incarcerated since 2010 and  https://zachblas.info/works/sanctum/. Accessed 2 June 2023.

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was prohibited from being photographed, no one except her lawyers and visitors had seen her after she had begun her transition. To construct an image of Manning, the magazine contacted Dewey-Hagborg, who had earlier created an artistic intervention entitled Stranger Visions (2012), in which she constructed faces from strands of hair, cigarette butts, chewing gum, and other DNA traces picked up from the street. For the magazine profile, Manning sent Dewey-Hagborg samples of her DNA, including cheek swabs and hair clippings, from which the artist algorithmically generated portraits of Manning. This effectively allowed her to sneak her image out of prison despite being unable to share a photo. As the only photographs of her that existed were taken prior to her transition, Manning saw this project as a way to take back agency and restore visibility: ‘A DNA portrait could give me back some of the visibility that I have been stripped of for years’.3 Of the dozens of three-dimensional masks created by Dewey-Hagborg, PAPER used two possible portraits of Manning, one female and the other algorithmically gender neutral. This then formed the basis of Dewey-­ Hagborg’s piece entitled Radical Love, a diptych of faces that explores gender identity stereotypes in forensic DNA phenotyping. As the artist writes, presenting these possible portraits next to one another draws attention to ‘the problem of utilizing chromosomes or birth assigned sex to assign gender as well as a larger issue of what it means to rely on stereotyped ideas of what a gendered face is “supposed” to look like’.4 In Probably Chelsea, a large-scale work built upon the same process of DNA phenotyping, Dewey-Hagborg presented 30 different three-­ dimensional portraits of Chelsea Manning that she had algorithmically generated. These portraits show drastically different faces of varying skin tones, facial structures, and eye shapes, thereby visually representing how the same DNA data can be interpreted in vastly different ways (see Image 2.2). As Dewey-Hagborg describes: These pictures, presented as objective, neutral, and certain, rely heavily on reductionist concepts of genetic sex and ancestry, and subjective renderings of how these appear. The scientific reality, however, is complex, multiple, contingent, and probabilistic. There is no certainty in reading sex and

3 4

 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/chelsea-manning-1041596. Accessed 2 June 2023.  https://deweyhagborg.com/projects/radical-love. Accessed 2 June 2023.

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Image 2.2  Probably Chelsea (2017), Heather Dewey-Hagborg. Exhibited at Fridman Gallery, New  York. (Image source: https://deweyhagborg.com/projects/probably-­chelsea. © Heather Dewey-Hagborg) a­ ncestry from DNA, and often the guesses that are made are little better than a coin flip.5

In this sense, both Radical Love and Probably Chelsea draw attention to genomic reductionism, including the increasingly routine practice in law enforcement of forensically determining someone’s gender based on readings of genetic sex. These two collaborative interventions, individually and together, emphasise that (1) the act of reading DNA is subjective and (2) the practice of pinning someone’s gender to simplistic readings of genetic sex (which has become a routine practice in DNA forensics) is problematic in that it conflates gender with sex assigned at birth. In this way, Dewey-­ Hagborg’s work also highlights the limits of using biometric data to predict gender. Genomics is a predictive field, and building a profile or image is always a subjective act of shaping the data.

5

 https://deweyhagborg.com/projects/probably-chelsea. Accessed 2 June 2023.

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Ma Liuming, Visa to the USA While Dewey-Hagborg’s work underscores how tenuous and arbitrary gender actually is in technologies that claim to determine gender, Chinese artist Ma Liuming provokes questions about how gender is—accurately or not—determined by visual cues. Through his female alter ego Fen-Ma Liuming, the artist explores questions surrounding mobility, documentation, embodiment, and androgyny through provocative performances that question the borders between binary genders. In Visa to the USA, Liuming presents a large-scale triptych of three seemingly identical images of his visa documentation (see Image 2.3). It is only on close examination that the viewer can see that, in the second image, the sex marker (‘F’ for female) has been circled, and it has been stamped ‘CANCELLED WITHOUT PREJUDICE—U.S. EMBASSY BEIJING’. After receiving his visa, Liuming discovered that he had been registered as female by the visa processing agent: ‘They just looked at my photo and didn’t feel they needed to check what it said in my application’.6 In the third image, we see another US visa with a slightly different passport-sized photo and a new sex marker (‘M’ for male) included. Although border management relies on security protocols, biometric technology, and algorithmic surveillance, Liuming’s work underscores the prime role that humans continue to play as—essential yet fallible—interpreters of this information. Perhaps even more importantly, the experience documented and visualised in Visa to the USA demonstrates the arbitrariness of gender as a category of identity that is even registered in official documents at all. While an analysis of identity documents and AI-driven biometric technologies reveals how binary gender is built into these expanding technologies, reading artistic work, like that of Blas, Dewey-Hagborg, and Liuming, as well as Cheang, with whom I opened this chapter, helps shed light on how the subjective act of reading visual cues and biometric data impacts how we understand gender. The work of these four artists also belongs to a broader collection of creative endeavours that have begun to interrogate the complex relationships between technology, surveillance, and power (Celis 2020). In this way, the above brief artistic-activist snapshots can be seen as critical supplements to the ethnographic passages included earlier in this chapter. Together, they not only provide us with a broad landscape 6  https://cananmarasligil.net/read/secret-love-sexual-diversity-in-china. June 2023.

Accessed

2

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Image 2.3  Ma Liuming, Visa to the USA. Exhibited at Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam. (Image source: Photograph by the author)

of the issues facing trans and non-binary individuals when it comes to border-crossing, but they also offer tools for creative resistance. While biometric technologies and gender markers in documentation highlight ‘how particular notions of gender come to be stabilised through their incorporation into larger systems of organization and control’ (Currah and Mulqueen 2011, p. 574), these artistic interventions allow us to imagine a possibility for destabilisation. In a sense, body scanners—or trans experiences at the border more generally—signal the limits, and ultimate demise perhaps of, firstly, the use of gender as biometric data and a fixed code; and secondly, and perhaps more optimistically on my part, the use of gender as a registerable marker with the state. Biometrics produce

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‘new understandings of security, the border, and the nation-state’ (Magnet 2011, p. 12), but as Magnet has convincingly shown, biometrics also fail. In ‘Postscript on the societies of control’, Deleuze wrote that ‘the societies of control operate with machines of a third type, computers, whose passive danger is jamming and whose active one is piracy and the introduction of viruses’ (1992, p. 6). It is within these risks inherent to computers and AI-driven border technologies that resistance might lie. Perhaps not fitting the M or F of the passport or the blue or pink button of the body scanner could function as both passive progressive jamming of the system or even the active introduction of a virus, which could set off a series of forces in the security assemblage that may destabilise binary conceptions of gender itself. Acknowledgements  I would like to thank Hannah Pezzack, Cecilia Cienfuegos, and Dana Theewis for research assistance that has proven invaluable in the writing of this chapter.

References ACON. 2019. A blueprint for improving the health and wellbeing of the trans and gender diverse community in NSW. Accessed 2 June 2023. https://www.acon. org.au/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2019/04/ACON-­T GD-­H ealth-­B lueprint-­ Booklet.pdf. Ahmed, Sara. 2016. Interview with Judith Butler. Sexualities 19 (4): 482–492. Aizura, Aren Z., Marquis Bey, Toby Beauchamp, Treva Ellison, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Eliza Steinbock. 2020. Thinking with trans now. Social Text 38 (4): 125–147. Beauchamp, Toby. 2019. Going stealth: Transgender politics and U.S. surveillance practices. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Blas, Zach, and Jacob Gaboury. 2016. Biometrics and opacity: A conversation. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 31 (2): 154–165. Browne, Simone. 2015. Dark matters: On the surveillance of blackness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Buolamwini, Joy, and Timnit Gebru. 2018. Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification. Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81: 1–15. Celis, Claudio. 2020. Critical surveillance art in the age of machine vision and algorithmic governmentality: Three case studies. Surveillance & Society 18 (3): 295–311. Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. 2021. Discriminating data: Correlation, neighborhoods, and the new politics of recognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Cooper, Davina. 2023. De-producing gender: The politics of sex, decertification and the figure of economy. Feminist Theory. OnlineFirst. https://doi. org/10.1177/1464700122114863 Cooper, Davina, and Flora Renz. 2016. If the state decertified gender, what might happen to its meaning and value? Journal of Law and Society 4 (4): 483–505. https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12000. Currah, Paisley, and Tara Mulqueen. 2011. Securitizing gender: Identity, biometrics, and transgender bodies at the airport. Social Research: An International Quarterly 78 (2): 557–582. Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. Postscript on the societies of control. October 59: 3–7. Gossett, Reina, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton. 2017. Trap door: Trans cultural production and the politics of visibility. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hamidi, Foad, Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, and Stacy M. Branham. 2018. Gender recognition or gender reductionism?: The social implications of automatic gender recognition systems. CHI 2018: 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/ 3173574.3173582. Haritaworn, Jin, Adi Kuntsman, and Silvia Posocco, eds. 2014. Queer necropolitics. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203798300. Hill, Kashmir, and Ryan Mack. 2021. Facebook, citing societal concerns, plans to shut down facial recognition system. November 2. Accessed 2 June 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/technology/facebook-­f acial-­ recognition.html. Hodge, Edwin, Helga Hallgrimsdottir, and Marianne Much. 2019. Performing borders: Queer and trans experiences at the Canadian border. Social Sciences 8 (7): 201–214. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8070201. Keyes, Os. 2018. The misgendering machines: Trans/HCI implications of automatic gender recognition. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2: 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274357. Magnet, Shoshana Amielle. 2011. When biometrics fail: Gender, race, and the technology of identity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Plemons, Eric. 2017. The look of a woman: Facial feminization surgery and the aims of trans- medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pugliese, Joseph. 2005. In silico race and the heteronomy of biometric proxies: Biometrics in the context of civilian life, border security and counter-terrorism laws. Australian Feminist Law Journal 23: 1–32. Quinan, C.L., and Nina Bresser. 2020. Gender at the border: Global responses to gender-diverse subjectivities and nonbinary registration practices. Global Perspectives 1 (1): 1–11. Quinan, C.L., and Mina Hunt. 2022. Biometric bordering and automatic gender recognition: Challenging binary gender norms in everyday biometric technologies. Communication, Culture and Critique 15: 211–226.

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Quinan, C.L., and H. Pezzack. 2020. A biometric logic of revelation: Zach Blas’s SANCTUM (2018). M/C Journal 23 (4). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1664. Raj, Senthorun, and Peter Dunne, eds. 2021. The queer outside in law: Recognising LGBTIQ people in the United Kingdom. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Schiller, Devon. 2020. On the basis of face: Biometric art as critical practice, its history and politics. Institute of Network Cultures, July 22. Accessed 2 June 2023. https://networkcultures.org/longform/2020/06/22/on-­the-basisof-­face-­biometric-­art-­as-­critical-­practice-­its-­history-­and-­politics/. Serano, Julia. 2007. Whipping girl: A transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. Stanley, Eric A. 2017. Anti-trans optics: Recognition, opacity, and the image of force. The South Atlantic Quarterly 116 (3): 612–620. Tucker, Jennifer. 2014. How facial recognition technology came to be. Boston Globe, November 23. Accessed 2 June 2023. https://www.wesleyan.edu/allbritton/cspl/scholarship/jennifertucker.pdf. Wevers, Rosa. 2018. Unmasking biometrics’ biases: Facing gender, race, class and ability in biometric data collection. TMG Journal for Media History 21 (2): 89–105. https://doi.org/10.18146/2213-­7653.2018.368.

CHAPTER 3

‘My tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries’: A®tivism Across the US/Mexico Border Lorena Carbonara and Dora Renna

Introduction In May 2019, California-based architects Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael realized a site-specific installation, ‘The Teeter Totter Wall’, at the frontier between Mexico and the US. They transformed the fence into an international playground, exactly where Ciudad Juárez borders Sunland This chapter is the result of a collaboration between the two authors. More specifically, Lorena Carbonara wrote the sections “Introduction” and “Linking a®tivism with la conciencia de la mestiza”, while Dora Renna wrote the section “‘My tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries’: A Linguistic Analysis of Border(s) (De)construction in Mexican American Slam Poetry”. The section “Conclusion” was written by the authors together.

L. Carbonara (*) University of Calabria, Rende (Cosenza), Italy e-mail: [email protected] D. Renna University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_3

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Park in New Mexico, cutting the border with three pink seesaws that allowed children and adults to play and swing together, on both sides. The installation aimed to show that whatever happens on one side of the wall has a direct and specific consequence on the other side in terms of the possibility of physical movement and freedom, as well as in terms of emotions and feelings. As sociologist Christina Aushana states: physical walls can impact the perception of people. They function beyond their intended purposes as markers of territory or as deterrents to external flows. They shape how hegemonic people perceive the threat that comes with, for example, undocumented migrants across the US Mexico border, to the ‘natural’ order of things. (2012, p. 129)

Aushana suggests that a border wall is not only a marker of territory, a physical barrier; it also creates and fuels certain kinds of emotions in both hegemonic people (the ones that separate) and in the people on the other side (the ones being separated). The crossers too are impacted by the physical existence of a barrier, in both physical and psychological terms. As an example, when Mexico lost part of its territory at the end of the Mexican-American War, in 1848, Mexican villages became part of the United States and Mexicans living in these newly occupied territories were given one year to decide between accepting US citizenship or returning to Mexico (Castañeda et al. 1972, p. 209). The title of a recent screen print by Melanie Cervantes, ‘We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us’,1 makes a direct and ironic reference to these historical events. The expression was the cry of the 1970s

1  Jesús Barraz and Melanie Cervantes founded the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area-based Dignidad Rebelde, whose work they describe as ‘grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people’s power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement, and loss of culture that result from histories of colonialism, patriarchy, genocide, and exploitation’. https://dignidadrebelde.com/.

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Mexican/Chicanx2 immigrant rights movements symbolizing their claim to territory, citizenship rights, and cultural legacy, and emphasizing their passive rather than active role in the border question. The main figure in the graphic is a man dressed in Aztec dancer garb, a picture taken by Cervantes at a ceremony on Alcatraz Island, which is the site of a famous occupation (from 1969 to 1971) by Native Americans claiming their rights to the land. The image highlights the connection with the symbolism of Aztlán, the Aztec’s legendary homeland in what is now the southwest of the United States; a homeland that existed before the border and the wall turned Mexicans into immigrants and the Native American populations into a minority. The material quality of this border—which, over time, has represented both a controversial political issue and the site of artistic experimentation—was fiercely and continuously outlined by former US President Donald Trump, during both his election campaign and his presidency. On various occasions, he publicly described the wall he wanted to reinforce with adjectives such as impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, and serious (Demata 2019). Specifically talking about immigration from Mexico, the President stated: The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans. Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old woman’s home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa 2  ‘“Chicano/a”, defined in simplest terms, refers to people of Mexican ancestry living in the United States; it is most often used in reference to those born and raised on US soil. In the fullest sense, however, the terms “Chicano” (male) or “Chicana” (female) [or Chicanx, unisex term, ndr] carry profound political and social implications and have changed in meaning over the course of the past two centuries. Indeed, intense debates continue over the terms’ precise definition, whether or not they should be used at all, and, if so, in what context. The experience of Chicanos/as as both a conquered and an immigrant people shapes outside understandings and misunderstandings, as well as responses—to the word as well as to the people—in mainstream American society. As distinct from the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino”, which include all Spanish-speaking peoples and all peoples of Latin American ancestry (such as Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Hondurans, for instance), Chicano and Chicana refer specifically to Mexicans. They therefore stand for a unique historical experience and sociocultural legacy, as Chicanos/as can be seen as both a conquered and an immigrant people’ (Leonard and Lugo-Lugo 2013, n.p.).

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Maria says the ‘blood trail’ leads straight to Washington. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders. (Trump in Fox 2016)

Such a catastrophic description of the phenomenon of immigration, which epitomizes the rhetoric used to demonize the border crossers, helped Trump create the feeling that the reinforcement of the militarized border—which had also been on the agenda of former US Presidents before him—was a renewed necessity for the protection of the nation’s fragile security. Paradoxically, according to the United States Border Patrol Apprehensions from Mexico (2001–2020),3 the total of people crossing the border from Mexico to the US underwent a considerable decrease, from 1,636,883 in 2001 to 254,647 in 2020. Figures were particularly low in the years that preceded Trump’s election, and from 2016 to 2019: 192,969 (2016), 130,454 (2017), 155,452 (2018), and 169,536 (2019). Since the 1970s Chicanx movement, artists working across the border have explored this charged site and created socially conscious art projects. Such border art, which was seen as marginal, is now fundamental to an interrogation of site-specificity and also globalization, as the US/Mexican wall has been in the international spotlight over the last decades. Trump’s alarmist behaviour and attitude towards the border and the crossers— whom he indiscriminately labelled as illegals and criminals (see for example Reilly [2016] and ‘Drug dealers’ [2016]), almost excluding women from the narration—generated a series of initiatives in favour of inclusiveness, freedom, and democracy. In this chapter, we will specifically focus on those artists that played a significant role in questioning embedded narratives about border and separation, national identity and belonging, and language(s), becoming powerful actors, agents, and advocates of social justice and change. We are interested in looking at how artists worked as activists across the landscape of the US/Mexico border, created new spaces also for women in the public discourse, and resisted hegemonic narratives about both the border and the crossers, especially as women ‘a®tivists’ (a portmanteau between ‘art’ and ‘activism’, where art becomes a means for activists to raise awareness and foster social change). We explore how they generate 3  See https://www.cbp.gov/document/stats/us-border-patrol-apprehensions-mexicoand-other-mexico-fy-2000-fy-2020. Accessed 30 May 2022.

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complex narratives that challenge the confines of genre, identity, womanhood, machismo, race, and intergenerational trauma. Aushana calls their artistic practices ‘transborder art activism’ and maintains that they have helped the creation of new hybrid identities for the crossers, which are confronted with the stereotypes created by the divisive rhetoric of hegemonic discourse (2012). Slam poetry was chosen here for its ability to enact border porousness both in terms of form and content, crisscrossing genres, cultures, and instances of identity. It constitutes a new paradigm for thinking about artistic resistance in relation to geographical and political borders and makes it possible to think about borders as ‘catalysts for social change and sites of empowerment’ (Aushana 2012, p. 137).

Linking a®tivism with la conciencia de la mestiza Given the very social nature of the artistic acts we are analysing here, it is important to further define the figure of the ‘a®tivist’, which we will explore in the following pages. The term was first used by Molefi K. Asante Jr. to describe the works of those artists who challenge, confront, and resist injustice and inhumanity. She claimed: Synergy is the interaction or cooperation of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. This is the idea that drives the artivist (artist + activist) to spend her days and nights feverishly creating in the face of ferocious destruction. It is the force that compels the artivist to encourage others to create as well; for the artivist knows that creativity is not reserved for the elite. […] The artivist uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation. (2008, n.p.)

Asante points out the responsibility that goes with artistic production when it is intertwined with a social cause and aims at resisting the established order of things. Crucial to this is also the idea of anti-elitism, which is enriched by Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre’s contribution examining a®tivists’ commitment to transforming themselves and the world. Sandoval and Latorre define a®tivism as ‘a hybrid neologism that signifies work created by individuals who see an organic relationship between art

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and activism’ (2008, p. 82). By focusing on the transformative power of a®tivists, they believe a®tivism can be interpreted as a manifestation of la conciencia de la mestiza, a concept elaborated by Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldúa to transcend the duality of the US/Mexico border. In her seminal work Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Anzaldúa called for the creation of subversive knowledge through creative acts linking inner reflection with social action, and she delineated the figure of the new mestiza as follows: The work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject-object duality that keeps her a prisoner and to show in the flesh and through the images in her work how duality is transcended. The answer to the problem between the white race and the colored, between males and females, lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our thoughts. A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and collective consciousness is the beginning of a long struggle, but one that could, in our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of violence, of war. (1999, p. 102)

Like Sandoval and Latorre, in this chapter we suggest that women border a®tivists possess and embody the mestiza consciousness. By interpreting the artistic non-elitist performance as an individual and collective, social and political act, they try to overcome duality while embracing diversity: Multidimensional meaning systems, as Anzaldúa argues, create the foundation of Chicana/o social activism. Like our definition of artivism, la conciencia de la mestiza, she contends, must provide access to a myriad of cultures, languages, and understandings, thus requiring the ability to negotiate multiple worldviews. Chicana/o artivism, like la conciencia de la mestiza, expresses a consciousness aware of conflicting and meshing identities and uses these to create new angles of vision to challenge oppressive modes of thinking. (Sandoval and Latorre 2008, p. 83)

At the centre of this definition, there is the idea of oppression, which is a recurring theme in the Mexican American and Chicano communities since the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848), a moment in history that symbolizes the beginning of an excruciating process of identity negotiation. Challenging the oppressor has indeed become part of the agenda for a®tivists working across the border, especially for women who had to fight

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patriarchal dominance both within the Mexican American and Chicano communities as well as in the American society. In the 1980s, Anzaldúa had already pointed out the divisive language and attitude that came with the physical presence of a wall between Mexico and the US, as evidenced by the following definition of borders and borderlands: The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it haemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. Los atravesados live here […]. (Anzaldúa 1999, p. 3)4

Anzaldúa described the border as a physical, material presence and an emotional, spiritual, and psychological boundary, becoming one of the pioneers of contemporary border studies. She emphasized also the role of women who found themselves facing patriarchy, machismo, and oppression in both their community of origin and the American one. In the work of slam poetry a®tivists examined in this chapter, we will encounter such complexity: the wall is perceived as a material reality, as well as an emotional and psychological construct. The poetics of slam poetry is positioned at the antipodes of the language of patriarchy, hierarchy and inequity, and this makes it the ideal place to artistically express la conciencia de la mestiza: Slam’s emphases on diversity, inclusion, and democracy have resulted in a ‘pluralism’ among its poets; on the national level, slammers hold a bevy of readings outside of the national competition celebrating marginalized racial, sexual, and gender identities. (Somers-Willett 2009, pp. 5–6)

It is a grassroots genre, which could happen in dedicated venues or in everyday places like bars and cafes (Banales n.d.). Slam poetry can be seen 4  This paragraph shows Anzaldúa’s use of language, her choice of expressing herself in English and Spanish, and also in some native languages throughout Borderlands/La Frontera. Given the importance code switching and code mixing have for the author, in terms of identity, politics and poetic, the Spanish expressions in the text were not translated.

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as an a®tivistic proof of border porousness on multiple levels. It is a form of spoken poetry born in the United States in the 1980s (Banales n.d.) featuring poetry, performance, competition, and interaction with the audience.5 Anyone can compete and judge, provided that no poem taking part in the contest lasts more than three minutes (Somers-Willett 2009, p. 6). Such a restriction aims to make slam poetry accessible to experts and non-experts alike. The success of an artist depends on the audience and is achieved by replacing plain reading with an interpretation as intense and vibrant as possible. The poet’s ability and charisma are central, as neither props nor music are allowed. However, it is possible to sing and to use one’s body language (Banales n.d.) and group performances are also allowed. Furthermore, while performances are meant to be seen live, recordings are often available online for free. While certainly not enjoying the same mass visibility as the one granted to prominent politicians in mainstream media, this genre is remarkable, as it is born at the margins, and voices the experiences of people and social groups too often excluded from public elitist discourses.

‘My tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries’: A Linguistic Analysis of Border(s) (De)construction in Mexican American Slam Poetry This section sets out to intertwine and problematize multiple boundaries. This will be done through the analysis of a selection of slam poems by Mexican American female authors Angelica Maria Aguilera, Ariana Brown, Anacristina Chapa, Karla Gutierrez and Paola Gonzalez, and Mercedez Holtry.6 These poems were chosen on the basis of their topics and availability online among those presented publicly between 2016 and 5  While the multimodal aspects of slam poetry are certainly worth studying, the scope of this chapter is the poems’ lyrics since, in most available recordings, there is scarce visibility of the audience and setting. 6  Mercedez Holtry (Albuquerque, New Mexico) is a renowned slam poet, writer, student, and feminist (Simpson 2019); Anacristina Chapa is a slam poet and dentistry student (Bush 2018). At the time their poem was released, Paola Gonzalez and Karla Gutierrez were respectively 17 and 18 years old, and were students at the Animo Inglewood Charter High School (Literary riot 2016); Angelica Maria Aguilera is a teacher and slam poet living at the border separating El Paso (US) from Juarez (Mexico) (Mota n.d.). Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet and poetry teacher, and a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion (Brown n.d.).

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2019—coinciding with Trump’s wall-based campaign and the part of his presidential mandate preceding the 2020 pandemic. From a methodological point of view, this section draws from Sriwimon and Zilli’s study (2017) of gendered stereotypes constructed through language in the news and Renna’s (2021) adaptation of this scheme to cinematic stereotypes. The originality of this approach lies in the use of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) ‘as a conceptual framework, and Transitivity Analysis from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as an analytical framework’ (Sriwimon and Zilli 2017, p. 137), so that a border-crossing methodology is applied to a gendered take on a border-crossing genre. Methodology Given the restrictive selection criteria of the sample and our focus on a®tivistic expression from the margins of art and society, this analysis does not aim to represent a statistical reference. Slam poetry is a practice of resistance that has been broadly analyzed from a cultural/performative point of view, rather than in terms of linguistic realization. A linguistic analysis will be conducted here, as previously mentioned, by crisscrossing CDA and SFL. Information is drawn directly from language and becomes the starting point for a broader, contextual interpretation that goes beyond syntax (Wodak 2001). More specifically, joining these two approaches allows seeing how power relations built through politics and policing were enacted and resisted (Fairclough 1992; van Dijk 2004) linguistically by these young slam poets. The analysis only includes the poems released by female Mexican American slam poets published online between 2016 and 2019 (and available on YouTube), whose main topic is the idea of wall(s) with all its possible applications and conceptualizations. More precisely, the selection includes two poems by Aguilera, ‘The star Spanglish banner’ (2018) and ‘Steps on burying the American flag (acc. to American Disposal Services)’ (2019); one poem by Brown, ‘Dear white girl in my Spanish class’ (2018); one poem by Chapa, ‘On being bilingual’ (2017); two poems by Holtry, ‘We’re here to stay’ (2016) and ‘I bloomed a resistance’ (2018); and finally one poem by Gonzalez and Gutierrez, ‘At the wall, US/Mexican border, 2020’ (2016). A series of relevant and recurring keywords (listed below) were then retrieved manually from the transcriptions, grouped in

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three main thematic clusters, and sampled out with their clausal context,7 as clauses are considered in SFL as the basic unit in expressing meaning (Thompson 2013; Halliday and Matthiessen 2014). Clause reduction was operated using Thompson (2013) as the main reference. Thus organized, the texts enable answers to the following questions: in what SFL roles are the keywords most often located? How do they represent border crossing and identity? To find an answer to such questions, the small selection underwent a twofold tagging process. First, each clause was attributed to a specific process type (and subtype, if applicable) according to SFL. Subsequently, the SFL role of the keywords within the clause was identified.8 The keywords were grouped as follows: • Border and separation cluster, featuring the words: wall*, pared*, barrier*, boundar*, frontera*, line* (37 clauses); • National identity and belonging cluster, featuring the words Mexic*, America*, home*, brown (referred to ethnicity), white (referred to ethnicity), we/us/our, they/them/their, you/your (50 clauses); • Language(s) cluster, featuring the words tongue*, language*, accent, voice*, voz, voces, Spanish, English (52 clauses). A total of 139 clauses were tagged across the 7 three-minute-long slam poems listed above. Lastly, each clause was read qualitatively within the poem and against the broader cultural context to identify the way they contributed to (de)constructing borders. Results and Discussion The following Table 3.1 offers a bird’s eye view of the tagged clauses of this chapter’s small corpus.9 What immediately stands out is that, even though all texts have references to wall and separation, the related 7  The analysis was not centered on sentences because, given the hybrid form of this poetry, it seemed suitable to privilege its by-definition spoken nature, and sentences are not the most appropriate unit for spoken language (Butt et al. 2000). Punctuation in the reported examples was added to ensure readability. 8  Clauses including Spanish switches were also considered. 9  Looking beyond the scope of this chapter, the lines of these a®tivists spark countless possible research directions, for example, linked to the use of code-mixing and rhetorical figures (especially metaphors).

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thematic cluster is the least mentioned (26.6% of the annotated clauses). Some poems are indeed primarily focused on Trump’s wall itself, namely Holtry’s ‘We’re here to stay’ and Gonzalez and Gutierrez’s ‘At the wall, US/Mexican border, 2020’, while others refer to the concept of wall and Table 3.1  SFL processes and roles by thematic cluster Cluster n° (%)

Process n° (%)

Role n° (%)

Border and separation 37 (26.6%)

Material 26 (70%)

Goal 13 (50%) Circumstance 8 (30.8%)

Relational 7 (18.9%)

Mental 4 (10.8%) National identity and belonging 50 (36%)

Material 27 (48%)

Relational 23 (46%)

Mental 2 (4%)

Language(s) 52 (37.4%)

Verbal 1(2%) Material 27 (51.9%)

Relational 14 (26.9%)

Mental 6 (11.5%)

Verbal 5 (9.6%)

Beneficiary 3 (11.5%) Actor 2 (7.7%) Carrier 3 (42.9%) Attribute 2 (28.6%) Token 1 (14.3%) Circumstance 1 (14.3%) Phenomenon 3 (75%) Beneficiary 1 (25%) Goal 16 (59.3%) Actor 10 (37%) Beneficiary 1 (3.7%) Token 14 (60.7%) Carrier 3 (13%) Circumstance 3 (13%) Value 2 (8.7%) Attribute 1 (4.3%) Phenomenon 1 (50%) Senser 1 (50%) Circumstance 1 (100%) Goal 11 (40.8%) Circumstance 10 (37%) Actor 6 (22.2%) Value 6 (42.9%) Token 6 (42.9%) Attribute 1 (7.1%) Carrier 1 (7.1%) Senser 3 (50%) Phenomenon 2 (33.3%) Circumstance 1 (16.7%) Verbiage 3 (60%) Sayer 1 (20%) Target 1 (20%)

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separation in a less explicit way, for example, Brown’s ‘Dear white girl in my Spanish class’.10 As can be seen in the table, the border and separation cluster is dominated by material processes (70%), where walls, barriers, and borders are mainly goals of the action, most often expressed by verbs such as ‘build’, ‘construct’, ‘enhance’ or ‘create’. Here are two examples from the poems that address the wall as the main theme: 1. Say you want to build a wall, wanna enhance the border [talking to Trump]. (Holtry 2016, 00:18–00:19) 2. False borders created at the Treaty of Hidalgo, constructed a wall to separate us from them [referring to colonizers]. (Gonzalez and Gutierrez 2016, 00:46–00:50) The wall is pictured as the result of someone’s racially biased and discriminatory will to separate what is supposed to be united, and not as something necessary, or the result of a natural difference. The examples above are clear illustrations of the type of action described by the poems. Example (1), in line with the explicitly political nature of Holtry’s style, retrieves Trump’s rhetoric on wall construction, quoting a famous speech by the then-presidential candidate, as the line continues: ‘Say you want to build a wall, wanna enhance the border and make Mexico pay for it, because your business skills are just that good’ (2016, 00:18–00:23). These words echo the numerous wall promises made during the campaign, for example: ‘I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall’ (Trump in Valverde 2020, n.p.). The second example by Gonzalez and Gutierrez is linked to a more historical perspective, as the authors mention the Treaty of Guadalupe-­ Hidalgo, which concluded the Mexican American war of 1848, with today’s southwest of the US being ceded by Mexico as a consequence of a painful defeat (Acuña 2011). What makes this example particularly 10  Her references to walls are subtle, and always linked to language. For example, when talking about the time her family migrated to the US, Brown says that her mother could not use Spanish, and so she could not ‘make a home outside of her body’ (2018, 01:06). Her mother’s own body becomes the wall her language cannot trespass. Indeed, Brown herself states that she has to learn Spanish again, as if she was confined on the other side of this invisible wall. More on this crucial part of the poem can be found in example (7).

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significant is the collocation of the word ‘borders’ with the adjective ‘false’, then followed by the verb ‘created’. This construction of the separation as creation, as something made that did not exist before, is one of the most explicit, and it also serves to go beyond Trump’s campaign, to show how the separation imposed by white people starts long before 2016 and is linked to ‘those who arrived wearing silver skin’ (Gonzalez and Gutierrez 2016, 00:31), i.e., the conquistadores. Gonzalez and Gutierrez also address Trump’s campaign directly, albeit without identifying him by name. First, they do so by mentioning the year 2020, the end of his mandate, as the moment in which people will be able to see the finalized construction; second, by partially quoting another of Trump’s declarations: ‘A nation without a wall is not a nation’ (Gonzalez and Gutierrez 2016, 00:53–00:54).11 Holtry herself, on the other hand, links the wall idea to a long tradition of systemic racism that dates back to what she defines as a much bigger empire (2016, 02:18). On a considerable number of occasions (30.8% of the material processes) the border is the circumstance of material processes, ‘the background against which the process takes place’ (Thompson 2013, p. 114), usually a place where terrible things happen or where the line between justice and injustice becomes blurred: 3. Eight miles from the US border the bodies of 500 women have been found disposed of in the desert of Juárez, Mexico. (Aguilera 2019, 00:43–00:48) In this poem, Aguilera criticizes what she denounces as the hypocrisy of the US corporate world, which outsources its production of national flags to sweatshops right across the border,12 where the rights of the workers, as well as their safety and health, do not count anymore, as if the border determined the validity of universal human rights. The border is a background, but it is also a fundamental condition for the change in perspective as, only eight miles away from it, human bodies can be ‘disposed of’, like useless commodities that deserve no special attention.  For the original declaration see Trump (2017).  According to Aguilera, in 2005 the company CF Flags outsourced the production of starts and stripes flags south of the border, and many workers, especially women, were found dead on their way home after long hours of work. While outsourcing to Mexico is a widespread reality, albeit recently reformed (see Oetterich 2021), we were not able to retrieve information on outsourcing by CF Flags in particular. 11 12

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Overall, the separation keywords are mostly the goal or the circumstance of a material process that is not attributed to Mexican Americans or Mexican immigrants, as borders emerge as a creation of white America, symbolized by, but not limited to, Trump. This process rather comes to represent a long history of political, social, and economic discrimination, which has long been endured by the people of Mexican origin, who have no active role in raising barriers. However, these a®tivists also dedicate space to the difference which prompts discrimination, reflecting in detail upon what demarcation lines say about the humans and the lands at stake. The occurrences of the second thematic cluster, namely national identity and belonging, are more numerous (36% of the tagged clauses). This should not come as a surprise, since hyphenated identities entail permanent duality and destabilization (Bhabha 1994, p. 1), which problematizes the concept of barriers at the individual level as well as from a political perspective. The second thematic cluster is also the only one where two different processes are nearly equivalent: material and relational (48% and 46% of the cluster respectively). While the material processes indicate action, relational processes imply an attempt to define or allocate attributes to something. Some examples may help understand how both processes are central when it comes to identity and belonging. First, let us make some examples of material processes, where the prevalent role is goal: 4. Mexica warriors, indigenous peoples, who were then enslaved, raped and murdered by white men. (Holtry 2016, 00:55–00:57) 5. Your campaign slogan, ‘let’s make America great again’, with the unsaid words ‘by kicking out all the brown people’ disguised and attached to the end of that statement. (Holtry 2016, 00:24–00:32) In multiple occurrences, the role of goal is attributed to people of Mexican origin, who are subjected to discriminatory actions, as can be seen in example (4). Seeing Mexican people as goals of such crude actions is in line with the aforementioned wall imagery: its construction is but the latest of an endless chain of violent actions. In other cases, the goal of material processes is America. Example (5) is another quotation from a statement by Trump—more specifically, here Holtry unveils what she deems as the true meaning of the popular slogan, which was going to appeal to racists because of its tight correlation with border raising.

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The use of the word ‘home’ is also worth mentioning, as it is both literal and figurative: 6. So they can come for our homes and our cars and whatever else we might own, but they will never take away our voice or our drive to succeed. (Chapa 2017, 02:07–02:10) 7. Your [a white girl’s] grandparents wouldn’t let her make a home outside her body. (Brown 2018, 01:03–01:07) Both examples show material processes where ‘home’ is the goal. Example (6) is drawn from Chapa’s ‘On being bilingual’, arguably the most optimistic of the texts, where the main aim is to exalt the strength and resilience of Mexican Americans. This line does not explicitly refer to specific historical episodes but, with an eye to history, it is easy to find a time when Mexicans were stripped of their own homes and belongings. In fact, following the aforementioned Mexican American war, the articles added to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo to safeguard the rights of the Mexicans, who had refused to be relocated within the new borders and remained in the US, were either deleted or simply ignored (Acuña 2011, p. 55). The example from Brown’s ‘Dear white girl in my Spanish class’ starts with an everyday life situation in the title of her poem, which then looks deeper into the roots of colonization and discrimination, with specific attention to language. The white girl becomes the personification of the colonizers, who deprived Brown’s grandmother—and many Mexicans with her—of the possibility to use their own language, which would in turn have allowed them to feel at home in the environment around them. Here, the metaphorical use of ‘home’ will overlap with ‘language’, which is crucial to defining identity. Going back to the prevalent processes in this cluster, it is worth noting that relational processes are also present, and they represent the attempt to understand identity and belonging by finding words to describe or define them. In fact, the recurrence of the token role within relational processes is almost equivalent to that of the goal in material processes (14 and 16, representing 59.3% and 60.7% of their respective clusters):

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8. America is a dream, something we all feel silly for believing in. (Aguilera 2018, 01:26–01:30) 9. You are not the first to label us bandits and mongrels in our own home. (Holtry 2016, 02:02–02:06) In example (8), an extract from ‘The star Spanglish banner’ can be found where Aguilera takes the story of her young Mexican student Miguel—whom she defines as ‘the last fourth grader to migrate into my English as a second language course’ (2018, 00:10–00:18)—as a symbol of the hardships on the path to make sense of diasporic belonging. Miguel asks her the meaning of the words ‘America’ and ‘dream’, and she tells him they are ‘two words with the same meaning, or what we call synonyms’ (01:19–01:21). Her attempt to answer Miguel’s question becomes a reflection on what America (intended as US) means to diasporic people: it is a dream, even when the harsh reality of ‘shame [and] sacrifice’ (01:18–01:22) makes it difficult for the belief to persist (see the subsequent mental process with the verb ‘believe’). Holtry confirms her explicit political stance in example (9), where she touches upon the representational side of discrimination: the media portrayals created in time to control the bodies of Mexican Americans (Bender 2003; Renna 2021a) by relegating them to second-class citizen roles (‘mongrels’) or to dangerous criminals who must be subjected to strict policing (‘bandits’). These images are even more painful given the circumstance of the process: ‘our own homes’, a further reference to the sense of loss of Mexican Americans as ‘both a conquered and an immigrant people’ (Green 2013, p. 106). In the thematic clusters so far explored, the emerging pattern is a narration of violence and colonialism, a picture where the role of Mexican Americans as actors is often marked by suffering and sacrifice, as in the following examples of material process with identity and belonging keywords as actors (37% of the process): 10. Our people are dying for it [the divine Mexican Ancestry] cruzando el frontera, muriendo de hambre [crossing the border, starving to death]. (Holtry 2018, 01:44–01:48) 11. Half of their red, white, and blue products [US flags by CF Flags] are produced by the hands of Mexican workers. (Aguilera 2019, 00:29–00:33)

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Even material processes where Mexican Americans have the actor role recall typical scenarios of migration and abuse, namely the lethal dangers of border crossing (example 10) and labour exploitation across the border (example 11). In this case, however, Mexican Americans are not just victims, as they give proof of strength and pride. The death of the so-called wetbacks (Alexander 2018) during border crossing is in fact configured as a heroic sacrifice, in the name of their Mexican ‘ancestry that is divine’ (Holtry 2018, 01:43). It is then not just an effort to find a better life, but a way to reappropriate the land that once rightfully belonged to their ancestors. If the sweatshop work (example 11) is somehow objectified— the actors are the hands of Mexican workers, which underlines their disposability (see example 3)—the choice of the US flag as a product somehow empowers the abused, as they are the makers of the star-spangled banner, one of the most powerful symbols of American pride. Finally, the language(s) cluster is also quite productive (37.4% of the total), as these a®tivists use language as their main artistic and political means of expression. In most cases (40.8%), language-related keywords are goals of material processes. In particular, it is also worth noting that the materiality of the word ‘tongue’ is often used in these processes as a synonym of language, but also to embody metonymically the speaker and metaphorically the land: 12. They colonize our tongues. (Holtry 2018, 01:55–01:57). 13. As millions [of Mexicans] cut their Spanish tongues. (Gonzalez and Gutierrez 2016, 02:02–02:05) Example (12) is drawn from Holtry’s ‘I bloomed a resistance’, in which she calls out her fellow Mexican Americans who have voted for Trump, to remind them of the self-loathing such a choice must have required on their part. Here, the word ‘tongue’ as a metaphorical goal of colonization has multiple ramifications, as it implies the seizure of the land (typical goal of colonization), but also that of the subject whose tongue is the bodily territory of speech. Because of that, language also becomes the goal of the colonizing action, as it has long been subject to repressing policies (especially in education) and its use is still seen as a symptom of academic underachievement and potential dropout, according to what Macedo et al. (2003) defined ‘linguoracism’. This more or less covert form of discrimination is what prompted a sort of linguistic self-consciousness in

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hispanohablantes, who decided to metaphorically ‘cut’ their tongue (example 13), i.e., abandon Spanish to protect themselves from stigmatization. Ariana Brown talks about the painful consequences of this cultural sacrifice, as she explains that she now has to look for her own identity by attending a Spanish class to learn her heritage language because: 14.  She [my grandmother] buried her first language in the space between blood and bone. (Brown 2018, 01:00–01:06) The keyword language is here used to convey a very physical vision of language death. Yet, this association should not obscure the fact, again represented through material processes, that Spanish is a colonial language too: 15. Spanish was given to my people at the end of a sword, forced in our throats gory, sharpened under the colonizer’s constant eye. (Brown 2018, 01.14–01:21) As the daughter of a black American, Brown is the only one in this small selection to problematize Spanish itself, in the name of all those languages, memories, and family bonds that were severed for her ancestors through the Middle Passage (Brand 2002). The other a®tivists seem to share a more positive view of Spanish as the symbol of belonging, especially for new immigrants like Aguilera’s Miguel who, despite his best efforts, cannot seem to leave it behind: 16. An accent is just a mother tongue that refuses to let her child go, the language barrier is a 74-mile wall lodged in the back of Miguel’s throat. (Aguilera 2017, 02:02–02:15) This example combines relational and material processes to explore two particularly complex aspects of the heritage language. The second half shows a way in which the concept of separation and that of language are less distant than they might seem: the common expression ‘language barrier’ metaphorically becomes the actual wall of Trump’s campaign (which can be recognized by the reference to its length). The language barrier in Miguel’s throat keeps him from becoming proficient in English—and isolates him from the American dream—just like the wall is built to keep out the Mexican other. Similarly, the common expression ‘mother tongue’ in

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the first half of the example works on more levels, as it symbolizes the impossibility to abandon one’s origins, which will always be engraved in Miguel’s ‘English with an accent’—too often the source of social and political discrimination (Lippi-Green 1997). At the same time, the image of a desperate mother terrified by the thought of losing her child is also a way to represent the suffering of migration and adjustment. Finally, the most positive view of language as a source of agency and pride is conveyed by Chapa, who dedicates the whole poem ‘On being bilingual’ to showing how cultural, geographical, and linguistic in-­ betweenness is what empowers Mexican Americans. Following, are some important passages including material, mental and verbal processes: 17. For the sensitive ears that can’t stomach the spicy sound of Spanish language. (Chapa 2017, 00:09–00:13) 18. My bilingual tongue says: ‘fuck your wall!’, my tongue doesn’t believe in boundaries, or borders. (Chapa 2017, 01:04–01:07) 19. My tongue […] sprinkles a bit of English into my Spanish sometimes, occasionally accentuates my English with a splash of Spanish. (Chapa 2017, 01:11–01:16) Since the inception of the poem (example 17), Chapa uses a material process metaphorically to blame for linguoracism not the speakers of Spanish, but those who refuse to accept linguistic difference as a resource. By attributing spiciness to her language, she reappropriates the idea of the Other as exotic and refers to a typical feature of Mexican food to turn her heritage language into something delicious that not everyone can handle. Indeed, Spanish is often a circumstance of material processes (37%), especially figurative ones, as can be seen again in example (19). Here, the role of the word ‘tongue’ is in contrast with that of the examples (12) and (13), which have it as a goal of colonization and violence, as here it is the actor of a process that symbolizes code mixing, in which Spanish is either the background or the means. The a®tivist uses both figurative language and science to disprove the idea that speaking two languages is linked to limited abilities, as ‘science boasts of the beauty of bilingual brains from multitasking skills […] and problem-solving skills to their superior ability to concentrate, […] delay dementia, and write bomb-ass poetry’ (Chapa 2017, 01:25–01:39).

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In Chapa’s poem, the tongue is always endowed with agency, as shown by its other roles as senser of mental processes and sayer of verbal processes that disrupt the wall rhetoric (example 18). Her tongue stands for herself as a bilingual speaker and conveys the strength of her political stance and beliefs. Language is Chapa’s means to embrace the complexity of Mexican American identity because its being both material and immaterial makes it the ideal trespasser of walls, boundaries, and borders.

Conclusion Overall, the processes analysed by bringing CDA and SFL together convey a deeply rooted suffering, and an attempt to reconstruct the roots of discrimination and intertwine them with today’s predicaments of Mexican Americans. The abundance of material processes, both literal and metaphorical, might indicate a need to use physicality to paint a vivid, universal picture that can be shared with the audience. In fact, in some recordings, it is possible to partially hear the audience’s response, which is usually warm and enthusiastic, and shows how these words might be relatable for most. The a®tivists explored in this chapter demonstrate how art can signify and enact border porousness both in terms of form and content, crisscrossing genres, cultures, and instances of identity from a gendered perspective that counteracts the violent and patriarchal rhetoric of border defence. Thanks to an interdisciplinary approach to their a®tivistic expression, we aimed to do justice to their fluidity, and to shed some light on how the voice of the margins, the voice that border-wall-raising desperately tries to silence, is finding its own space and, to say it with Holtry, ‘bloom a resistance’ (2018). Furthermore, the performances of these socially engaged artists can be seen as crucial for navigating the complexity of the border wall and documenting it, since they constitute a counter and anti-elitist imaginary in line with la conciencia de la mestiza, which aims at overcoming the duality of the border. They may also help the creation of healthier relationships and allow community healing, fighting the culture of fear, stereotyping and de-humanization on both sides. Over time, such transborder art activism has created a more democratic ‘artscape’ (Aushana 2012), engendering new identities and regenerating la conciencia de la mestiza for subaltern individuals and communities across the border.

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References Acuña, Rodolfo. 2011. Occupied America: A history of Chicanos. 4th ed. Boston: Longman. Aguilera, Angelica María. 2017. The star Spanglish banner. YouTube. Accessed 1 May 2022. https://youtu.be/HwffEcUSsCU. ———. 2018. The star Spanglish banner. YouTube. Accessed 18 June 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZFGXbO7y7Ieab_channel= ButtonPoetry. ———. 2019. Steps on burying the American flag (acc. to American disposal services). YouTube. Accessed 18 June 2020. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qZWUpe1nqZMeab_channel=ButtonPoetry. Alexander, D.M. 2018. Greasers, gringos and wetbacks: Ventriloquizing the U.S.Mexico borderlands in Gloria Anzaldúa’s dramatic monologues. Forum for Modern Language Studies 54 (4): 379–399. Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1987) 1999. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Ariana Brown Bio. n.d. Accessed 22 May 2022. http://www.arianabrown. com/bio.html. Asante, Molefi K. 2008. It’s bigger than hip hop: The rise of the post-hip-hop generation. New York: St. Martins’ Griffin. Aushana, Christina. 2012. Transborder art activism and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Analyzing ‘artscapes’ as forms of resistance and cultural production in the frame of globalization. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 6 (7): 128–141. Banales, Meliza. n.d. Slam poetry. Britannica. Accessed 18 June 2020. https:// www.britannica.com/art/slam-­poetry. Bender, Steven. 2003. Greasers and gringos: Latinos, law, and the American imagination. New York: New York University Press. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. Introduction: Narrating the nation. In Nation and narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha, 1–7. London: Routledge. Brand, Dionne. 2002. A map to the door of no return: Notes to belonging. Toronto: Vintage Canada. Brown, Ariana. 2018. Dear White girls in my Spanish class. YouTube. Accessed 1 May 2022. https://youtu.be/sAbbGEEstjc. ———. n.d. Accessed 1 May 2022. http://www.arianabrown.com/. Bush, Rachel. 2018. Poetry in motion. Asdablog. Accessed 13 July 2020. https:// www.asdablog.com/poetry-­in-­motion/. Butt, David, Rhondda Fahey, Susan Feez, Sue Spinks, and Colin Yallop. 2000. Using functional grammar: An explorer’s guide. 2nd ed. Sidney: Macquarie University Press. Castañeda, Antonia de Shular, et  al. 1972. Literatura chicana: texto y contexto. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Chapa, Anacristina. 2017. On being bilingual. YouTube. Accessed 22 June 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-­tdWCFtujIet=78seab_channel= WriteAboutNow. Demata, Massimiliano. 2019. A great and beautiful wall: Donald Trump’s populist discourse on immigration. In Language aggression in public debates on immigration, ed. Andreas Musolff, 101–121. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ‘Drug dealers, criminals, rapists’: What Trump thinks of Mexicans. 2016. BBC. Accessed 28 June 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-­us-­ canada-­3 7230916/drugdealers-­c riminals-­r apists-­w hat-­t rump-­t hinks-­o f­mexicans. Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fox, Alan James. 2016. Opinion: Crime fear focus at first debate: James Alan Fox. USA Today. Accessed 1 June 2022. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opini o n / 2 0 1 6 / 0 9 / 2 7 / d e b a t e -­t r u m p -­c l i n t o n -­g u n s -­f e a r-­c r i m e -­f a c t s -­ james-­alan-­fox-­column/91152260/. Gonzalez, Paola, and Karla Gutierrez. 2016. At the wall, US/Mexican border, Texas, 2020. YouTube. Accessed 25 June 2020. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=loHz2oQhLEIet=65seab_channel=ButtonPoetry. Green, Susan Marie. 2013. Chicano/a. In Latino history and culture: An encyclopedia, ed. David J.  Leonard and Carmen Lugo-Lugo, 96–98. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe Inc. Halliday, M.A.K., and Christian Matthiessen. 2014. Introduction to functional grammar. 4th ed. London and New York: Routledge. Holtry, Mercedez. 2016. We’re here to stay. YouTube. Accessed 20 June 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYGxLJK64Cg. ———. 2018. I bloomed a resistance. YouTube. Accessed 20 June 2020. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NRBPxOP66Iet=116seab_channel= PoetrySlamInc. Leonard, David J., and Carmen R.  Lugo-Lugo, eds. 2013. Latino history and culture: An encyclopedia. Armonk: Sharpe Reference. Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997. English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge. Literary riot: Giving a voice to immigrants’ struggles. 2016. Kcet. Accessed 2 August 2020. https://www.kcet.org/youth-­voices/literary-­riot-­giving-­a-­voice-­to­immigrants-­struggles. Macedo, Donaldo, Bessie Dendrinos, and Panayota Gounari. 2003. The hegemony of English. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Mota, Jennifer. n.d. Poets Melania-Luisa Marte and Angélica Maria Aguilera unpack the complexities within Latinidad with Adios America tour. The Mujerista. Accessed 10 June 2020. https://www.themujerista.com/ the-­b log/poets-­m elania-­l uisa-­m arte-­a nd-­a ngelica-­m aria-­a guilera-­u npack­the-­complexities-­within-­latinidad-­with-­adios-­america-­tour.

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Oetterich, Dirk. 2021. Mexico: The outsourcing reform and its implementation. roedl.com. Accessed 25 May 2020. https://www.roedl.com/insights/ mexico-­outsourcing-­reform-­implementation. Reilly, Katie. 2016. Here are all the times Donald Trump insulted Mexico. Time. Accessed 29 May 2022. https://time.com/4473972/donald-­trump-­mexico-­ meeting-­insult/. Renna, Dora. 2021a. Shaping stereotypes in a space of absence: A linguistic analysis of Wayne Wang’s Chan is missing. Iperstoria 17: 115–136. ———. 2021b. Language variation and multimodality in audiovisual translation: A new framework of analysis. Hannover: ibidem-Verlag. Sandoval, Chela, and Guisela Latorre. 2008. Chicana/o artivism: Judy Baca’s digital work with youth of color. In Learning race and ethnicity: Youth and digital media, ed. Anna Everett, 81–108. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Simpson, Jennifer. 2019. Women who write: Mercedez Holtry’s Plume for writers. Accessed 20 July 2020. https://plumeforwriters.org/women-­who-­write-­ mercedez-­holtry/. Somers-Willett, Susan. 2009. The cultural politics of slam poetry: Race, identity, and the performance of popular verse in America. Ann Harbor: University of Michigan Press. Sriwimon, Lanchukorn, and Pattamawan Jimarkon Zilli. 2017. Applying critical discourse analysis as a conceptual framework for investigating gender stereotypes in political media discourse. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences 38: 136–142. Thompson, Geoff. 2013. Introducing functional grammar. 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Trump, Donald. 2017. Trump says ‘a nation without borders is not a nation’. YouTube. Accessed 29 April 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Aq5Mg7rJFNE&ab_channel=AFPNewsAgency. Trump says ‘a nation without borders is not a nation’. 2017. AFP News Agency on YouTube. Accessed 25 May 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq5 Mg7rJFNE&ab_channel=AFPNewsAgency. Valverde, Miriam. 2020. Donald Trump promised to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. That didn’t happen. In PolitiFact. The Poynter Institute. Accessed 20 May 2022. https://www.politifact.com/truth-­o-­meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1397/build-­wall-­and-­make-­mexico-­pay-­it/. van Dijk, T. 2004. Critical discourse analysis. In The handbook of discourse analysis, ed. D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, and H.E. Hamilton, 352–371. Oxford: Blackwell. Wodak, Ruth. 2001. What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In Methods of critical discourse analysis, ed. Ruth Wodak and M. Meyer, 1–13. London: Sage.

CHAPTER 4

Migrant Women’s Documentary Filmmaking: Shifting Positionalities and Precarious Creativity Across Borders in the Experience of Five Latin American Directors Dalila Missero

Introduction In the context of an increasingly globalised film industry, transnational funding and circulation have become pivotal to the success of Latin American cinema, in a process that has put under the spotlight a growing number of women filmmakers, with films centred on complex female characters and the social reality of their countries (Martin and Shaw 2017; White 2015). This unprecedented visibility has generally involved directors inserted in the most prestigious circuits of global art cinema, representing an exception in a context where most women make and circulate films with little resources. Scholarship on film production has indeed shed light on the widespread conditions of precarious creativity characterising

D. Missero (*) Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_4

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most careers, with filmmakers working intermittently and often transnationally to intercept global flows of capital and labour (Curtin and Sanson 2016). This combination of precarity and mobility is experienced very differently along the lines of race, class, and gender, with specific repercussions for the filmmakers operating in Latin America, where film infrastructures are unevenly distributed and often reliant on transnational funding (Falicov 2019). Given this premise, this chapter explores less visible circuits and practices of transnational filmmaking which are nonetheless representative of a gendered ‘structure of feeling’ (Williams 1978) in contemporary film production. Drawing upon my previous work on women film practitioners, my use of Raymond Williams’ concept of ‘practical consciousness’ looks at how this consciousness in the industry stems from ‘meanings and values as they are actively lived and felt, and the relations between these and formal or systematic beliefs’ (Missero 2018, p. 132). I propose a holistic approach to the gendered, cross-border, and mobile aspects of film production which looks at the interplay of subjectivity, creativity, and materiality inside and outside the film. In doing so, I establish a link between the process of self-conscientisation of transnational film professionals with the multiple forms of ‘border thinking’ that, according to Walter Mignolo, shape migrants’ consciousness (2011, p. 274). The chapter focuses on five Latin American documentarists whose work and personal trajectories have developed across borders: Josephine Landertinger Forero, Patricia Pérez, Andrea Said Camargo, Nora Salgado, and Mariana Viñoles. The transnational traits of their careers reflect a historical trend that has seen many women documentarists from Latin America going abroad to get training, make films, and circulate their work (Calvo de Castro 2018). These filmmakers, indeed, have all migrated to Europe or to other Latin American countries for personal and/or professional reasons, and their filmography includes at least one full-length documentary on migration released in the last ten years.1 Besides working on this topic, they have all experimented with the sub-genre of the first-­ person documentary, characterised by subjective accounts, low budgets, 1  The films are Home—The Country of Illusion (Josephine Landertinger Forero, Colombia/ Portugal 2015), Torero (Nora Salgado, Ecuador 2019), A media voz/In a Whisper (Patricia Pérez and Heidi Hassan, Spain/France/Switzerland/Cuba 2019), Looking For (Andrea Said Camargo, Colombia 2012), and El gran viaje al país pequeño/A Great Trip to a Small Country (Mariana Viñoles, Uruguay 2019).

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and a relatively limited circulation. This intimate and often experimental mode of filmmaking has been variously linked to women’s and feminist cinema and has emerged in a variety of local and non-Western contexts, expressing diverse, non-hegemonic ways of negotiating gender and authorship (Lebow and Tianqi  Yu 2020). At the same time, the first-­ person film has contributed greatly to what Pablo Piedras describes as ‘the mobility turn’ in contemporary Latin American documentary, which has seen migration becoming a central topic in this type of production (Piedras 2016). For all these reasons, these directors provide a multifaceted and nuanced perspective on the ways women’s filmmaking intersects, clashes, and sometimes provokes transnational mobility outside of the most visible circuits of global film production. Inspired by the methods of ‘feminist production studies’ (Banks 2018),2 the chapter is based on the thematic analysis of extracts from five semi-­ structured interviews that I conducted with the directors, asking about their documentaries, creative views, and career paths.3 Drawing from personal accounts and reflections, the chapter challenges the boundaries of the film to explore women’s filmmaking as a multidimensional practice, which questions and/or negotiates mobility and precarisation as defining traits of contemporary cinema. As such, the chapter consists of two thematic areas, which loosely correspond to two central issues emerging from our discussions: the questions of positionality, representation, and mobility in the films, as framed by the filmmakers themselves; and the material conditions and practical strategies of film production. However, before moving to the analytical portion of the chapter, the following methodological section details on my approach to the interview method, to frame this study within a wider framework of research on women’s filmmaking and migrations.

2  As further detailed in the following paragraph, this chapter embraces a recent feminist turn in the study of film and media production, which explores the participation of women in the industry to understand the link between the gendering of labour, creativity, and representation. 3  The interviews (five in total) followed an interview guide that articulated a number of questions in the same order to retrace common topics and patterns. They were all conducted on-line, in Spanish, between October and December 2021. The conversations were recorded and transcribed with the permission of the interviewees, who also gave their consent to the publication of extracts for academic research. All the quotations in this chapter are translated into English by the author.

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Crossing the Boundaries of the Film Text/ Production Divide: The Interview Method Film criticism has widely resorted to interviews to access behind-the-­ scenes aspects of filmmaking, generally from the point of view of directors and other practitioners linked to the artistic qualities of the film. These examples mostly focus on very successful individuals and tend to have a journalistic and anecdotal approach. Though these can be excellent resources, they generally exclude less visible practices and experiences to perpetuate a canon based on Eurocentric notions of authorship and creative genius, which have historically marginalised women and other minorities.4 As such, my use of interviews is closer to the field of production studies (Caldwell 2008), which adopts this method to explore the dissemination of production cultures among film professionals in various technical, creative, and organisational roles. This approach focuses on aspects of discursivity and reflexivity, inspiring a series of studies on the gendered articulations of film labour, which concentrate on the stories and perspectives of women practitioners. In this body of research, interviewing becomes a strategy to represent the underrepresented (Cobb and Williams 2020), providing a bottom-up, emotional point of view on the process of making films, which well harmonises with feminist concerns for non-­ hegemonic and marginalised forms of cultural production (Banks 2018). This research also engages with broader questions in feminist film scholarship around the in/visibility of women’s authorship and creativity. Indeed, although the figure of the ‘woman director’ is increasingly prominent in the production, circulation, and consumption of contemporary ‘world cinema’ (White 2015, pp. 18–19), the holistic perspective offered by feminist production studies contributes to moving ‘beyond paradigms that marginalize women’s film production as reference material, as specialized national or regional genre, or as exceptional anomaly (the female auteur)’ (McHugh 2009, p. 115). This approach is particularly productive in relation to the filmmakers interviewed in this research, whose directorial experience blurs into the roles of the producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer. The ways they describe their practice provides an entry 4  The contribution of these ‘anecdotal’ sources to a masculinist notion of film canon is discussed at length in Missero (2018, pp. 61–63). On the importance of interviews and oral history to challenge both Eurocentric and militant understandings of film authorship, see Seguí (2018).

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point to understand the nuanced ways in which women accept, negotiate, and/or reject the hegemonic structures of the film industry by establishing new practices. At the same time, interviews offer a dialogical and nuanced space to observe the transnational trajectories of these filmmakers and their intersections with wider articulations of gender inequality. Recent qualitative and mixed-methods research has contributed to illuminating the global scale of gender segregation in the film industry—examples include Mexico (IMCINE 2021), Italy (DEA 2019), Spain (CIMA 2021), Colombia (Killary Cinelab 2021), and Argentina (Bulloni Yaquinta 2020). Comparative studies on various European countries, the United States, and Australia have also revealed similar patterns of discrimination, which see women struggle to access funding and be employed in top-level creative and managerial roles, as well as in several technical compartments (Liddy 2020). However, so far, only sporadic attention has been paid to the experience of the migrant women in the sector, and therefore no in-­ depth information is available to assess whether the movements of these workers are linked, shaped, or impacted by the gender segregation in the film industry.5 Moreover, most of the research in this area pays little attention to the film in itself and how the practitioner sees herself in relation to it. My chapter, therefore, expands on production studies’ attention for labour by examining the answers to the specific questions on the films and on migration integrated in the interviews. This strategy provides a corrective to the little focus on the ‘final product’ characterising most of production studies research, to valorise the work of these filmmakers and counteract the invisibilisation of women’s creativity. For the questions on migration, I turned to examples of research in migration studies that adopt the life-story methodology (Umut 2007; Siouti 2017) to maximise qualitative methods’ ability to explore the heterogeneity of women’s movements, in their spatio-temporal dimensions, causes, and overlapping strategies (Kofman et al. 2000). In this respect, feminist scholars have emphasised the strengths of this approach, particularly when research is conducted between women (Riessman 1987; Devault 1990). Indeed, the relational nature of the interview is a means to assess and take into account differences and positionalities within the research, equipping this study with a nuanced perspective on the 5  Despite several studies concerned with the lack of diversity in the audio-visual industries, to the best of my knowledge, only the report published by the Madrid-based organisation CIMA (2022) specifically concentrates on the experience of racialised and migrant women.

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experiences of ‘migrant women filmmakers’ as a non-essentialist, multifaceted group. This is also true in relation to my own positionality since I have experienced migration and precarisation myself. Although I have a degree of proximity with these topics, the structure of the interview guide ensured that the perspectives of the informants remained at the centre of our discussions, while my emotional and personal investment could provide a resourceful standpoint to my listening and my analytical process. In other words, interviews offer reflexive and emotional research materials in which (auto)biographical narration and relationality coexist, providing a rich and nuanced perspective on various creative, professional, and personal aspects.

Inside the Film: Reflexivity, Self-Discovery, and Shifting Subjectivities This section concentrates on a group of extracts that shed light on the aesthetic and creative sides of the interviewees’ first-person documentaries on migration, which, thanks to their subjective and intimate characteristics, provide a good entry point into their directors’ creative approach and experiences of transnational mobility. The first-person documentary is an umbrella label that identifies a wide spectrum of films which explicitly incorporate the self of the filmmaker as responsible for and author of the audio-visual discourse (Piedras 2014, pp. 21–22). As such, it often converges with forms of personal cinema (Rascaroli 2009) and subjective filmmaking that can be encountered in various sub-genres, like the essay film, the autoethnographic film (Russell 1999), and the autobiographical film (Lane 2002). Key to these variations is the positionality and subjectivity of the filmmaker, which is ‘both the subject matter of the film and the subject making the film’ (Lebow 2012, p.  4). However, as Alisa Lebow points out, the exploration of the self in the first-person documentary always entails the dialogue with others, who are co-implicated in the process of mediation (2012, pp. 27–28). Drawing upon Jean Luc Nancy’s formulation of the singular plural, Lebow identifies the first person with the plural ‘we’ rather than with ‘I’, rejecting a monolithic understanding of these documentaries in terms of self-referentiality (Lebow 2012). For Lebow, indeed, the ‘we’ refers both to the people portrayed in the film and to a much wider community, since private and individual narratives conflate into broader historical and societal issues. In what follows, I illustrate

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different ways in which the interviewees have interpreted and engaged with these questions, and therefore have positioned the ‘I’ within the ‘we’ in their first-person films. My point is that by filming migration (their own or that of others), these directors undertake a process of revision and self-­ discovery which produces a mobile and reflexive subjectivity that constantly re-positions itself in relation to the people and contexts surrounding them. A good starting point to unpack this question is offered by the following extract from Josephine Landertinger Forero’s interview, where she comments on her decision to not appear in front of the camera in her documentary Home—The Country of Illusion (Colombia/Portugal 2015). The film reconstructs the story of her mother, a Colombian immigrant in Lisbon, in a constant dialogue with the filmmaker: I’m not in [my mother’s] world anymore, I am not part of her day-to-day life, because I haven’t lived with [her] since I was 18, […] so I wanted to keep it that way. […]. I filmed a lot of things in which I appear in front of the camera but then, during the editing process, it felt clear that it couldn’t work. I continued [to repeat to myself]: ‘this is not about me’.

It is interesting to compare Landertinger Forero’s urgency to maintain a distance with the experience described by Andrea Said Camargo in relation to her Looking For (Colombia 2012), which compiles images filmed in London, where she was searching for her estranged father. Even though in this footage we rarely see the director, it clearly represents her story, while the process of filming produces new narrative levels: the film is the story of my search for my father, but also the reconstruction of my mother’s journey when she was [an immigrant in London and met him]. […]. And of course, [in the documentary], I was also telling my own story as a migrant, since that was my condition when I shot those images.

Said Camargo’s Looking For is a good example of a first-person documentary in which ‘the camera does not simply record, but actually enacts aspects of family displacement’ (Lebow 2012, p.  471). In other words, here the cinematic apparatus is thoroughly integrated in her migratory experience, stimulating comparisons with the past mobilities of her family. A relational process of self-discovery characterises also the autobiographical, epistolary documentary A media voz/In a Whisper ­(Spain/France/

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Switzerland/Cuba 2019), which is centred on the friendship between the two directors, Patricia Pérez and Heidi Hassan. The main storyline pivots around their shared experience of displacement from Cuba, which brought them to Europe, although in different moments of their lives. The documentary mostly compiles footage filmed by the two throughout the years, including during a period when Pérez was illegally in Spain. The images are then recomposed in the form of an epistolary exchange, adapted from real letters and communications. Like Said Camargo and Landertinger Forero, the filming process equipped Pérez with a deeper understanding of herself and her migrant experience, as she could detach and achieve a different perspective: When I saw the footage again, I was trying to remember those moments and understand what I was living. […]. I felt compassion for that Patricia from the past. And I liked her. I was thinking, while I was editing, ‘Hey, she’s nice’. I liked the character, and that was important.

As in the case of Landertinger Forero, the phase of editing provided the right distance from the filmed materials for Pérez. Yet, in this excerpt we can also appreciate the importance of memory in the autobiographical film, as a device that articulates the individual/collective relationship. Drawing on the filmmaker’s ‘memory work’, to use Annette Kuhn’s words (1995, p. 3), the autobiographical film does not produce a truth about the past but rather uses memories as interpretative material to reflect on broader questions surrounding friendship, migration, and filmmaking. The epistolary structure of the film, instead, reminds us of Hamid Naficy’s considerations on epistolarity as a chief stylistic aspect of diasporic cinema, a means for self-exploration and self-narrativisation that challenges and leaves unsolved ‘the relationship between authorship and authenticity, personal and social, fictional and nonfictional, narrative and nonnarrative’ (2001, p. 105). For Pérez, the autobiographical was a natural choice, even though in the encounter between the film and the spectator, the boundaries of subjectivity and authorship continue to be crossed and troubled: An autobiographical film is something that most people are not used to see […]. Being the person who has lived a certain experience and being the one who tells the story gives [to the film] a greater emotional dimension. […]. It’s like you are making [the spectator] an accomplice to your journey.

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The autobiographical film establishes a proximity between the filmmaker and the spectators that ultimately stimulates emotional ways of thinking about migration: Nowadays, migration is a possibility that people consider more than before. So […] people can identify with those who migrate or with the absence of their loved ones who have migrated.

The extracts analysed so far well illustrate different shifts in the positionality of the director in the first-person film, which entail a constant process of redefinition of the boundaries between the ‘I’ and the ‘we’. They show how the act of filming migration produces new movements, narrative levels, and even new geographies. A good instance is provided by the Uruguayan Mariana Viñoles, whose film El gran viaje al país pequeño/A Great Trip to a Small Country (Uruguay 2019) follows two Syrian families of refugees in Uruguay, an idea that came about when the director lived in Switzerland. Having to leave Europe and start to film in Lebanon before joining the two families in Montevideo, Viñoles reflects on that experience: I was a bit scared to go to the Middle East. I was going in an area very close to the [Syrian] war. From a cultural and emotional point of view, when I arrived in Beirut, I felt more in Uruguay than in Geneva. So that was good for me, because there is a link, I think, between Latin America and the Middle East that is blocked by Europe. We all like to say that we are descendants of the Europeans, here in the South, but there is also a lot of Arab descent as well. I was struck by the similarities.

As a migrant filmmaker who, at the time of the interview, had returned to her home country, Viñoles engages in the decolonial act of ‘border-­ thinking’ (Mignolo 2011), by delinking herself from a hegemonic imagery (the centrality of Europe) to imagine and create something different (a cultural and emotional connection between Lebanon and Uruguay). Similarly, Said Camargo’s experience of filming in the UK somehow reframed her own position as a Colombian woman in a broader geography of coloniality: It is a very strong experience to see and experience a colonising country. […]. When I found myself in London, which is a city that has received a lot of migrants, well, for me it was a shock. […]. In Colombia migration is

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internal. […]. We are not a capitalist country that receives a lot of people, and we are not colonisers. On the contrary, we were colonised here.

In conclusion, the experience of filming mobility from a first-person perspective reconfigures the positionalities of the director as a migrant, author, and practitioner, producing a shifting and mobile subjectivity, in constant negotiation between the ‘I’ with the ‘we’. The last two extracts also hint at a continuum across migration, first-person filmmaking, and subjectification, in which the exploration of the self goes hand in hand with the construction of a situated and gendered knowledge of the world. The next section examines how this form of subjectivity intersects with flexible creative practices and loose approaches to film authorship in the materiality of production. Specifically, it looks at how the constraints posed by precarious and unstable labour conditions generate both individual and collective strategies of resistance and negotiation that involve mobility, reflexivity, and adaptability.

A Flexible and Mobile Production Mode: Contingency, Loose Authorship, and Alternative Values As film scholar Claudia Sandberg points out, there is an ideological ambivalence underpinning the first-person documentary. On the one hand, the centrality of the director in this mode of filmmaking suggests a possible compliance to neoliberal values of individualism and self-sufficiency; on the other hand, the rejection of objective viewpoints and all-encompassing narratives that characterises these documentaries opens to alternative articulations of the singular within the collective (Sandberg 2018). In this respect, I argue that a similar ambivalence is at play in the context of production, as first-person documentaries are often made with low budgets and very limited crews, though their departure from mainstream cinema creates opportunities for collaboration and flexible authorship, in an interesting correspondence with the mobile subjectivity encountered at the level of representation. This section draws on existing work on the film industry as a global production apparatus to analyse a selection of extracts illustrating the interplay of ‘I’ and ‘we’ in key stages of the filmmaking process. In particular, I look at the role of gender and transnational mobility in shaping

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the tactics of the filmmakers ‘to circumvent formal and informal constraints imposed by the social division of labour’ (Curtin and Sanson 2016, p.  15). This focus on resistance and negotiation is inspired by Anne O’Brien’s work on women in the Irish audio-visual industries, which speaks of liminality as a work arrangement to explain the choice of many women practitioners to participate in, but at the same time maintain a distance from, an industry that is biased against them (2019). O’Brien demonstrates that this liminal positionality could translate into a radical form of resistance to the major neoliberal shifts in creative labour, as women choose freelancing and forms like the documentary to experiment with non-hierarchical work environments and greater creative freedom (2018). This means that these practitioners somehow stay at the margins, a choice that leads to forms of ‘alternative cultural work’ (Banks 2007, p. 100) that challenge, but also negotiate, the profit-driven aspects of the film industry. Indeed, as we see in the following quote, Pérez expresses very clearly her understanding of documentary in terms of creative freedom while also highlighting its very material and practical aspects: The documentary has a freedom that I wouldn’t trade for anything. This freedom is not only creative, but also in the production. It’s not the same to move with 5 people as it is to move with 80. So, although to some extent it is […] a minor genre, […], I still prefer it.

Pérez also provides interesting insights on the reasons why the documentary is particularly appealing to women: If you think that almost everything that has been made in cinema has been created by men, it is normal to ask ourselves if we are interested in making fiction as they do, with those film crews, make-up artists, photographers, camera assistants, actors, make-up… I mean, maybe not. […]. So perhaps [what attracts women to the documentary] is the possibility to create our own language and create our own modes of production, which don’t need to be the same [as men] because we don’t have the same sensibility.

Pérez’s words are somehow representative of the double-bind of documentary filmmaking for women. On the one hand, the first-person documentary offers a gendered space for creativity and experimentation outside of the male-dominated conventions of fiction and mainstream cinema. On the other hand, the filmmaker somehow accepts this freedom at the cost

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of working with lower budgets and fewer opportunities for circulation and visibility. This arrangement is also reflected in the flexible, collaborative, and spontaneous working practices that characterise the first-person documentary as a specific production mode, which does not follow linear, profit-driven logics, yet it is somehow dependent on them. As we will see later in this section, the filmmaker needs to work on other projects in order to support herself, as first-person films often require practitioners to perform free labour and/or resort to self-funding. These precarious arrangements often entail frequent halts to production, in which the director seeks for feedback and supplementary resources from various sources, so she can hire a small crew to work on aspects that she prefers to delegate (especially editing). Said Camargo provides a synthetic description of this process as follows: When I returned to Colombia, I came back with a material that I didn’t really know how to put together. […]. As I already had everything filmed, I started to write [the film] like a fiction script. […]. And then I began to send [the project] to writing workshops and other bids, so I could shape it better and get feedback from other people. […]. Then, I won a pitch, I got some money to hire an editor, because I needed that distance, I needed someone to look at all that material.

Sharing one’s idea and work in progress means building parts of the film collectively and one piece at the time, leaving room for chance and spontaneity, as in the case of Nora Salgado, who took over the direction of Torero (Ecuador 2019) at a relatively later stage of production. Her documentary tells the story of Mariano, a matador and close friend of the filmmaker, who decided to leave Quito and move to Mexico and Spain to revamp his career. Salgado started to film him because she was interested in documenting the world of bullfighting, without the intention of becoming the director for this project, since she had mostly worked as a producer until then: I started to look for a director […], but I couldn’t find anyone. So, I kept on filming and found a story to tell. Since I had [my own] production company and the equipment, I also had easy access to people who would collaborate with me [without charging].

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While Salgado somehow became director by chance, having years of experience in the industry facilitated the search for collaborators, who contributed to the project because of a genuine interest: We were all friends, so nobody charged anything, we just […] used the money for expenses. […]. They saw what the movie was about and were interested in it, right? All the people who participated in the film were there because they were moved by something, not because there was any financial reward.

However, the possibility to portray migration on screen relies on the tenacity of the filmmaker, in this case again Salgado’s, to find economic resources: [So] when [the protagonist] had the idea to migrate to pursue his dream, I found a story for the film. However, to follow him, the only economic support that we had—since nobody is going to fund a project on bullfighting in this moment in history—was from a television channel that pre-bought the film, which gave us enough money to shoot in Spain.

Similarly, the filmmaker is often responsible herself (generally with the aid of a producer) to bring her documentary at film festivals, which offer visibility to their work but also opportunities to get additional funding and recuperate some of the outstanding costs from the production. However, also when it comes to circulation, the economic reward is always relativised to the gains of creative and artistic fulfilment, as Mariana Viñoles explains: I didn’t gain any money from this film. But I gained the joy of having left a record of something that I think is quite important. […]. Because when you make films here in Latin America often you don’t get money, including later, when the film is distributed. […]. Uruguay is a very small country, so we don’t earn when the film comes out in the theatres. […]. But a very nice part of my job, which also motivates me to finish my films, are the trips and going [abroad] to show them at festivals.

Mark Banks talks of ‘internal rewards’ to describe the non-economic, practice-led incentives that cultural workers get from their work (2007, pp. 108–111). They usually stem from a respect and love for the practice, which is also performed for the benefits of the wider community of

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practitioners. Indeed, not all ‘internal rewards’ are linked to the individual practitioner and their projects, as they may also stem from forms of collective and spontaneous organising, like the association of documentarists in which Pérez volunteers, DOCMA:6 I joined the association because I identify with the work they do […] which mainly consists of making documentaries more visible […]. At the same time, we also try to create links with the people who write the calls for funding, to make them understand the needs of documentarists, which are not the same as those in fiction. In other words, the association tries to teach literacy about this genre, which people wrongly think is done as a hobby, and not as a profession.

As Banks notes too, internal rewards are often ‘reinvested’ to reproduce the ‘craft’ (2007), in this case creating the conditions to make more documentaries, by influencing policy makers and stakeholders. At the same time, Pérez’s words emphasise, once again, the difficulties of working with this genre. Indeed, while all interviewees mentioned the importance of ‘internal rewards’ for their practice, they also discussed the downsides of working in a context of scarcity and precariousness, a situation that Landertinger Forero describes in these terms: It’s difficult, isn’t it? […]. You must apply for funds, and it is a very delayed process. In Colombia, for instance, there is only one call per year […]. The waiting times are eternal […] and then what do you do in the meantime? For instance, I give classes. Now, I’m opening a film school for women because I feel that we need more support, we need other kinds of tools. […] I want to make a living from what I do, right? That’s where the difficulty lies.7

The need to find supplementary sources of income makes also more evident gendered aspects linked to economic precarity, which in her experience worsened after she had children:

6  The association DOCMA, based in Madrid, was formally established in 2007 in Spain to promote documentary filmmaking and counts on members who are also living abroad. Pérez is currently the treasurer of the organisation. More information is available (in Spanish) at: https://docma.es/ 7  She is referring to her project ‘Just Love Film Academy’, launched in 2022. More information on the filmmaker’s website at: https://josephine-lf.com/jlf-academy/

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I have two daughters and that, honestly, has slowed my career down a lot. I wasn’t aware that it was going to have so much impact. Just because of the way I work, which is freelance and with my own production company, I depend on myself, I must manage my time, my work-life balance, and this was even more difficult since we came to live in a new country [Spain] and adapt again.

This somehow confirms how the project-based work model that characterises the film industry (DeFillippi and Arthur 1998) reproduces inequality, as intermittent and precarious employment shifts the economic risks of cultural production to the individual worker (Eikhof and Warhurst 2013). However, transnational mobility can also provide opportunities to challenge these dynamics, as in the case of Salgado, who overcame the obstacles encountered as a woman in the Ecuadorian audio-visual industry by looking for partners and collaborators abroad. Now an established producer, she still encounters difficulties in her job because of her gender: There are markets that are still difficult for me to enter because in my production company [Titan] we happen to be all women. So, it’s difficult, but it’s also a resource, as you can also get more visibility. And this is something that took me some time to understand, that if I make myself more visible, […] younger people will see me and say that it’s possible [for them too].

Salgado’s reflections point to the importance of role models and individual strategies, confirming Lisa French’s observations about the solidary practices of women who tend to give work to other women, leading to a virtuous circle that improves the diversity in the sector (2021, p.  26). However, these individual and informal support structures can also take the shape of grass-roots networks and organisations, which similarly aim to counteract precarity and marginalisation, also among migrant practitioners, as Landertinger Forero explains: Working in different countries is very positive. The difficult thing is that this is an industry of connections and contacts, and you need a wide network. […]. We just formed a sub-group of migrant women within Dones Visuals, which is the association of women filmmakers in Catalonia, because we all felt the same. We come [to Barcelona] and we don’t know what to do, where to go and who to talk to.

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This last excerpt illustrates how migrant women filmmakers need to construct specific tools to cope with the job insecurity typical of the profession, with mobility and precarity playing an ambivalent role in the experience of these practitioners.

Conclusions The extracts analysed in the previous section aimed to demonstrate that, even in the context of production, first-person documentaries create spaces for the articulation of the individual within the collective by leading to a form of conscientisation around film labour and the elaboration of alternative practices and spaces of creation and collaboration. ‘Internal rewards’ linked to creative freedom and practice-led values inspire alternative approaches to film production which diverge from profit-led ones. These also have an impact on authorship, as the filmmaker seeks for feedback, advice, and support from a wider network of practitioners. However, these very same strategies both compensate and exacerbate precarity, as they rely on individuals’ willingness to be flexible and mobile. I identify three main thematic threads that connect these questions to those emerged in the section focusing on the films. The first concerns the self-awareness and reflexivity that all interviewees develop on their specific trajectory as authors, practitioners, and women. The second one is the centrality of mobility as a destabilising factor of one’s subjectivity within the film but also in the process of production. The third is the preference for the documentary as a way of staying at the margins that leaves room for the negotiation and response to structural issues linked to geographical, economic, and gender asymmetries. These three recurring themes reveal the complex interplay of individual sensibilities and practices with collective forms of negotiation and resistance to hegemonic forms of filmmaking. As a result, the mobility and precariousness characterising the trajectories of these directors take on more nuanced and complex contours, suggesting the need for further research around the experience of migrant documentarists which looks at the interplay of opportunities and challenges by concentrating on the bond between the film and its production. In this respect, this chapter aimed to illuminate the nuanced yet very material ways in which filmmaking, gender, and migration nurture each other, in a context of growing mobility of workers, capital, and cultural products. To paraphrase Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2013), borders are key to the (re)production of the spaces and times of global capitalism (including,

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for our concern, those of film production), and as such migration and other acts of border crossing produce a series of political, affective, and epistemological tensions. In the case of these filmmakers, these ‘epistemologies of the border’ (Mignolo 2011) can be variously located in the instability, but also in the conscientisation, that characterises their professional experiences and their documentaries. The intimate, experimental, and, to some extent, marginalised form of the first-person documentary provides a necessary, bottom-up, and anti-glamorous perspective on how mobility and gender articulate contemporary transnational cinema.

References Banks, Mark. 2007. The politics of cultural work. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Banks, Miranda. 2018. Production studies. Feminist Media Histories 4 (2): 157–161. Bulloni Yaquinta, Maria Noel. 2020. Precariedad del trabajo en los campos de las artes y la cultura: sus contradicciones, heterogeneidades y desigualdades. Un abordaje de la industria audiovisual Argentina. Revista Latinoamericana de Antropología del Trabajo 8 (9): 1–27. Caldwell, John Thornton. 2008. Production culture: Industrial reflexivity and critical practice in film and television. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Calvo de Castro, Pablo. 2018. El acceso a la formación especializada de las documentalistas en América Latina. Análisis de su evolución como explicación de un cambio de paradigma. Comunicación y género 1 (2): 161–171. CIMA—Asociación de mujeres cineastas y del audiovisual. 2021. Informe anual CIMA 2021. Accessed 15 December 2022. https://cimamujerescineastas.es/ wp-­content/uploads/2022/07/INFORME-­CIMA-­2021.pdf. ———. 2022. Mujeres Migrantes y/o Racializadas en el Audiovisual Español 2022. Accessed 15 December 2022. https://cimamujerescineastas.es/wp-­ content/uploads/2022/11/INFORME_MIGRANTES_RACIALIZ ADAS.pdf. Cobb, Shelley, and Linda Ruth Williams. 2020. Histories of now: Listening to women in British film. Women’s History Review 29 (5): 890–902. Curtin, Martin, and Kevin Sanson. 2016. Precarious creativity: Global media, local labor. Oakland: University of California Press. DEA—Donne e Audiovisivo. 2019. Gap & ciak: Men and women in the audiovisual industry. IRPSS. Accessed 15 December 2022. https://www.irpps.cnr.it/ wp-­content/uploads/2017/09/DEA-­rapporto-­ENG-­web-­01-­04-­19-­1.pdf. DeFillippi, Robert J., and Michel B. Arthur. 1998. Paradox in project-based enterprise: The case of film making. California Management Review 40 (2): 125–139.

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Devault, Marjorie L. 1990. Talking and listening from women’s standpoint: Feminist strategies for interviewing and analysis. Social Problems 37 (1): 96–116. Eikhof, Doris Ruth, and Chris Warhurst. 2013. The promised land?, Why social inequalities are systemic in the creative industries. Employee Relations 35 (5): 495–508. Falicov, Tamara. 2019. Latin American film industries. London: British Film Institute. French, Lisa. 2021. The female gaze in documentary film: An international perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. IMCINE. 2021. Anuario CineMX: anuarios estadísticos de cine mexicano. Accessed 15 December 2022. http://anuariocinemx.imcine.gob.mx/Inicio/ EdicionesAnteriores. Killary Cinelab. 2021. La primera pero no la ùltima: línea base sobre la participación de la mujer en el cine colombiano (1960–2018). Accessed 15 December 2022. https://www.killarycinelab.com/actividades/la-­primera-­pero-no-la-ultima/. Kofman, Eleonore, et  al. 2000. Gender and international migration in Europe: Employment, welfare and politics. London: Routledge. Kuhn, Annette. 1995. Family secrets. London: Verso. Lane, Jim. 2002. The autobiographical documentary in America: Wisconsin studies in autobiography. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Lebow, Alisa. 2012. The cinema of me: The self and subjectivity in first person documentary. London and New York: Wallflower Press. Lebow, Alisa, and Kiki Tianqi Yu. 2020. Feminist approaches in women’s first-­ person documentaries from East Asia. Studies in Documentary Film 14 (4): 1–6. Liddy, Susan. 2020. The gendered landscape in the international film industry: Continuity and change. In Women in the international film industry, ed. Susan Liddy, 1–18. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Martin, Deborah, and Deborah Shaw. 2017. Latin American women filmmakers: Production, politics, poetics. London: Tauris. McHugh, Kathleen. 2009. The world and the soup: Historicizing media feminisms in transnational contexts. Camera Obscura 24 (3): 111–151. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mignolo, Walter D. 2011. Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On (de)coloniality, border thinking and epistemic disobedience. Postcolonial Studies 14 (3): 273–283. Missero, Dalila. 2018. Titillating cuts: Genealogies of women editors in Italian cinema. Feminist Media Histories 4 (4): 57–82. Naficy, Hamid. 2001. An accented cinema: Exilic and diasporic filmmaking. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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O’Brien, Anne. 2018. (Not) getting the credit: Women, liminal subjectivity and resisting neoliberalism in documentary production. Media, Culture & Society 40 (5): 673–688. ———. 2019. Women, inequality and media work. London: Routledge. Piedras, Pablo. 2014. El cine documental en primera persona. Buenos Aires: Paidós. ———. 2016. The mobility turn in contemporary Latin American first person documentary. In Latin American documentary film in the new millennium, ed. María Guadalupe Arenillas and Michael J.  Lazzara, 79–95. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rascaroli, Laura. 2009. The personal camera: Subjective cinema and the essay film. London: Wallflower. Riessman, Catherine Kohler. 1987. When gender is not enough: Women interviewing women. Gender and Society 1 (2): 172–207. Russell, Catherine. 1999. Experimental ethnography: The work of film in the age of video. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Sandberg, Claudia. 2018. Contemporary Latin American cinema and resistance to neoliberalism: Mapping the field. In Contemporary Latin American cinema: Resisting neoliberalism?, ed. Claudia Sandberg and Carolina Rocha, 1–23. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Seguí, Isabel. 2018. Auteurism, machismo-leninismo, and other issues: Women’s labor in Andean oppositional film production. Feminist Media Histories 4 (1): 11–36. Siouti, Irini. 2017. Biography as a theoretical and methodological key concept in transnational migration studies. In The Routledge international handbook on narrative and life history, ed. Ivor Goodson, Ari Antikainen, Pat Sikes, and Molly Andrews, 179–190. London: Routledge. Umut, Erel. 2007. Constructing meaningful lives: Biographical methods in research on migrant women. Sociological Research Online 12 (4): 5. https:// doi.org/10.5153/sro.1573. White, Patricia. 2015. Women’s cinema, world cinema: Projecting contemporary feminisms. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Williams, Raymond. 1978. Marxism and literature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

‘I’ve always thought that we are living on the cowhide’: Chen Li’s Edge as Method and Border-Queering in The Edge of the Island Li-hsin Hsu

Introduction The history of Taiwan has been a story about borders. Despite its international image as a thriving economic zone (one of the four Asian Little Dragons), Taiwan has long been associated with various geo-political crises.1 In literary history, Taiwan is often portrayed as a place of seclusion, an ‘orphan of Asia’ that the eponymous novel of Wu Zhuoliu (1900–1976) has made popular in the consciousness of the public since its publication 1  Also known as four Asian tigers, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong have experienced exceptionally high growth rates and rapid industrialization during the post-war period up to the 1990s. See, for example, Vogel (1993).

L. Hsu (*) National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_5

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in 1946, after the Japanese rule of Taiwan ended. As a volcanic island on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, Taiwan is situated by the fault line off the east coast, where the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Sea Plate meet. Taiwan’s tectonic instability is complicated by its historically complex colonial circumstance and its increasingly militarized relationship with mainland China. Modern poets in Taiwan like Chou Meng-tieh (1921–2014) in the 1950s and 1960s would allegorize Taiwan as ‘an island of solitude’, a melancholic geo-poetic zone that reflects the political retreat and exile of the KMT (Kuomintang) government from China, after Chiang Kai-shek’s military defeat (Hsu 2022, pp. 134–136). A recent collection about post-pandemic Taiwan, edited by Huang Tsung-chieh, again evokes the image of ‘isolation’ to depict the island of Taiwan (gu jue zhi dao/Lonely Island), not the least because of the exclusion of Taiwan from the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19 pandemic on an international level, along with the enforcement of social distancing and quarantine policies worldwide.2 The controversial situation of Taiwan’s political status results from the cessation of the Japanese colonization of the island after World War II in 1945, which was followed by the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949) between KMT and the Communist Party, the subsequent retreat of Chiang’s nationalists party to Taiwan in 1949, and the Cold War divide between the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. In the 1970s, the Republic of China (ROC) government led by the KMT in Taiwan became isolated internationally for the adherence of the United Nations to the One China policy, when the opening of Sino-US relations recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China. Chen Li (1954–), an award-winning contemporary Taiwan poet, shows a deep poetic engagement with the geo-political uncertainty of Taiwan.3 Growing up in Hualian on the east coast of Taiwan, frequented by earthquakes and typhoons, Chen is invested in the aesthetics of border-dwelling, of inhabiting ‘the edge’ space in-between various colonial as well as climatic forces. In his works, Chen repeatedly foregrounds the haphazard situation of Taiwan as a border space and a site of psychological and political crisis, an

2  Apart from Chen’s poems quoted here, which are translated by Chang Fen-ling, all the translations into English used in this chapter are done by the author. 3  Chen’s poetry website provides a bibliography of Chen studies, including an updated list of critical works on his poetry since the 1970s (Chen 1998a).

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experience shared by many Taiwanese people living in the thrall of territorial dispute and potential military confrontation. The chapter provides a preliminary investigation of a number of poems collected in Chen’s 2014 English poetry translation, The Edge of the Island, examining how Chen’s poetic emphasis on the notion of ‘edge’ might be read in our age of intensified border control and territorial contestation.4 In this collection translated by Fen-ling Chang, a writer and Chen’s wife, Chen entitles the book The Edge of the Island, using the same title of his earlier Chinese poetry collection published in 1995. By doing so, Chen highlights the peripheral position of the island on the world map and the seminal role border-thinking plays in his poetic career. The ‘edge’ position in Chen’s works mirrors the tension revolving around Taiwan’s political displacement and historical marginality. Poems like ‘Formosa, 1661’ (1995), ‘The Edge of the Island’ (1993), and ‘The Ropewalker’ (1995), in particular, written in the mid-1990s, coincide with the period of heightened military tension between Taiwan and China, which reached its climax in the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, with the PRC government conducting numerous missile tests around the island.5 The chapter examines Chen’s use of ‘edge’ as a critical method to reconceptualize the borderscape as a multi-layered space of knowledge production. His ‘edge’ poetics, exposing the structural conflicts among various heterogeneous political, cultural, and geological forces, comes close to what Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson call ‘border as method’ in their shared methodological approach to the mobility of global spaces and the proliferation of borders. As Mezzadra and Neilson note, ‘Border as method involves negotiating the boundaries between the different kinds of knowledges that come to bear on the border and, in so doing, aims to throw light on the subjectivities that come into being through such regime 4  Chen has won several literary awards and was invited to the Olympic poetry festival (Poetry Parnassus) in 2012 as a representative of Taiwan poets. More information can be found on the poet’s website (Chen 1998b). 5  A similar military tension has resurfaced recently. Several Chinese missile exercises are conducted at the moment of the author’s writing of the chapter, with warships and fighter planes being spotted across the meridian line—the air-and-sea borderline that divides Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China at the Taiwan Strait—as a retaliating protest against the recent visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. Pelosi’s highprofile trip to Taiwan is considered by the PRC government as a political act of provocation and a breach of the Sino-American political agreement on the One China principle and thus an infringement of China’s territorial sovereignty.

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conflicts’ (2012, p. 66); border thus serves as ‘an epistemological viewpoint that allows an acute critical analysis not only of how relations of domination and exploitation are being redefined at the present time but also of the struggles that take shape around these changing relations’ (pp.  66–67). Mezzadra and Neilson’s definition of ‘border’ is mainly informed by their ethnographical practice. Chen’s notion of ‘edge’, alternatively, resorts to a poetic language that vacillates between the materialistic and the metaphorical and at times veers toward the allegorical or visionary. Nevertheless, Chen’s poetic dwelling on ‘the edge of the island’ conveys a similar way of conceptualization that sees borders (or in Chen’s case, edges) as useful focal points of expression for a multivocal site of everyday struggle, resistance, and possibility to emerge from contested colonial powers—from the Dutch and Spanish occupations of the island in the seventeenth century to the defeat of the Dutch colonists by Zheng Chenggong, a Ming dynasty royalist in 1662; from the ruling of the Qing dynasty established in the seventeenth century to the Japanese colonization by the late nineteenth century, followed by the Chinese government rule and the retreat of the Nationalist Party to Taiwan in 1949, over the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan.6 Border as a concept, as is indicated by Mezzadra and Neilson, performs the double work of inclusion and exclusion, exposing how accumulation and exploitation are institutionalized (2013, p. 30).7 Nevertheless, critics such as bell hooks and María Lugones in the 1980s and 1990s have shown how the marginal space is also a space of radical transformation. hooks argues for the marginal space as ‘site of resistance—as location of radical openness and possibility’ against imposed oppressive hierarchical structures (1989, p. 23). As hooks puts it eloquently, ‘We come to this space through suffering and pain, through struggle. […]. We are transformed, individually, collectively, as we make radical creative space which affirms and sustains our subjectivity, which gives us a new location from which to articulate our sense of the world’ (p. 23). Taiwan designates such a border place of conflict and uncertainty, with its internationally undetermined,

6  On Chen’s poetic engagement with the history of Taiwan, see, for example, Chang (2014) and Chen (1999). 7  For more on the notion of border in European geo-politics and globalism, see, for example, Balibar (2002), Schmitt (2006), Balibar et  al. (2013), Mezzadra and Neilson (2012 and 2013).

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and perhaps indeterminable, political sovereignty.8 For Chen, the word ‘edge’ also serves as a verb and an adjective, which manifests the everyday struggle of border-thinking, border-(re)making, and border-dwelling. The ‘world-making capacity of borders’, as Mezzadra and Neilson put it succinctly (2013, p. 30), has been addressed in the 2001 poetry collection Frontier Taiwan, an anthology that includes a section of Chen’s works. In the introduction to the collection, Michelle Yeh describes an island ‘as a paradox’, a site that is ‘simultaneously isolated and open, restricted and free, with the surrounding sea serving sometimes as a protective barrier, other times as a vital passage to other lands and cultures’ (2001, p. 1). Accordingly, Yeh argues for the cultural hybridity of Taiwan Modern poetry and its transition ‘from periphery to frontier’ in terms of its poetic identity (p. 6). Indeed, critics have explored the close-knit connection between Chen’s postmodernist aesthetics, especially his experimentation with multi-ethnic and indigenous voices in Taiwanese, Han Chinese, Indigenous, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, and so on. Along with Yeh, scholars such as Sebastian Hsien-hao Lao, Jitung Gu, Ji-Hong Liu, and Fang-ming Chen have looked at Chen’s local identity and how his poetry should be read through a postcolonial lens (Lao 1999; Gu 1999; Liu 2003; Chen [Fang-ming]  2014).9 Building upon previous scholarship, this chapter examines how Chen aestheticizes the politics of borders and edges by concretizing, eroticizing, and yet queering it, revealing not only a strategic resistance against Taiwan’s (post)colonial geo-­ political marginalization but also a decolonial gesture for radical rebirth and cosmic healing. The chapter analyzes Chen’s imagery of edge to see how it speaks to the critical conceptualization of border as a malleable conceptual space of knowledge production in a particular relation to gender. As is well known, the word ‘queer’ has been associated with the subversion of sexual identity, conventional categories, or deviation from normality. Donald E. Hall notes that queering ‘pose[s] a particular threat to systems of classification that assert their time-lessness and fixity’ (2003, p.  14); for Hall, queer 8  The unresolved tension between China and the US over the political interpretation of the Taiwan Relations Act since the 1970s and the plethora of publications centering on the issue indicate how the Taiwan Strait Crisis remains an on-going international issue. 9  While the previous critical examination of the multi-ethnic hybridity in Chen Li’s works is also quite central to Chen’s border politics, due to the word limit and scope of the chapter, I have chosen to focus on the three poems that accentuate Chen Li’s imagery of ‘edge’ and its queered conceptual elasticity here.

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theories ‘work to challenge and undercut any attempt to render “identity” singular, fixed, or normal’ (p.15). The theoretical and political potentiality of ‘queering’ is further elaborated by Hannah McCann and Whitney Monaghan, who draw on Jane Jakobsen’s categorization of the usage of the term. Jakobsen explores the term through the three categories: a noun, an identity, and a verb. According to Jakobsen, when the term ‘queer’ is used as a verb, when it is ‘a kind of doing rather than being’, it ‘holds the most political potential because it focuses on resistance (rather than description) and practice (rather than identity)’ (1998, pp. 516–517). As McCann and Monaghan remark, moreover, ‘To undertake “queering” is to deploy queer as a verb, to challenge and resist expectations or norms’ (2020, p.  3). My use of the term ‘queering’ here largely draws upon Jakobsen’s notion of this word as a verb, and yet I also see Chen’s queering of sexuality as a way to undermine gendered dualism in one’s epistemological inquiry, and thus what Hall sees as the social function of queer theories is relevant here, something that ‘call[s] into question received notions and facile binary definitions’ (2003, p. 4). However, Chen’s works push the subversive and resistant power of ‘queering’ further by experimenting with its eroticizing and liberating potential. By queering the convention of border as a site of imposition, exploitation, and oppression, Chen’s edge poetics gestures toward the possibility of decolonization and regeneration. The edge of the island for Chen presents a sexualized, appropriated, and often perverted space of hierarchical dominance, and yet it also serves as a starting point of sexual-­ political possibility, which might turn the island from a site of geo-political (as well as psychological) crisis into a frontier space for multi-ethnic and multi-cultural co-existence. The following discussion is divided into two parts. It begins by looking at the making of borders in Chen’s ‘Formosa, 1661’, examining what I call the ‘cowhide intimacy’, the close relationship between European imperialism and the material culture of seventeenth-­ century Taiwan. The second part turns to two other edge movements in Chen, threading in ‘The Edge of the Island’ and then ropewalking in ‘The Ropewalker’, investigating how the edge zone might be turned into a dwelling place, however precariously. The chapter shows how Chen’s edge aesthetics propels a queered mythical space, where the geo-political identity of the island might be radically regenerated through the reconfiguration of the borderscape.

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Cowhide Intimacy: Global Colonialism and Chen’s Queering of Borders In The Edge of the Island, Chen experiments with images of various fabrics and materials, such as cowhides, threads, and ropes, and the apparel-­ making acts of stripping, sewing, and mending, in order to address the complexity of the island’s border politics. ‘Formosa, 1661’, an award-­ winning poem, employs the motif of the cowhide to illustrate the multi-­ layered operations of imperialism on the island.10 While the poem evokes a number of plain indigenous communities in Taiwan, including Bakloan, Tavacan, Dalivo, Sinckan, Tirosen, and Mattau (Chen 2014, p.  132), Chen chooses to narrate the poem from the perspective of a Dutch missionary and sets it at the time when the Dutch East India Company established a number of trading stations on the island of Taiwan as their colony in the seventeenth century: I’ve always thought that we are living on the cowhide though God has granted my wish to mix my blood, urine, and excrement with this land. Exchange fifteen bolts of cloth for land as large as a cowhide? The aborigines wouldn’t possibly know a cowhide can be cut into strips and, like the spirit of omnipresent God, encircle the whole Tayouan island, the whole Formosa. I like the taste of venison, I like cane sugar and bananas, I like the raw silk shipped back to Holland by the East India Company. (Chen 2014, p. 131; I, ll 1–10)

As is also explained in the note attached to the poem, according to historian Lian Heng’s A General History of Taiwan (1920), the Dutch tricked the aborigines into agreeing ‘to exchange fifteen bolts of cloth […] for a cowhide-sized piece of land’; by cutting the cowhide ‘into strips’, the Dutch ‘encircled land more than one kilometer in circumference’ and thus obtained ‘the whole Tayouan island’ (Chen 2014, pp.  132–133). The elastic materiality of the cowhide is highlighted here as both a religious symbol of ‘the spirit of omnipresent God’ and a concrete military tool, instrumental for territorial occupation and colonial settlement. The 10  The poem won the Modern Poetry Literary Prize hosted by the national newspaper United Daily News in Taiwan in 1995.

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jointed extension of the cowhide strips embodies the connection between the imposition of imperial forces and the proliferation of borders for resource extraction (‘venison’, ‘cane sugar and bananas’, ‘raw silk’). The fragmented cowhide ‘that we are living on’ further visualizes the violence of historical colonial encounter, through which the ‘virgin’ homeland of aboriginal peoples is butchered and carved in a similar manner. The cowhide exemplifies how European colonialism is operated through the practice of border-making. Throughout the poem, the Dutch missionary speaker circles back to the imagery of the cowhide to demonstrate its multiple meanings and roles. Apart from a tool of measurement, the cowhide also functions as ‘a traveling bag’ that makes European knowledge portable: […] oh, knowledge is like a cowhide that can be folded and put into a traveling bag to carry from Rotterdam to Batavia, from Batavia to this subtropical island, and be unfolded into our Majesty’s agricultural land, the Lord’s nation, cut into strips of twenty-five ges, which length squared forms one morgen, and then three and four zhanglis. (p. 131, I, ll. 23–29)

The ‘folding’ and ‘unfolding’ of the cowhide, as well as the references to the numbers and categories of conversion and units of measurement like ‘ges’, ‘morgen’, and ‘zhanglis’, accentuate how the geo-political process of border-production is also a colonial procedure of deterritorialization and dispossession through mathematic calculation and inventorization.11 The cowhide is then morphed into a more concrete military image, when toward the end of the second part of the poem, it is more explicitly associated with weapons like ‘large axes and knives’ and ‘junks and sampans’ from China: […] I’ve always thought that we are living on the cowhide, although those Chinese troops are approaching on junks and sampans with large axes and knives attempting to cover us with an even bigger cowhide. God has granted my wish to mix my blood, 11  Chen explains in the footnote that ‘Ge was a unit of measurement used by the Dutch, equaling about twelve feet five inches. Twenty-five ges squared equals one morgen. Five morgens make one zhangli’ (p. 133).

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urine, and excrement with the aborigines’ and print them, like letters, on this land. How I wish they knew this cowhide, in which new spelling words are wrapped, can be cut into strips and thumbed into pages, a dictionary loaded with sounds, colors, images, smells and as broad as God’s spirit. (p. 132; II, ll. 18–28)

The ‘even bigger / cowhide’, indicating the approaching of ‘those Chinese troops’, threatens to invade the piece of land occupied by the Dutch. Facing the impending threat from China, the Dutch speaker evokes ‘God’s spirit’ again, comparing his cowhide to a Christian, biblical ‘dictionary’ that can potentially mix his ‘blood, / urine, and excrement with the aborigines’ / and print them, like letters, on this land’. The shifting meanings of the cowhide expose the Dutch missionary’s wishful (and wistful) thinking. They also convey the irony of his utopic vision, which is predicated paradoxically upon the violent act of encircling, wrapping, and cutting up of the aboriginal land. By covering the island with the stripped cowhide, the Dutch colonizer also erases the cultural memories of the indigenous people, by inscribing a new language and a new belief system onto it. Chen’s imagery of the cowhide is ambivalently positioned between the aggressive, masculine mode of European colonialism and the passive, feminine representation of the aboriginal people’s ignorance and powerlessness. It represents scientific knowledge and reasoning, and yet it is also a piece of commodity, being stripped, dismembered, and repurposed for human use. It serves as an agency of imperial expansionism, and yet it is also part and parcel of the colonial transaction to be dissected and appropriated. The connection between cowhide, knowledge, and sex is further linked in the poem, when the speaker celebrates, in the beginning of the second stanza, some kind of gastronomic orgasm, with knowledge assisting the obtaining and importation of ‘good food’ and ‘myriad / spices’ from tropical colonies: Oh, knowledge brings people joy, just like good food and myriad spices (if only they knew how to cook Holland peas). Oranges, with sour flesh and bitter skin, are larger than tangerines. But they don’t know that in summer the water tastes even better than lovemaking when mixed with salt and smashed oranges. (p. 132; II, ll. 3–8)

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The speaker’s ability to consume, discern, and mix fruits and water that are tasted ‘even better than lovemaking’ is contrasted with the displaced commodities, dissected cowhides, and ‘smashed oranges’. The speaker moves on to list the number of local people he manages to teach how to ‘read and write’ the Bible, again analogizing religious conversion and gastronomic ‘consummation’: In Tirosen, I have acquainted thirty married young women with various prayers and simplified key items; in Sinkan, one hundred and two married men and women have been taught to read and write (oh, I taste in the Bible in romanized aboriginal languages a taste of venison flavored with European ginger). Ecclesiastes in Favorlang, the Gospel According to Matthew in Sideia, the marriage of the civilized and the primitive. Let God’s spirit enter the flesh of Formosa—or, let the venison of Formosa enter my stomach and spleen to become my blood, urine, and excrement, to become my spirit. (p. 132; II, ll. 8–18)

In what the speaker calls ‘the marriage of the civilized and the primitive’, the act of spiritual colonization is conveniently and effortlessly combined with the sexualized pleasure of food consumption, as is indicated by the repeated use of the verb ‘enter’ in the stanza. The penetration of ‘God’s spirit’ parallels that of ‘the venison of Formosa’ into the ‘stomach and spleen’ of the Dutch speaker ‘to become my blood, urine, and / excrement, to become my spirit’. The apparent superiority of the Dutch colonizer is queered into a perverted sense of physical intimacy, exposing how the perceived integration between the Dutch and the aborigines through ‘sounds, colors, images, smells’ is in reality based upon the practice of resource exploitation and consumption. The Formosa Sika deer were later hunted to the brink of extinction since the Dutch occupation of the island in the 1620s.12 The recurring references to digested venison, ‘smashed’ fruit, and stripped cowhide crystalize the aggression of colonial exhaustion and deletion of local resources on a fundamentally biological level through the speaker’s bodily pleasure (‘enter my / stomach and spleen to become my blood, urine, and / excrement’).

12  For more on the extinction and restoration of the Formosan Sika deer, see, for example, Chang Chin-ju (1996).

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The refrain ‘I’ve always thought that we are living on the cowhide’ in the poem betrays the Dutch missionary’s self-righteous and self-justified sense of security and superiority in this colonial, Christian conversion enterprise. The end of the poem further suggests a parallel between the Dutch colonial occupation of the island and the subsequent one by the Chinese military force led by Zheng Chenggong, a Ming Dynasty royalist general that, paradoxically, is also fighting against the imperial rule of the Qing Dynasty. While the speaker believes that ‘God has granted my wish to mix my blood, urine, / and excrement with this land’, what is conveyed is not a sense of rootedness but its very opposite—the shakiness and instability of ‘living on the cowhide’. Rather than ‘mix my blood, urine, / and excrement with this land’, the speaker is armed with the cowhide and detached and separated from the land he and his fellow comrades occupy through condescension and trickery (‘The aborigines wouldn’t possibly know’). Yeh comments on how the poem ‘not only satirizes the greed and cunning of the Europeans but also accentuates the arrogance and hypocrisy of the Christian church in deep complicity with imperialism’ (2001, p.  8). The evocation of the ‘even bigger cowhide’ of ‘those Chinese troops’ invites a more multifaceted reading of Chen’s border metaphor, since the poem concludes on an ambivalent note by implying how the later takeover of the island by Zheng might be an alternative form of colonial occupation (which, in turn, would be replaced by the power of the Qing Dynasty two decades later). Chen Li’s specification of the year 1661  in the title of the poem ‘Formosa, 1661’ is thus significant here, since it is the year when Zheng’s army occupied Fort Provintia and began the siege of Fort Zeelandia, two important outposts on the island during the Dutch occupation. While the poem foregrounds its critique of European imperialism, its colonial implication of the Dutch-Chinese analogy is complicated by the Ming-Qing-­ Dutch triangulation. Ventriloquized through the voice of a Dutch missionary, the poem articulates a complex power dynamic and network of border alliances and resistances beyond an East-West dichotomy. The cowhide serves as a queered piece of material culture, which inscribes the traces of global colonial contestation among multiple European and Asian powers in the seventeenth-century Pacific region. Its symbolism shifts throughout the poem, ranging from ‘the spirit of omnipresent / God’ to a foldable and portable ‘knowledge’, from the ‘large axes and knives’ of the Chinese navies to ‘a dictionary […] as broad as God’s spirit’, divulging

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the structural violence embedded in the colonial apparatus of borderremapping and territorial appropriation, in which the aborigines remain the silenced and voiceless ones.

Threading and Ropewalking: Eroticizing/Inhabiting the Frontier Chen’s border-based poetics illuminates the messiness of dwelling on the geo-political and geo-historical frontier zone of the world. While Yeh, among other critics, has shown how Chen’s poetry places emphasis on ‘multiplicity over singularity’ (2001, p. 49), such a reading elides the psychological (as well as political) uncertainty, struggle, and contradiction that this marginal positioning entails. Chen’s edge poetics exposes the fracture and tension among multiple imperial powers in Taiwan, and such a cognitive crack and gap is registered through various gendered, bodily imagery of border-tracing. ‘The Edge of the Island’ and ‘The Ropewalker’, written around the same time as ‘Formosa, 1661’, convey a strong sense of existential anxiety through the metaphors of threading and treading. ‘The Edge of the Island’, the eponymous poem in the collection, seeks to redefine its edge position by transforming it from a marginal site to the frontier zone of human history, where voices previously suppressed can be heard. The speaker serves the oracular role of a spiritual tailor for the unfixed status of the island on the world map. In the first stanza of the poem, Chen depicts the island as ‘an imperfect yellow button’, half-­ floating and half-attached to the Pacific Ocean: On the world map on a scale of one to forty million, our island is an imperfect yellow button lying loose on a blue uniform. My existence is now a transparent thread, thinner than a cobweb, going through my window facing the sea and painstakingly sewing the island and the ocean together. (p.  107; I, ll. 1–6)

The choice of adjectives such as ‘imperfect’ and ‘lying loose’ encapsulates the island’s geo-political instability, evoking Taiwan’s diplomatic relations since 1971, when the United Nations, while acknowledging the PRC as the sole legal government of China, expelled the ROC government from the international community. Drawing an analogy between the speaker’s ‘existence’ and ‘a transparent thread’ that is ‘thinner than a cobweb’, the

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speaker stresses the vulnerability of the island’s global marginality and the prodigious task ahead—the possibility of anchoring the island to the earth, of ‘painstakingly sewing the island and the ocean together’. In a way similar to the cowhide in ‘Formosa, 1661’, ‘the Edge of the Island’ centers around the imagery of a button, which initially stands for the island’s peripheral position. Toward the middle of the poem, however, the button switches from a knob sewn onto a garment, to a device on an electronic equipment to operate a recorder. The ‘imperfect yellow button’ unravels itself to be crucial to the documentation of human history: On the edge of the lonely days, in the crevice between the new and the old years, the thought is like a book of mirrors, coldly freezing the ripples of time. Thumbing through it, you’ll see pages of obscure past, flashing brightly on the mirror: another secret button— like an invisible tape recorder, pressed close to your breast, repeatedly recording and playing your memories and all mankind’s— a secret tape mixed with love and hate, dream and reality, suffering and joy. What you hear now is the sound of the world: the heartbeats of the dead and the living and your own. If you cry out with all your heart, the dead and the living will speak to you in clear voices. (p. 107; II-IV, ll. 7–24)

While images like ‘edge’ and ‘crevice’, and depictions like ‘the lonely days’ and ‘coldly freezing’ point to the disfranchisement and isolation of the island, the ‘imperfect yellow button’ also works as ‘another secret button’ to ‘an invisible tape recorder’ of human longing and suffering (‘your memories and all mankind’s’). The island is relocated in a historical juncture and a temporal intermediary space as a joint between the past and the future (‘between the new and the old years’; ‘pages of obscure  /  past, flashing brightly on the mirror’). The juxtaposition of ‘a book of mirrors’ and ‘an invisible tape recorder’ further highlights how the button-island

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does not only passively receive ‘the sound of the world’; rather, the unidentified second-person addressee ‘you’ is encouraged to ‘cry out with all your heart’ for its voice to be heard (‘the dead and the living will speak to you / in clear voices’). The speaker transforms from the role of a tailor in the first stanza to a spokesperson of human history here, transmitting, syncopating, and resonating with ‘the heartbeats of the dead and the living / and your own’. Threading in the poem demonstrates how the edge position of the island presents an enabling epistemological tool as well as a poetic device for the writer to envision the possibility of forging communal solidarity globally, and such a utopian vision is conducted through Chen’s further eroticizing and queering of the border space. The seemingly maternal act of threading climaxes in the last stanza of the poem when the gentle gesture of tailoring and mending is intensified into a more abrupt movement of ‘piercing’: On the edge of the island, on the boundary between sleeping and waking, my hand is holding my needle-like existence: threading through the yellow button rounded and polished by the people on the island, it pierces hard into the heart of the earth lying beneath the blue uniform. (pp.  107–108; V, ll. 25–30)

From ‘a transparent thread’ to ‘my needle-like existence’, the speaker’s sewing act is ambiguously located between a delicate, unobtrusive, and conventionally feminine mode of being and an aggressive, intrusive, and presumably more masculine type of assertion. While the first four stanzas depict the borderland as a more maternalistic space, a symbolic healing place for the stitching and suturing of geo-political fissure and historical fracture, the final stanza reverses such a gendered expectation by turning the edge zone into an anchorage point for the decisive movement of the island’s affirmation of its existence. The penetration of the speaker’s needle-­pen, while manifesting the precarity of the island’s button-like existence, and its implied isolation from the world, also reveals the forcefulness and determined exertion it takes to be connected to the world. The sewing/poetry-making act engages ‘the heart of the earth’ in a firm and yet violent manner. If, as Yeh argues, the island of Taiwan, in

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comparison with China, is associated with the ‘weaker’ and the feminine in Chen’s poems (2001, p. 46), Chen is also ready to problematize such a gendered, dualistic reading.13 Threading in the poem, continuing the theme of the stripped cowhide in ‘Formosa, 1661’, enacts multiple levels of border/gender-crossing by mixing elements among the allegorical, the erotic, the historical, and the geo-political. The sewing, ‘piercing’, and to some extent ‘border-­ unmaking’ in ‘The Edge of the Island’ speak to border’s elastic epistemological capacity to unmask, deconstruct, and reconstruct one’s geo-political perspectives. If the stripping of the cowhide embodies the brutality of border-making, Chen’s ‘pierc[ing] hard into / the heart of the earth’ indicates the struggle of liberating the island from colonial, territorial appropriation, and marginalization. Another poem by Chen, ‘The Ropewalker’, extends the needle-pen analogy drawn in ‘The Edge of the Island’ by comparing a writer to a circus ropewalker, who is facing the crisis of ‘a ball larger than a roof’ being ‘thrown over’ in the first two stanzas of the poem: Now what I sustain is, floating in the air, your laughter, your laughter, through the obscure quivering net. What if a ball larger than a roof should be thrown over? Would it drive you into sudden melancholy? A ball like the earth, pouring onto your face the unfastened islands and lakes (just like a wheelbarrow with a loose screw). Those black and blue bruises are the collisions with mountains, the metaphysical mountain ranges harder than iron wheels, the metaphysical burdens, anxiety, metaphysical aestheticism… And the so-called aestheticism, to me, who tremble in the air, is perhaps only a restraint from a sneeze, an itch, with the head still up. (p. 129; I-II, ll. 1–12)

The larger-than-life presence of the ball and the surrealistic, apocalyptic scenario (‘A ball like the earth […] the unfastened / islands and lakes’) bring the speaker ‘you’ (as in one’s internal dialogue with oneself) a ‘sudden melancholy’. While images like ‘Those black and blue bruises’ and ‘collisions’ suggest a monumental, catastrophic event that might lead to 13  Yeh comments on how, in another 1995 poem by Chen, ‘Movement of No TongueCurling’, Taiwan is equated with the female, ‘who does not have “that word”—the phallus and tongue curling—and China with the boastful male’ (2001, p. 45).

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human extinction, the recurring use of the word ‘metaphysical’ indicates the impact of the clash to be conceptual and philosophical as much as it is speculative and psychological. Under the perilous circumstance (‘floating in the air, […] through the obscure quivering net’), the trembling ropewalker-­speaker perseveres and carries on with stoicism (‘a restraint from a sneeze, an itch, with / the head still up’). The ‘what if’ scenario showcases how the border space serves as a metaphysical site of contemplation, a location for disaster-thinking, and its resilient, engendering potentiality. As the clown-speaker ruminates in the penultimate stanza about the apocalyptic aftermath, what is left is for the ropewalker to continue metaphysical conversations about ‘time, love, death, loneliness, belief, / dreams’: Now what I sustain are the subjects left behind by the departed circus: time, love, death, loneliness, belief, dreams. Will you thus unpack the parcel before a houseful of silent audience? The moment of sudden solemnity after roaring laughter. You simply pull out, wipe, rearrange the earth’s internal organs, those spare parts that make the world move, sunshine leap, the male and the female animals reach their orgasms… They don’t even know why you stay there, stay there (restrain from sneezing and itching), a wingless butterfly turning a somersault where it is. (pp.  129–130; IV, ll. 22–31)

The speaker imagines ‘pull[ing] out, wip[ing], rearrang[ing]’ all the fragments and broken pieces thrown over and fallen off from the ball, rejoining and fixing ‘the earth’s internal organs’ piece by piece. This mending act, while unacknowledged (‘They don’t even know why you stay there’), and perhaps futile like ‘a wingless butterfly turning a somersault where it is’, also reveals how the edge position of the ropewalker provides a conceptual point for the island’s real-life crisis and a spiritual space for potential recuperation. In a vein similar to ‘The Edge of the Island’, ‘The Ropewalker’ perceives border as a sexualized space for cosmic rebirth (‘the male and the female animals reach their orgasms …’). Chen further links the rope-edge-­ border imagery with a meta-poetic line, in which the island’s marginal position is also a writerly zone of resistance and resilience against potential calamities. The final stanza brings one back to the clown-­ speaker’s

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ropewalking as a persistent, constructive, and subversive act of metaphoric ‘erection’: So you tremble in the air, cautiously constructing a garden of jokes on the dangling rope, cautiously walking across the earth, propping up the floating life, with a slanting bamboo cane, with a fictitious pen. (p. 130, V, ll. 32–37)

Images like ‘the dangling rope’, ‘a slanting bamboo cane’, and ‘a fictitious pen’ all point to a queered symbolic border space, a meta-poetic moment of reconceptualization, in which this ‘floating life’ might yet be ‘propped up’ and recreate ‘a garden of jokes’. This reference to a number of phallic figures here, including the rope, the bamboo cane, and the pen, is subtly twisted, if not undermined, by the use of adjectives such as ‘dangling’, ‘slant’, and ‘fictitious’. The evocation of ‘garden’ and ‘jokes’, the association of the two terms with playfulness, and the imagery of the clown in the poem tie in with Chen’s consistent attempt to experiment with the border space for a more dynamic, gender-fluid meta-poetic vision to emerge.

Conclusion Chen’s edge poetics reflects the tumultuous colonial history and political condition in Taiwan, but it also points to how the island’s geo-political fragility might lead to a mythopoetic potentiality. The chapter concludes by rethinking Chen’s border narrative in relation to Achille Mbembe’s idea of ‘a borderless world’ in a 2018 lecture and essay. Mbembe speaks of ‘the current atrophy of a utopian imagination’ and of how ‘apocalyptic imaginaries and narratives of cataclysmic disasters and unknown futures have colonised the spirit of our time’ (2018).14 Mbembe’s call for the necessity of breaking down borders, because they are ‘the carceral landscapes of our world’, finds resonance in Chen’s imagery of the cowhide, sewing, and ropewalking in the poems discussed in this chapter, in which the territories dispossessed, exploited, or fragmented are to be mended

14  Mbeme’s essay was given first as a Tanner Lecture on Human Values at Yale University in March 2018. The essay is collected in The Chimurenga Chronic’s October 2018 edition.

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and restructured. However, such a utopic attempt for border erasure is complicated in Chen’s edge poetics, in which border-unmaking and edge-­ dwelling co-exist, with their intensified existential discomfort enabling more diverse epistemological capacities to grow. While the motifs of cowhide-­stripping, threading, and ropewalking in the collection mirror the unsteady political, as well as stratigraphic, situation of the island, Chen’s ‘love-making’/‘world-making’ edge poetics, echoing what Rob Wilson would call a process of ‘worlding’, also renders border-thinking an inevitable poetic catalyst for potential transformation.15 It shows deep concern about how humanity’s metaphysical wrestling with ‘time, love, death, loneliness, belief, dreams’, themes listed by Chen in ‘The Ropewalker’ (p. 129; IV, ll. 23–24), might survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Such a poetic vision requires the poet’s repositioning of himself as more than an island writer; it requires his repositioning  of himself as a world-making poet, writing, moving, and balancing precariously between the cracks of constant cross-strait military tension and tectonic shifts, among the island, the continents, and the oceans. Chen’s edge poetics epitomizes the complex nature of border aesthetics and border politics in Taiwan, the malleability and fragility of which might yet yield an oppression-­free state of borderlessness someday.

References Balibar, Étienne. 2002. What is a border? In Politics and the other scene, Trans. Christine Jones, James Swenson, and Chris Turner, 75–86. London and New York: Verso. Balibar, Étienne, Sandro Mezzadra, and Ranabir Samaddar, eds. 2013. The borders of justice. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Chang, Chin-ju. 1996. Wild once more?: Restoring the Formosan sika deer. Trans. Brent Heinrich. Taiwan Panorama. Accessed 20 May 2023. https://www. taiwan-­p anorama.com/Ar ticles/Details?%20Guid=09c4eabf-­c e3e­4468-­b9cb-­f29cf6e25a6a&langId=3&CatId=10. Chang, Fen-ling. 2014. ‘Intimate letters’ to the world: Introduction to Chen Li’s poetry. Accessed 20 May 2023. http://faculty.ndhu.edu.tw/~chenli/introduction.htm.

15  Wilson defines the term worlding as ‘the process of making anew or building up the lifeworld into differences that matter […]. This worlding takes place in and as the production of lived resilient diversity’ (2022, p. 6).

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Chen, Li. 1998a. Chen Li criticism index (Chen Li zuo pin ping lun yin de / 陳黎 作品評論引得). Accessed 20 May 2023. http://faculty.ndhu.edu.tw/~chenli/ chenlicritic.htm. ———. 1998b. Chen Li’s literary warehouse (Chen Li wen xue cang ku / 陳黎文 學倉庫). Accessed 20 May 2023. http://faculty.ndhu.edu.tw/~chenli/ index.htm. ———. 1999. Searching for the voice of history (xun zhao li shi de sheng yin / 尋 找歷史的聲音). In Ropewalking between fiction and reality: A collection of Chen Li criticism (zai xiang yu xian shi jian zou suo: Chen Li zuo pin ping lun ji / 在 想像與現實間走索:陳黎作品評論集), ed. Weichi Wang, 121–140. Taipei: Bookman Publishing. ———. 2014. The edge of the island: Poems of Chen Li. Trans. Fen-ling Chang. Taipei: Bookman Publishing. Chen, Fang-ming. 2014. Postmodern and postcolonial poetics (hou xian dai yu hou zhi min de shi yi / 後現代與後殖民的詩藝). In Beauty and dying for beauty (mei yu xun mei / 美與殉美), 148–162. Taipei: Linking Publishing. Gu, Jitung. 1999. Taiwan’s postmodern center: On Chen Li’s The edge of the island (Taiwan hou xian dai shi de zhong zhen: ping Chen Li de dao yu bian yuan / 台灣後現代詩的重鎮: 評陳黎的《島嶼邊緣》). In Ropewalking between fiction and reality: A collection of Chen Li criticism (zai xiang yu xian shi jian zou suo: Chen Li zuo pin ping lun ji / 在想像與現實間走索:陳黎作品評 論集), ed. Weichi Wang, 185–194. Taipei: Bookman Publishing. Hall, Donald E. 2003. Queer theories. London: Palgrave Macmillan. hooks, bell. 1989. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. The Journal of Cinema and Media 36: 15–23. Hsu, Li-hsin. 2022. My ‘Byron’s foot’: Chou Meng-tieh’s Buddhist-Romantic quest in Country of Solitude. Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 48 (1): 115–142. Accessed 20 May 2023. http://www.concentric-­literature.url.tw/ issues/Music/5-­Hsu.pdf. Huang, Tsung-chieh, ed. 2021. Lonely island: Us in the post-pandemic era (gu jue zhi dao: hou yi qing shi dai de wo men / 孤絕之島: 後疫情時代的我們). Xindian: ECUS Publishing House. Jakobsen, Janet R. 1998. Queer is? Queer does?: Normativity and the problem of resistance. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4 (4): 511–536. Lao, Sebastian Hsien-hao. 1999. The sky garden of the rose rider: Reading Chen Li’s The edge of the island (mei gui qi shi de kong zhong hua yuan: du Chen Li shi ji dao yu bian yuan / 玫瑰騎士的空中花園；讀陳黎詩集《島嶼邊緣》). In Ropewalking between fiction and reality: A collection of Chen Li criticism (zai xiang yu xian shi jian zou suo: Chen Li zuo pin ping lun ji / 在想像與現實間 走索:陳黎作品評論集), ed. Weichi Wang, 145–156. Taipei: Bookman publishing. Liu, Ji-Hong. 2003. Narrative for the rim and writing on the island: A study of Chen Li’s poems (bian yuan xu shi yu dao yu shu xie: Chen Li xin shi yan jiu /

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邊緣敘事與島嶼書寫──陳黎新詩研究). MA Thesis. Providence University, Taiwan. Accessed 20 May 2023. https://hdl.handle.net/11296/cf7pc5. Mbembe, Achille. 2018. The idea of a borderless world. The Chimurenga Chronic. Accessed 20 May 2023. https://chimurengachronic.co.za/the-­idea-­of-­aborderless-­world/. McCann, Hannah, and Whitney Monaghan. 2020. Queer theory now: From foundations to futures. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. Between inclusion and exclusion: On the topology of global space and borders. Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4/5): 58–75. ———. 2013. Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Schmitt, Carl. 2006. The nomos of the earth in the international law of jus publicum Europaeum. Candor: Telos Press Publishing. Vogel, Ezra F. 1993. The four little dragons: The spread of industrialization in East Asia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, Rob Sean. 2022. Introduction: Worlding Asia Pacific into Oceania: Worlding concepts, tactics, and transfigurations against the Anthropocene. In Geo-Spatiality in Asian and Oceanic literature and culture: Worlding Asia in the Anthropocene, ed. Shiuhhuah Serena Chou, Soyoung Kim, and Rob Sean Wilson, 1–31. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Yeh, Michelle. 2001. Frontier Taiwan: An introduction. In Frontier Taiwan: An anthology of modern Chinese poetry, ed. Michelle Yeh and N.G.D. Malmqvist, 1–53. New York: Columbia University Press.

CHAPTER 6

Crossing the Borders of Genders and Genres: Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater as a World-­Making Narrative of Identity Reaffirmation Alessandra Di Pietro

Introduction Freshwater (2018) is the first novel by Nigerian-Tamil writer Akwaeke Emezi.1 Acclaimed as a remarkable debut by readers and critics alike, the novel has been nominated to various literary prizes, including the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction.2 Because of their work as a storyteller and 1  I use the plural pronouns they/them to refer to Akwaeke Emezi, who identifies as an a-gender person. 2  The nomination made Emezi the first non-binary trans author to be longlisted. At the time, the judges stated that they were not aware of Emezi’s gender and that it was a ‘historic moment’. Nevertheless, a year later, Emezi reported on their Twitter page that they refused to submit their second novel The Death of Vivek Oji (2020) as the judges asked for ‘Emezi’s sex as defined by law’ (Flood 2020). The incident raised the issue of the extent to which trans and non-binary authors, as well as black and indigenous writers, are represented in literary prizes. For more, see Kon-Yu (2016).

A. Di Pietro (*) Independent Scholar, Bern, Switzerland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_6

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visual artist,3 in 2021 TIME magazine has featured Emezi on the cover as a Next Generation Leader.4 Emezi also has a strong social media presence on diverse platforms through which they share their life and work and which they often use to campaign for trans rights.5 Their debut novel is an autobiographical text that narrates the coming-of-age story of Ada, from her childhood in Nigeria to her college years in the United States. Nevertheless, Freshwater is not only a migrant narrative that portrays Ada’s geographical and cultural dislocation. The core of the novel is the physical and spiritual journey that brings the protagonist to identify as a non-binary trans person. In order to represent Ada’s crossing of genders, the novel deploys a continuous crisscrossing of literary genres. The purpose of this chapter is to consider the relevance of border-crossing as a place of socio-cultural unlearning and resistance. Building the critical analysis of the novel on the normative theory of literature developed by Pheng Cheah (2016), this chapter demonstrates that Ada’s achievement of a fluid existence coincides with the rejection and deconstruction of pre-imposed gendered and racialised social roles. The notion of the border, therefore, is of utmost importance to accomplish such processes of identity-making and socio-cultural unlearning. The concept of the border is traditionally associated with the idea of frontier lines as postulated mostly by European/American cartography, a conceptualisation that has influenced (and has been influenced by) the development of geopolitical perspectives founded on concepts of nationalism, imperialism, and colonial domination. More recently, this traditional conceptualisation has been challenged by worldwide phenomena, such as the development of communication networks and social media, the economic and cultural globalisation of today’s societies, mass migrations that question geo-cultural spaces, the de/construction of the image of the wall 3  Emezi also works as a video maker/artist. For an analysis of Emezi’s experimental videos, see Cobo-Piñero (2022). 4  TIME magazine’s profile of Emezi as a Next Generation Leader included an interview titled ‘“My job in the revolution is as a storyteller”: Akwaeke Emezi is writing new possibilities into being’ (Anderson 2021). 5  Of particular notice was the digital feud between Emezi and Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. After Adichie stated in a 2017 interview that ‘trans women are trans women’, Emezi publicly accused Adichie of transphobia on Twitter (Flood 2021). Emezi also shared that Adichie asked for her name to be cancelled from any copy of Freshwater, where she was mentioned as a literary mentor, especially because of Emezi’s participation in Adichie’s Farafina Creative Writing Workshop in 2015. Adichie responded to the transphobic accusations in an essay published on her website (Adichie 2021).

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as a frontier, and even the breakout of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. These phenomena have led to a pluralisation and proliferation of border concepts which are at the core of the interdisciplinary field of Border Studies. The development of this field has also drawn growing scholarly attention to the permeability of the border not only as a geographical frontier, but also as a socio-cultural, economic, and political one (Balibar 2002; Mezzadra and Neilson 2013; Amilhat Szary and Giraut 2015). Furthermore, the notion of the border intended as a porous boundary has acquired more relevance in Decolonial and Postcolonial Studies. Scholars working within these latter fields tend to consider the geographical border from the perspective of a colonial frontier within which the (often-forced) encounters that derive from processes of de/colonisation create ‘contact zones’ between peoples (Pratt 1992). It is in such borderlands that new forms of socio-cultural hybridity emerge. These forms configure the act of border-crossing not only as a critical deconstruction of those gendered and racialised roles imposed by an imperial, patriarchal, and hierarchical society; they also turn border-crossing into a revolutionary act that allows subaltern voices to rise from the margins, challenging the colonial matrix of power (Anzaldúa 1987; Lugones 1992; Bhabha 1994; Icaza 2017). The interest in border thinking intended as a liminal space of deconstruction and resistance has largely informed recent literary and artistic expressions. In this context, border-crossing is often interpreted as the intersection between different genres, whether it is a crisscrossing of various forms of art or an overlapping of literary genres. Moreover, the notion of border-crossing can be further applied to the expressions of a fluid gender identity, which defies the westernised dichotomy of gendered social roles. It is particularly the intersection and interaction between genders and genres intended as a space of resistance that is of interest to this chapter, in which I analyse Freshwater by Emezi as an instance of such liminal phenomena. Firstly, the chapter outlines the theoretical framework of reference, focusing on the relevance of border-crossing and its decolonial relations with the notion of the poietic nature of literature. Secondly, the chapter reads Emezi’s Freshwater as an instance of border-crossing between genders and genres. The critical analysis of the novel aims to demonstrate how the act of crossing borders represented in the narrative can open up alternative spaces for the reconfiguration of a borderless, genderless identity. The marginal space initially occupied by Ada becomes, then, a place within which the poietic capacity of literature emerges, creating a

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world-making narrative of resistance and identity reaffirmation against the borders of Eurocentric cultural frameworks that still embody colonial ideology.

Poietic Literature and Border-Crossing: An Evaluation First theorised by Gloria Anzaldúa in her pivotal book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) and then further developed by decolonial scholars, the relevance of border thinking as an epistemic alternative to the colonial and imperial matrix of power is of utmost importance within the literary field. As mentioned above, this chapter is particularly interested in analysing the intersection between genders and genres that is represented in Emezi’s Freshwater as a space of socio-cultural unlearning; that is, a space in which the novel’s protagonist can actively deconstruct the preconceived borders of Eurocentric cultural, medical, and biological frameworks. I will, therefore, start my analysis by offering an evaluation of the relations between the concepts of borderlands/border-crossing and literature intended as a world-making narrative of resistance. In reading literature as a world-making activity, I apply Cheah’s recently developed notion of the normative theory of literature. Such conceptualisation primarily considers ‘the normative force that literature can exert in the world, the ethicopolitical horizon it opens up for the existing world’ (Cheah 2016, p. 5). In this regard, the concept of ‘normativity’ as used by Cheah refers to the universal validity inherent in norms and values that can move people to worldly action (p.  5). According to such theorisation, therefore, literature holds a normative force that can actively open up the current world to an alternative, more equal one. It is important to contextualise Cheah’s use of the term ‘normative’ after it has been criticised by Lorna Burns, according to whom ‘the use of a term with such conservative connotations’ implies that ‘by characterizing literature as a normative force, Cheah grants it a coherence that troubles its disruptive capacity’ (Burns 2019, p. 20).6 Cheah’s de facto ambiguous use of the term ‘normative’ might indeed appear incongruous when applied to an author like Emezi; however, what this chapter mainly draws from Cheah is his 6  In contrast with Cheah’s conceptualisation of literature as a world-making narrative of resistance, Burns shifts the theoretical approach to alternative philosophical perspectives that focus on literature as a form of active dissent.

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theorisation of literature as a world-making force. Such theorisation is a relevant and valid approach to my literary analysis of Emezi’s novel, in which resistance is key to the narrative. In particular, it is the notion of literature’s capacity of actively deconstructing the systemic reality of contemporary society through the reevaluation of the world’s temporality that is of interest to this chapter, as Emezi’s work explores non-­conforming ideas of gender that challenge traditional binary representations. On the basis of this poietic capacity of literature there is a phenomenological7 reevaluation of the notion of the world, which is usually considered in spatial terms. Conforming to such categorisation, the world is mostly thought of as a globe, that is, a geographical space divided on the basis of Western cartography and, therefore, characterised by static borders. Such division is clearly embedded in the (neo-)colonial and imperial systems of power that, after the age of colonialism, still continue to influence today’s society through forms of capitalist globalisation. Cheah argues instead that the world should be conceived as a temporal category, that is, ‘as an ongoing dynamic process of becoming, something that possesses a historical-temporal dimension and hence is continually being made and remade’ (2016, p. 42). The connection between literature and the notion of the world as a temporal category is based on the ontological status of literature or its inherent poietic capacity. This implies that literature can fulfil a crucial function in remaking the world: Literature […] can play an active role in the world’s ongoing creation because in its very existence, […] is a spiritual and material process that fashions or constructs a human world by imparting values, norms, and meaning to the given world through imagination, representation, signification, and interpretation. […]. Understood in this way, literature is […] an inexhaustible resource for reworlding and remaking the degraded world given to us by commercial intercourse, monetary transactions, and the space-time compression of the global culture industry. (Cheah 2016, p. 186)

Such conceptualisation of literature as an active, poietic force can be particularly significant when applied to the analysis of postcolonial literary works that are produced in the global South. These texts often inherently 7  Even though Cheah analyses various philosophical approaches, his reevaluation of the world as a temporal category is mainly based on Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological account of worldliness. See Heidegger (1996).

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engage in a deconstruction of the colonial and imperial matrix of power, actively challenging westernised narratives while offering alternative spaces of representation. Furthermore, the resistance that these world-making narratives produce against the hierarchies of today’s globalised society frequently derives from an empowerment of voices traditionally thought of as marginal. This empowerment is in line with bell hooks’s definition of marginality as ‘the site of radical possibility, a space of resistance’, and ‘a central location for the production of a counter hegemonic discourse’ (1989, p.  20). The counter-hegemonic discourse hooks refers to can be identified as a process of socio-cultural unlearning, that is, the recognition and consequent deconstruction of what Walter Mignolo and Madina Tlostanova call ‘global coloniality’, that is, the power relations that are a legacy of colonialism/imperialism and that still inform today’s globalised society (2012, p.  6). Unlearning becomes, then, a moment through which to ‘forget what we have been taught, to break free from the thinking programs imposed on us by education, culture, and social environment, always marked by the Western imperial reason’ (p. 7). The notion of a process of socio-cultural unlearning is also elaborated by Cheah as one of the pivotal moments of poietic literature: a world-­ making narrative of resistance is the result of such decolonial deconstruction, which enables, and at the same time is enabled by, literature’s ability to re-world. Moreover, it is not only the potentiality of marginality that activates the poietic capacity of literature; it is the very act of border-­ crossing that creates the possibility of new spaces of representation. Here, it might be relevant to point out that such a conceptualisation of marginality as a space in which world-making narratives can arise echoes Gilles Deleuze and Pierre-Félix Guattari’s notion of minor literature: ‘A minor literature doesn’t come from a minor language; it is rather that which a minority constructs within a major language. But the first characteristic of minor literature in any case is that in it language is affected with a high coefficient of deterritorialization’ (1986, p. 16). A minor literature, therefore, is defined as a literature created by a minority within and through the language of a major group—for instance, the Jewish community writing in German during the Third Reich or English used by the African-American community in the United States. Other relevant characteristics of minor literatures are their inherent political nature and their collective value as ‘literature finds itself positively charged with the role and function of collective, and even revolutionary, enunciation. […] and if the writer is in the

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margins or completely outside his or her fragile community, this situation allows the writer all the more the possibility to express another possible community and to forge the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1986, p. 17). It is from this marginal position, therefore, that literature can enable its inherent poietic potentials through which it can act as a revolutionary force of deconstruction of systemic oppressions. Furthermore, as mentioned above, such inherent capacity of literature is increased by the act of border-crossing, which opens up to diverse narratives of resistance. As this chapter demonstrates, Freshwater by Emezi belongs to such literature, as it is an instance of a world-making narrative of resistance that emerges from a liminal space of border-crossing. Since gender and genre crossover phenomena are particularly relevant within postcolonial literature, the many intersections and interactions between genders and genres offered by this novel are here analysed as sites of socio-cultural unlearning and resistance. Such continuous acts of border-crossing reinforce the characters’ unlearning of fixed norms in terms of both the gender-related binary oppositions and the representation of postcolonial subjects within literature. The next section analyses Freshwater as an instance of world-making narrative of resistance and identity reaffirmation generated by border-­ crossing between genders and genres. The physical and spiritual border-­ crossing experienced by the novel’s protagonist becomes a medium through which the narrative challenges the social construction of gendered identities, opening up new spaces for the reconfiguration of a borderless, genderless entity. The crossing of gendered boundaries within the novel is also inextricably linked to a crossing of genres, such as the Bildungsroman, the psychological novel, and autobiography, further contributing to erasing literary borders.

Crisscrossing of Genders and Genres in Freshwater In ways similar to other postcolonial novels written by African authors who have achieved global fame,8 Freshwater experiments with novel genre, exceeding common classifications. The novel fits within the framework of the Bildungsroman, as it focuses on the personal growth of the 8  An example is Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988), which, while being a canonical text, is also a reimagined, postcolonial Bildungsroman.

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protagonist, a young Igbo and Tamil woman named Ada. The author, however, seems to challenge some of the distinctive features of the latter genre both through the protagonist’s gender reconfiguration, which challenges the genre’s traditional androcentrism, and through the contextualisation of the Bildungsroman within postcolonial African literature.9 Emezi’s novel also comprises elements that are typical of autobiographical narrations since Ada’s journey of acceptance and transition mirrors Emezi’s personal life experiences. The similarities between autobiography and the Bildungsroman have often been subjects of research (Amoko 2009; Austen 2015), particularly within African literature. Nevertheless, in Freshwater, the two genres overlap, and the genre boundary between them almost disappears, making it difficult for the reader to separate the factual from the fictive. In this regard, the author states that ‘It’s an autobiographical novel—a breath away from being a memoir. There are chapters in there that are my journal entries which I copied and pasted’ (Akbar 2018). Furthermore, the centrality of Ada’s identity fragmentation and internal tribulations, which almost obscure the plot, might allow readings of Freshwater as a psychological novel (Schellinger 1998). Even in this case, however, the novel refuses simplistic classification. The difficulty of interpreting it as a psychological novel is due to the lack of distinctive elements of the so-called roman d’analyse, especially of the pathologisation of psychological aspects. Ada’s condition, which according to European/ American psychiatry might be defined as a dissociative identity disorder, is not treated as a mental illness, but it is actually inscribed within the framework of Igbo cosmology.10 The result of such crisscrossing of genres is a narrative that deconstructs common literary and cultural systems. Additionally, the intersection of genres is extended to comprehend the border-crossing of genders represented throughout the novel. As the chapter demonstrates, the nature of Ada’s status as an ọgbanje is that of a borderless entity, whose potentiality of world-making is inherently connected to the subversion of westernised dichotomous oppositions. Freshwater is a story rooted in West African traditional beliefs. Ada’s plurality of selves is reconfigured through her identification as an ọgbanje.11 9   For a wider reflection on the African Bildungsroman, see Hoagland (2019) and Okuyade (2011). 10  For a more detailed analysis of the interrelations between Eurocentric narratives and Igbo cosmology in Freshwater, see Ossana (2021). 11  For an extended study of the figure of the ọgbanje, see Bastian (1997).

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Similarly, Emezi identifies as an ọgbanje. The term refers to ‘an Igbo spirit that’s born into a human body, a kind of malevolent trickster, whose goal is to torment the human mother by dying unexpectedly only to return in the next child and do it all over again’ (Emezi 2018b). Thus, an ọgbanje is an ‘overlapping of realities’ (2018b) that create a different kind of alterity. In this sense, the very entity of an ọgbanje and its relationships with other spirits, as well as with humans, intrinsically transcend ‘material, temporal, and spiritual boundaries’ (Bastian 1997, p.  117). Ada’s otherworldly entity, therefore, positions her within a liminal space that exceeds physical borders, projecting her into a metaphysical level of existence that can be defined as borderless.12 By rooting the story in Igbo cosmology, the author thus deconstructs both medical and cultural frameworks that are embedded in Eurocentric knowledge. As an ọgbanje, Ada is expected to die in childhood. Nevertheless, she grows into adulthood, constantly pulled between life and self-annihilation by the spirits inside her. According to Igbo cosmology, Ada is the creation of an Igbo deity, Ala, who is the earth herself and the mother and judge of everything that exists. Even though Ada remains unaware of her ọgbanje nature until her adolescence, and only fully grasps her otherworldly status by the end of the novel, she is always connected to the cosmic forces that possess her and manifest as voices inside her head. On a literary level, these spirits are depicted as the three main narrative voices within the novel, which alternatively overlap throughout the narration in a continuous interaction with Ada. The first voice appears in the incipit as a collective voice referred to as ‘We’, which represents the amalgam of all the spirits that have inhabited Ada from the moment she was born. In the novel, the spirits are called ‘brothersisters’. This ensemble of voices is a constant companion to Ada, simultaneously acting as a protective shield from the dangers of life and as the main source that pushes her towards self-destruction. In the first part of the novel, the spirits help Ada cope with her family’s disintegration. Her mother Saachi, a nurse of Malaysian origins, works abroad first in Saudi Arabia and then in London, ‘return[ing] to Nigeria [to her family] once or twice each year with suitcases that smelled cool and foreign’ (Emezi 2018a, p. 32); Ada’s father Saul is an emotionally absent figure, who only 12  This chapter mainly focuses on the crisscrossing of genders. Nevertheless, Ada’s transition to a fluid, genderless, and borderless entity also encompasses the trespassing of the human/non-human border. For more, see Magaqa and Makombe (2021).

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cares about his chieftaincy title, ‘spen[ding] a lot of money on new things for himself, money that he refuse[s] to spend in other ways, like on his family’ (p. 29). Such a fragmented family situation complicates Ada’s feelings of physical and emotional displacement, also reinforcing her initial misunderstanding of her own ọgbanje nature and her various attempts at self-annihilation. The second narrative voice is Asụghara, one of the brothersisters that inhabit Ada. This spirit separates itself from the others, coming to the surface after a traumatic experience of sexual abuse that Ada experiences during her college years in the United States. Once the spirit completely takes over her mind and body, the tumultuousness of Asụghara does not only influence Ada’s actions but also infuse the narrative with a fast-paced rhythm that mirrors a crescendo of destructiveness. Asụghara’s tone of intimacy is almost in contrast with the spirit’s possessive connection to Ada, which makes the reader perceive Asụghara as an antagonist whose ultimate purpose is to destroy Ada and her personal relations. Nevertheless, the spirit proves to be intricately tied to Ada in a sort of co-dependent relationship, as its own voice explains in the novel: Ada loved me, sha. She loved me because I hated that boy. She loved me because I was reckless; I had no conscience, no sympathy, no pity. She loved me because I was strong and I held her together. I loved her because me, I had known her since I was nothing, since I was everything, since that shell-­ blue house in Umuahia. […]. Let me tell you now, I loved her because in the moment of devastation, the moment she lost her mind, that girl reached for me so hard that she went completely mad, and I loved her because when I flooded through, she spread herself open and took me in without hesitation, bawling and broken, she absorbed me fiercely, all the way; she denied me nothing. I loved her because she gave me a name. (pp. 70–71)

Among the multitude of brothersisters within Ada, Asụghara results to be the most destructive one, and its presence is ravaging for Ada: this spirit pushes her into a series of toxic, sexual encounters that destroy the relations she has with her family and friends. In order to re-join with her in an otherworldly dimension, Asụghara also incites Ada to physically harm herself and to attempt suicide. Despite this persecution, Ada is unable to separate herself from Asụghara or from the other spirits. Their connection is so unbreakable that the borders between Ada and the spirits are completely

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blurred, letting them take over the character’s mind and body on various occasions. However, not all the spirits are as consuming as Asụghara: among them, there is also a masculine entity that Ada calls Saint Vincent, who is ‘gentle, soft as a ghost’ (p. 122). It is through the co-existence of these different entities that Ada learns to embrace her genderless fluidity. The acceptance of her a-gender existence leads Ada to undergo surgery to remove her breasts as the first step of a more complete transitioning process. The final border-crossing of genders, therefore, is made possible by Ada’s recognition of how her otherworldly nature cannot be limited by pre-imposed, and often westernised, socio-cultural constructs. Through such awareness, Ada can enable the potentiality that is intrinsically present in her condition of liminality. It is no coincidence that such definite border-crossing occurs in the second part of the novel, in which the reader finally meets the narrative voice of Ada herself—her direct voice, not the one filtrated by the ọgbanjes. As a matter of fact, throughout the narration, Ada’s voice is heard a few times, either through poetry or through diary entries. On such occasions, however, the character’s voice often comes through as if Ada were immersed in a sort of dullness of the senses, as if she were anaesthetised. Such a condition is well exemplified by the following quotation drawn from Chapter Nine, in which the protagonist highlights her tiredness and her impression of being detached from the outside world: I don’t even have the mouth to tell this story. I’m so tired most of the time. Besides, whatever they will say will be the truest version of it, since they are the truest version of me. […] The world in my head has been far more real than the one outside—maybe that’s the exact definition of madness, come to think of it. It’s all a secret I’ve had to keep, but no longer, not since you’re reading this. And it should all make sense; I didn’t want to be alone, so I chose them. In many ways, you see, I am not even real. (p. 93)

In the first part of the novel, Ada appears as a submissive character dissociated from reality. Her own words reinforce this impression, as evidenced by the quotation above. This passive stance changes when Ada slowly comes to accept the multitude of spirits within her. Her new attitude is also facilitated by two fortuitous encounters. She first meets Malena, a Dominican woman, who recognises Ada’s condition as an otherworldly status and not only as a mental disorder. And she later meets Lẹshi, a

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Yoruba priest who, just like Malena, is immediately aware of Ada’s ọgbanje nature. As a matter of fact, the emergence of Ada’s true narrative voice coincides with her return to Nigeria and her meeting with Lẹshi. The physical journey to her country of origin becomes an occasion to reconnect with her true self through the assertion of the spirits’ agency and presence. In this way, the relationship she builds with the Yoruba priest, however brief and platonic, is pivotal for Ada as it helps her to fully accept the ọgbanjes within her. It is no coincidence that, in Chapter Twenty-One, Ada and Lẹshi’s encounter is narrated through the collective voice ‘We’ of the brothersisters, who tell how the protagonist can finally lift the veil of her spiritual submissiveness, reaching a state of completion: Who we were before Lẹshi laid his long hands on us was not who we were afterward. No, afterword we were done. We were ready to stop the births and the namings—the Ada was ready to take her own front. When we [the brothersisters] fell back, it tasted like a kind of death. But as the Ada moved out of the shadow and into her body, we found ourself watching her with a grim pride. She was scarred, yes, gouged in places even. But she was—she has always been—a terrifyingly beautiful thing. If you ever saw her at her fullest, you would understand—power becomes the child. (p. 216)

This passage marks the beginning of a new life for Ada. The possibility of narrating the fragmented reality she experiences and, especially, of telling the Yoruba priest, someone who can fully comprehend her otherworldly nature, empowers Ada, giving her a chance to assert her agency and overcome her previous condition. It is only by recognising and accepting the ọgbanjes within her as an active force—a force that pushes her towards the unlearning of preconceived categorisations of the self—that the protagonist can come to terms with her borderless, genderless identity.

Border-Crossing and the Creation of a World-­Making Narrative of Resistance Ada’s acceptance of her ọgbanje nature acquires important meanings if considered through the lens of Cheah’s normative theory of literature and its relations to the border-crossing of genres and genders. From such a perspective, the reconfiguration of her fractured self appears as a process of identity-making endowed with world-making potentials. As a matter of

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fact, Ada’s recognition of her genderless, borderless entity corresponds to a moment of socio-cultural unlearning—a moment in which she understands that her otherworldly being cannot be limited by the boundaries of westernised forms of knowledge, which entrap her within pre-imposed medical, biological, and cultural categorisations of the self. The consequent deconstruction of such boundaries is manifested through the continuous crisscrossing of genres and genders that is represented throughout the novel. It is in the initially marginal space of border-­ crossing that the poietic nature of literature can be enabled, de facto creating a world-making narrative of resistance against such preconceived structures. As previously stated, literature’s active force actualises itself on a practical and actional dimension, constantly enabling the transformation of the current world into a new one through human activity. In this sense, Ada’s acceptance of her ọgbanje nature can thus be interpreted as a manifestation of resistance and, at the same time, as the main force through which the narrative opens up to an activity of re-worlding. It is also worth noticing that the ọgbanjes are not merely projections of Ada’s mind, but they constitute a whole world within her. Only when Ada comprehends and accepts the plurality of her being is the normative force of literature actualised. In the first part of the novel, Ada’s behaviour towards the ọgbanjes is one of apathetic submission, which pushes her into a path of self-annihilation. After the encounter with the Yoruba priest, however, Ada’s recognition of her otherworldly nature leads her on a new journey of acceptance of her genderless, borderless identity. This happens when Ada stops ‘trying to balance [the spirits], trying to kill them, defending against their retaliations, bribing them, starving them and begging them’ (Emezi 2018a, pp. 223–224), and instead she embraces the multitudes of selves within her. By accepting this plurality of identity, the protagonist transforms the marginal place she occupies at the beginning into what hooks defines as ‘a site of radical possibility’ (1989, p. 20), in which a counter-hegemonic discourse is built. This process of socio-cultural unlearning, which deconstructs westernised boundaries, also involves the rediscovery of Ada’s native language. The relevance of language is repeatedly highlighted in Freshwater. A topical moment is when Ada moves to the United States and the spirits are angry because they were forced to leave their place of origin. Such negative feelings come out through the ọgbanjes’ linguistic switch to Igbo sentences. In Chapter Twelve, for instance, there is a confrontation between Asụghara and the other brothersisters who want to bring the spirit (and

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Ada, of course) back home into an otherworldly dimension. Asụghara is accused by the brothersisters of having moved away from their true home, crossing an ocean, and even forgetting about them (Emezi 2018a, p. 134). The language used by the brothersisters in this episode includes untranslated Igbo sentences that do not only add a lyrical and evocative tone to their voices but also represent Asụghara’s and Ada’s inability to fully communicate with their inner spirits using their native language. It is only in the novel’s last chapter that Ada rediscovers the Igbo language. This happens after her recognition and acceptance of her genderless, borderless nature, which is part of the process of socio-cultural unlearning she experienced. The rediscovery of Ada’s native language is thus a moment of unlearning that brings to completion the deconstruction of westernised boundaries and ways of communication. Once Ada finally decides to fully connect to the ọgbanjes that inhabit her, she starts praying directly to them and to her otherworldly mother, Ala. In order to talk with Ala, the protagonist decides to pray in Igbo and not in English: So that night, I prayed to Ala. I didn’t want to do it in English even though I knew she would understand; language is only a human thing. Igbo had always been stunted coming from my tongue, but there was one word that was easy, that slipped from my tongue like salted palm oil and tasted correct. (p. 224)

The Igbo word that easily slips from Ada’s tongue is ‘Nne’, which means ‘Mother’ (p. 224). The physical and mental connection that Ada manages to establish with the ọgbanjes frees her from a whole range of preconceived medical, biological, and cultural boundaries, offering her a new way of reading her otherworldly existences. Her evolution starts in the marginal space of border-crossing she initially occupies. After acknowledging her real nature, the protagonist learns to deconstruct the boundaries that entrap her in a false representation of her own self. The crisscrossing of genders and genres is crucial to Ada’s rediscovery of her otherworldly entity and her native language, which finally enables her to embrace a genderless, borderless existence.

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Conclusions In Freshwater, the migrant trope used to define Ada’s physical and cultural dislocation—her journey from Nigeria to the United States—acts as a framework within which the true narrative of the novel develops. The present analysis has shown how the novel’s representations of the border-­ crossing of genders and genres become a space of resistance and identity reaffirmation for the protagonist. Considering marginality as a space of radical possibility, Ada’s recognition and acceptance of her ọgbanje nature are configured as processes by which she unlearns socio-cultural assumptions and deconstructs preconceived structural and cultural boundaries. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated how, if read through the lens of Cheah’s normative theory of literature and its relations to border-crossing intended as an epistemic alternative to hegemonic discourses, the novel’s intersections/interactions of genders and genres activate a world-making narrative of resistance—a narrative that configures Ada’s newly accepted genderless, borderless existence as an alternative way of being. For these reasons, Emezi’s Freshwater can be considered a good example of literary re-worlding that challenges the traditional dichotomies inherent in westernised representations of mental health and gendered social roles. Through a narrative that merges different genders and genres together, Freshwater offers a powerful narrative that provocatively goes beyond the borders of westernised forms of knowledge and world representation.

References Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2021. It is obscene: A true reflection in three parts. Accessed 28 December 2022. https://www.chimamanda.com. Akbar, Arisa. 2018. Akwaeke Emezi: ‘I’d read everything—Even the cereal box’. The Guardian. Accessed 6 May 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/ books/2018/oct/20/akwaeke-­emezi-­interview-­freshwater. Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure, and Frédéric Giraut, eds. 2015. Borderities and the politics of contemporary mobile borders. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Amoko, Apollo. 2009. Autobiography and bildungsroman in African literature. In The Cambridge companion to the African novel, ed. F. Abiola Irele, 195–208. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, Tre’vell. 2021. ‘My job in the revolution is as a storyteller’: Akwaeke Emezi is writing new possibilities into being. TIME. Accessed 28 December 2022. https://time.com/collection/next-­generation-­leaders/6047430/ akwaeke-­emezi-­next-­generation-­leaders/.

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Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company. Austen, Ralph A. 2015. Struggling with the African bildungsroman. Research in African Literatures 46 (3): 214–231. Balibar, Étienne. 2002. What is a border? In Politics and the other scene, ed. E. Balibar, 75–86. London and New York: Verso. Bastian, Misty L. 1997. Married in the water: Spirit kin and other afflictions of modernity in Southeastern Nigeria. Journal of Religion in Africa 27 (2): 116–134. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The location of culture. London and New York: Routledge. Burns, Lorna. 2019. Postcolonialism after world literature: Relation, equality dissent. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Cheah, Pheng. 2016. What is a world?: On postcolonial literature as world literature. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Cobo-Piñero, Rocío. 2022. Queering the Black Atlantic: Transgender spaces in Akwaeke Emezi’s writing and visual art. Cultural Studies 37: 1–18. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1986 (1975). Kafka: Toward a minor literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Emezi, Akwaeke. 2018a. Freshwater. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 2018b. Transition. The cut. Accessed 6 May 2022. https://www.thecut. com/2018/01/writer-­a nd-­a rtist-­a kwaeke-­e mezi-­g ender-­t ransition-­a nd-­ ogbanje.html. ———. 2020. The death of Vivek Oji. London: Faber and Faber. Flood, Alison. 2020. Akwaeke Emezi shuns women’s prize over request for details of sex as defined ‘by law’. The Guardian. Accessed 28 December 2022. https:// www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/05/akwaeke-­emezi-­shuns-­womensprize-request-­for-­details-­of-­sex-­as-­defined-­by-­law. ———. 2021. ‘It is obscene’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pens blistering essay against social media sanctimony. The Guardian. Accessed 28 December 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/16/chimamanda-­ngozi-­adichiesocial-­media-­sanctimony. Heidegger, Martin. 1996 (1927). Being and time. New  York: New  York University Press. Hoagland, Ericka A. 2019. The postcolonial bildungsroman. In A history of the bildungsroman, ed. Sarah Graham, 217–238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. hooks, bell. 1989. Choosing the marginal as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 36: 15–23. Icaza, Rosalba. 2017. Decolonial feminism and global politics: Border thinking and vulnerability as a knowing otherwise. In Critical epistemologies of global politics, ed. Marc Woons and Sebastian Weier, 26–45. Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing.

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Kon-Yu, Natalie. 2016. On sexism in literary prize culture. LitHub. Accessed 28 December 2022. https://lithub.com/on-­sexism-­in-­literary-­prize-­culture/. Lugones, María. 1992. On borderlands/La frontera: An interpretative essay. Hypatia 7 (4): 31–37. Magaqa, Tina, and Rodwell Makombe. 2021. Decolonising queer sexualities: A critical reading of the ogbanje concept in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (2018). African Studies Quarterly 20 (3): 24–39. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as method, or, the multiplication of labour. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Mignolo, Walter D., and Madina V.  Tlostanova. 2012. Learning to unlearn: Decolonial reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press. Okuyade, Gaga. 2011. Weaving memories of childhood: The new Nigerian novel and the genre of the bildungsroman. Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 41 (3–4): 137–166. Ossana, Eugenia. 2021. Precolonial Igbo voices in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (2018): A palimpsestic search for ‘home’. Complutense Journal of English Studies 29: 81–92. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial eyes. London and New York: Routledge. Schellinger, Paul. 1998. Encyclopedia of the novel. 2, M-Z. London and New York: Routledge.

CHAPTER 7

Mobility, Belonging and the Utopia of a Borderless World: A Spatial and Identitarian Reading of Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers Mariaconcetta Costantini

The ‘spatial turn’ and the Recent Debordering/ Rebordering Processes ‘The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space’ wrote Michel Foucault in the 1980s, describing an epoch characterised by ‘simultaneity’, ‘juxtaposition’, ‘the near and far’, ‘the side-by-side’, and ‘the dispersed’ (1986, p. 22). What Foucault referred to was the increasing relevance acquired by spatiality in cultural and literary studies of his time, the so-called ‘spatial turn’ aided by the combined effects of postmodern sensibility, postcolonialism, capitalism, globalisation, and technological advances that collapsed traditional barriers (Tally 2013, p. 3). No longer conceived as a static category, space came to be viewed in more

M. Costantini (*) Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Pescara, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_7

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dynamic and heterogeneous terms, and it was represented accordingly in literary works, which are replete with images of border-crossings and recrossings, spatial transgressions, erasure, and redrawing of limits. Attention to these aspects grew in the 1990s, when the steady progress of globalisation gave the impression of ‘a movement toward a borderless world’ (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013, p. 61). In the subsequent decades, however, these processes have proved to lead ‘not to the diminution of borders but to their proliferation’ (p.  62). As the twenty-first century unfolds, problems of security posed by 9/11 and subsequent terroristic attacks, the global financial crisis of 2008, the risks of new recessions consequent on the COVID-19 pandemic, and the growing fears of mass migration have fuelled many rebordering processes that are coterminous with the debordering effects of global flows and networks. While fewer restrictions have been imposed to the circulation of capital, goods, and services, people’s freedom of movement has been significantly curtailed. Triggered by deep-seated anxieties of invasion, the drive towards enclosure has resulted in the creation of new border regimes that are meant to restrain and manage the mobility of specific categories of people. Immigrants from the global South and especially from Africa have been subjected to ‘draconian measures [implemented by] nation-states to regulate both legal and illegal immigration’ (Tadiar 2008). These measures have not only restricted people’s freedom of mobility across national confines; they have also influenced the social imaginaries of residents in the global North who, driven by fears of immigrants already living in their areas, have developed new practices of marginalisation. Instead of aiming to unbounded mobility and borderlessness, the world has thus witnessed a multiplication of borders that is likely to generate more disparities. As Achille Mbembe explains: contemporary borders are in danger of becoming sites of reinforcement, reproduction and intensification of vulnerability for stigmatised and dishonoured groups, for the most racially marked, the ever more disposable, those that in the era of neoliberal abandonment have been paying the heaviest price for the most expansive period of prison construction in human history. (2018)

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As Mbembe contends, the tightened control of people’s mobility has halted the utopian project of a borderless world.1 In his view, this project should be pursued again and African people should be granted the right to move freely around the planet—a right that should ‘belong to everybody by virtue of each and every individual being a human being’ (2018). Alongside Mbembe, other theorists have investigated these dynamics. According to Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary and Frédéric Giraut, borders have not disappeared: they have just become more diffuse and mobile (2015, pp. 5–6). For this reason, Amilhat Szary claims elsewhere, we need to reframe ‘the theoretical backgrounds of migration and mobilities’ (2015, pp. 20–21). Increased attention has also been paid to the new border struggles generated by the current proliferation and diffusion of borders. Most evident in areas of conflict between migratory flows and reassessed nationalism, these struggles foreground the dual functions of borders which, while ‘serv[ing] first and foremost to exclude’, are also ‘devices of inclusion that select and filter people and different forms of circulation in ways no less violent than those deployed in exclusionary measures’ (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013, p. 7). This situation is well exemplified by the transnational flows of migratory manual labour, such as domestic and care work—a particular commodity that is inseparable from the human body and ‘must continuously be reaffirmed and retraced’ (p.  19). The labour-selective porosity of many national confines in the global North, which allow only the crossing of specific categories of immigrants, is counterbalanced by the limits of inclusionary measures that deprive those very labourers of many rights, forcing them to live in the margins of their host societies. All these spatial issues are raised in literary works published in the last few years, which fictionalise the multiplication and transformation of borders in our age. A novel that deserves consideration, in this regard, is Behold the Dreamers (2016) by Cameroonian-American writer Imbolo Mbue. Set both in the US and in Cameroon, this novel offers problematic images of the manifold barriers that still regulate, divide, and classify people today, suggesting that, despite the global flows of money, goods, and 1  Mbembe explains that the idea of a ‘borderless world’ aims at ‘precipitating the advent of [a] fourth freedom’, the ‘freedom of movement of persons’, which should complement the other ‘three core freedoms’ of movement (of capital, goods, and services) favoured by globalisation. In his view, the fourth freedom is so far ‘restricted to the core economically rich countries or states’ but it should ‘no longer be limited to Europeans and Americans’ (Mbembe 2018).

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services triggered by late capitalism and technological advances, we have failed to create an inclusive world. Besides revealing the constraints to which immigrants are subjected in trying to relocate abroad, Mbue represents a plethora of visible and invisible social divides that oppress people within their communities, shaping their roles and interactions, but also increasing their political awareness and triggering their rebellion. The complex functionality of boundaries in the novel is substantiated by the choice of New York City as the main setting. Situated at ‘the centre of the world’, ‘turbulent’, ‘vital’, and multiethnic (Baudrillard 2010, pp.  14, 18), this metropolis should embody the utopia of a borderless microcosm but is, instead, marked by tensions produced by intersecting divides (ethnic, social, and economic) that force characters to constantly renegotiate their positions. This chapter explores the novel’s spatial structures and relations, focussing on the variety of borders represented by Mbue and the role they come to play in defining the characters’ identities. My first objects of analysis are the hardships faced by immigrants from the global South who wish to relocate in the US. Set at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis, Behold the Dreamers shows how immigrants’ dreams are shattered by a multiplication of political and racial barriers that recession contributes to accelerating. Furthermore, the novel intimates that such barriers mostly halt people moving from the periphery to the centre. The opposite is true for characters travelling from the centre to the periphery, as well as for the global reverberations of a financial crisis that originated in the US but affected the whole world, having a devastating impact on developing countries. A second spatial dynamic examined in this chapter is the marginalisation of non-white residents in the global North, which confuses their sense of belonging. Mbue’s skill in sketching the invisible boundaries that divide New Yorkers along racial lines is reinforced by her delineation of metropolitan niches or borderlands, in which people of different ethnicities meet and create temporary affective bonds. Situated along the city’s divides, these niches confirm the dynamic character of borders which, as suggested by Mezzadra and Neilson, constantly shift, become sites of struggles ‘between inclusion and exclusion’ that invest ‘the field of political subjectivity’ and, from a wider perspective, appear as ‘more promising—and more politically urgent—than the simple denunciation of the capacity of borders to exclude or the wish for a world “without borders”’ (2013, pp. 13–14).

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Another aspect under scrutiny is the author’s acumen in representing women’s problematic relations with space and, especially, their endeavours to overcome confines that hinder their movements and growth. My contention is that, in characterising the Cameroonian female protagonist, Mbue draws upon feminist theorisations of ‘intersectionality’ or ‘interlocking webs of oppression’ (i.e., racism, classism, imperialism) which frustrate many women’s aspirations but also enable some individuals to understand their core identity (Biana 2020, p. 13). The chapter ends with a short metaliterary reflection on the novel’s genre and genealogy. Defined in a variety of ways by scholars, Behold the Dreamers undoubtedly shares some features with such literary categories as African/Cameroonian, migrant, Afropolitan, and American post-9/11 literatures. In my view, however, these readings limit the work’s full potentiality. My proposal is to interpret Mbue’s novel primarily as an example of ‘postcolonial world literature’, which strives to open up an ‘ethicopolitical horizon’ for the existing world (Cheah 2016, p. 5). Through an effective use of irony, Mbue creates a capacious text of world literature that unveils the current proliferation of oppressive boundaries, encouraging readers to envisage alternative ways of being together.

Living in the Margins: Border Policies and the Global Immigration Crisis A provocative debut novel that brought its author international renown, Behold the Dreamers tells the story of two families, the Jongas and the Edwardses, whose fates intertwine in New York at the time of the 2008 financial crisis. Jende and Neni Jonga are a young Cameroonian couple distressed by poverty, who move to the US in pursuit of a better life. After earning meagre wages, Jende improves his economic position by becoming the chauffeur of Clark Edwards, a Lehman Brothers executive. Loyal and hard-working, Jende wins the trust of his employer and gets to know some of his secret troubles. Like her husband, Neni attempts to succeed in her host country. She studies hard to become a pharmacist, while taking care of her family and accepting underpaid jobs to make ends meet. Her vitality, nourished by her firm belief in the American Dream, contrasts with the dysfunctional attitudes of Clark’s wife, Cindy, who falls into a depressive state, developing an addiction for drugs and alcohol. Both members of the white upper classes, Cindy and Clark seem unable to enjoy

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their privileged position and feel increasingly estranged with each other. Their conjugal tensions, combined with the rebellion of their elder son, Vince, bring their family on the verge of destruction, disproving the supposed correlation between wealth and happiness. In ways similar to their husbands, Cindy and Neni establish a short-­ term professional relationship. Employed as housekeeper at the Edwardses’ house in the Hamptons, Neni discovers Cindy’s addictions and blackmails her after Jende loses his job. Shortly afterwards, Cindy dies accidentally in her home with ‘[h]igh levels of opiate and alcohol […] in her body’ (Mbue 2016, p. 287). Her death prevents the final dissolution of her family, as Clark reconsiders his values and recreates affective bonds with their sons. Unlike Clark and Cindy, whose marital crisis is accelerated by the financial crisis, the Jongas manage to keep their family together and overcome the conjugal tensions created by their increasing precariousness. The thinning of their resources and their undocumented immigrant status finally convince Jende to return to Cameroon, accompanied by a reluctant Neni who takes longer than him to give up her American Dream. From a historical perspective, Behold the Dreamers represents recent changes in American views of immigration and, more generally, in attitudes to immigrants developed in the global North, especially at times of crisis. Set at the time of Barack Obama’s election in 2008 but published in 2016, the novel not only dramatises the failure of ‘Obama’s presidential pledge to resuscitate the American dream on the wake of the global financial crash’ (Masterson 2020, p. 18); it also offers early glimpses into anti-­ immigrant views later adopted by Donald Trump in his first presidential campaign. As Elizabeth Toohey observes, the fact that the novel ‘was conceived of during Obama’s presidency prior to the glaring eruption of Trump’s white nationalism shows [its author’s] insight into the country’s fraught political and racial dynamics’ (2020, p. 386). This frustrating situation is well rendered by the difficulties Jende meets in getting a green card, the lies he tells to be entitled to refugee status, the rejection of his asylum application, and the consequent threat of expulsion that forces him to ‘stand in front of an Immigration judge’ (Mbue 2016, pp. 7, 56, 58). Treated as a criminal, he fails to be integrated into a yearned-for system that puts many obstacles in his way and finally expels him. From a geopolitical perspective, Jende’s disillusionment with the American Dream comes to symbolise the new restrictions imposed upon immigrants in the global North, which are starkly at odds with the utopia of a borderless world. Whereas products and information have continued to circulate

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globally, increasing numbers of people have been denied the right to move freely around the planet and, especially, to cross the borders of idealised lands of opportunities, such as the US and European nations. The width of this phenomenon is evoked, in the novel, by Jende’s comparison of his condition of US immigrant with the risky travels made by Africans in his age group, who are determined to ‘cross to Italy on leaky boats and arrive there with dreams of a happier life if the Mediterranean didn’t swallow them alive’ (p. 324). The troping of the sea as a monstrous creature ready to swallow Africans alive is a hint at the multiplication of bordering processes that govern people’s relations in times of rising xenophobia. Despite its liquid nature, the devouring sea becomes yet another barrier to the arrival of immigrants, some of whom drown owing to the laxity of European institutions and rescue systems. While tracing parallels between anti-migratory attitudes in Europe and the US, the novel contrasts immigrants with other figures allowed to move freely around the world. Unlike Africans, US citizens like Vince Edwards have no problems to settle in the global South without giving up their privileges. A young man who becomes aware of the oppressive mechanisms of his own society, Vince starts to rebel against his family whom he accuses of pursuing illusory myths by ‘going down a path of achievements and accomplishments and material success’ (p. 103). He also complains about the political control that the US exerts on other countries by using all sorts of means, including violence (p. 103). Another target of his critique is the process of indoctrination through which the system feeds people ‘with lies’ (p. 103), a process that, in his view, comes to influence the whole planet. The relevance of these convictions is confirmed by Vince’s growth in the last part of the novel. Initially described as a hipster at war with his community, who refuses to study law and moves to India, he becomes an affective point of reference for his father and brother after Cindy’s death. His uncompromising resolution in pursuing his ideals makes him the most consistent character of Behold the Dreamers. Yet, his figure is not immune from the sharp irony that Mbue uses to disclose some contradictions of her characters’ world. In Vince’s case, this irony emerges if we compare his mobility with Jende’s positioning in the margins of American society. Like other people with American (or European) passports, the young Edwards is free to travel to other continents. His ease in relocating elsewhere clashes with Jende’s inability to become a legal resident in the US. After first crossing the US border, the Cameroonian man is confronted by ever-new

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barriers that halt his process of integration, caging him within a limbo of uncertainty and unbelonging. The opposing trajectories followed by Vince and Jende can be fruitfully interpreted in view of Amilhat Szary and Giraut’s theorisation of ‘borderity’, which exposes the many disparities existing in people’s mobility. The two scholars distinguish the movements of the so-called ‘new global nomad[s]’ from those of ‘refugees or “global pariahs”’. While the former—‘embodied by any transnational global leader from the financial, political, or cultural worlds’—are ‘at home everywhere insofar as they move between standardized spaces and along circuits that are dedicated to them’, the latter ‘appear to be subjected to a permanent regime of restricted rights, or non-rights, wherever they are’ and ‘they take the border with them wherever they travel in that they are always subject to the risk of interception, retention or expulsion’ (Amilhat Szary and Giraut 2015, pp. 11–12, my emphases). As the son of a financial manager, Vince belongs by birth to the category of ‘new global nomads’ who have money and documents to travel wherever they desire. The opposite is true of Jende who, after arriving in his host country and applying for asylum, lives there as a stranger, an ‘undecidable’ who occupies a ‘neither/nor’ marginal position (Bauman 1991, p. 56).2 Despite his strong work ethic—a basic component of the American Dream—the Cameroonian man is not rewarded with the integration he aspires to and believes to deserve. Though presented as being available to all, this myth proves to be unrealisable by a ‘global pariah’ like Jende, who ‘takes the border’ within himself, experiences many limitations and is forced to live in a marginalised condition troped in terms of greyness by his lawyer: ‘“My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area”’ (Mbue 2016, p. 74). While revealing the illusoriness of the American Dream, the novel also shows its pervasiveness in non-American cultures, including Cameroonian culture. Reproached by Vince for his credulity—‘“I […] continue trying to unindoctrinate you on all the lies you’ve been fed about America”’ (p.  103)—Jende gradually acquires awareness of the webs of falsehood woven around this myth, which is circulated globally by media. The final part of the novel is replete with sarcastic hints at the myth’s influence on 2  ‘Undecidables are all neither/nor; […]. Undecidables brutally expose the artifice, the fragility, the sham of the most vital separations. They bring the outside into the inside, and poison the comfort of order with suspicion of chaos. This is exactly what the strangers do’ (Bauman 1991, p. 56).

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young Africans, who are eager to cross the Atlantic and settle in what they perceive as a land of wealth and happiness. Ironically anticipated by the novel’s epigraph from Deuteronomy 8:7–9, the worldwide promotion of the US as a ‘good land’ where people ‘will lack nothing’ is confirmed by Neni’s memories of the American TV series and films she had watched as a young woman, becoming obsessed with a nation ‘where blacks had the same chance at prosperity as whites’ (p. 312). Her mythising of the US had been reinforced by the delusory photos sent back by Cameroonian-­ American immigrants, ‘pictures of a life like the ones in those movies’ (p. 312). Lured by the American Dream diffused by media and immigrants’ fictions, Neni falls utterly in love with New York when she travels there with her son Liomi and reunites with Jende. ‘A year and a half later now and New York was her home’ (p. 13), we read in an early passage marked by what Gaston Bachelard would call topophilia. Neni’s happiness at having moved to her dream-city is in fact increased by her joy at creating an intimate space of love there, a family ‘nest’ depicted through ‘quite simple images of felicitous space’ (Bachelard 1994, pp. xxxv, xxxviii). Her fondness for New  York is contrasted with her growing disaffection for her Cameroonian birthplace, Limbe, remembered as ‘a faraway town’, ‘no longer her beloved hometown but a desolate place she couldn’t wait to get out of’ (Mbue 2016, p. 13). The implications of this spatial binary are, however, called into question in the last part of the novel, when Jende informs Neni of his decision to ‘go back home’: ‘Home where? What do you mean by “go back home”?’ He took a deep breath and was silent for several seconds. ‘Home to Limbe’, he said to his wife. ‘I want to go back to Limbe’. (p. 305)

Shocked at hearing Jende call Limbe ‘home’, Neni makes a few desperate attempts to stay in the metropolis she now perceives as her home. After considering getting a divorce and marrying a resident, she thinks of giving her son Liomi for adoption so that she could at least secure legal residence to her offspring. Both options would entail a dissolution of their family and both are in jarring contrast with her earlier inclination to conceive home as a place of reunion with Jende. In pondering these paradoxical solutions, Neni not only lays emphasis on specific problems she faces as a woman; she also calls attention to two

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issues confronting immigrants in their relations to space, independently from their gender identity. A first issue is the complexity of the idea of home for diasporic subjects who, both in slavery and in voluntary migrations, are distressingly divided between their lost homeland and the new spaces in which they strive to renegotiate their sense of belonging. The widening gap between Neni’s and Jende’s views evokes various theorisations of denied/desired homes in the postcolonial diaspora—from Edward Said’s claim that ‘homes’ are ‘always provisional for exiles’ (2000, p. 185) to Homi Bhabha’s conceptualisation of the ‘unhomeliness’ consequent on ‘enforced social accommodation, or historical migrations and cultural relocations’ (1992, p. 141) to Stuart Hall’s observation that ‘[m]igration is a one way trip. There is no “home” to go back to’ (1988, p.  44). A second issue raised by Neni’s frustrated aspiration to find a home in New  York is the harm caused by the global diffusion of myths like the American Dream, which penetrate the borders of developing nations, generating unattainable desires of belonging. The circulation of unreachable ideals is exposed in mocking terms in the final chapters of Behold the Dreamers which describe the Jongas’ travel preparations and return to Cameroon. As astutely observed by scholars, Jende and Neni bring the American Dream back with them, thereby contributing to its pernicious diffusion. For example, in reflecting on how this myth ‘becomes ingrained in people outside the United States’, Maryse Jayasuriya observes that the Jongas’ indoctrination favoured by the ‘global dominance of American popular culture’ is confirmed in the novel’s conclusion, in which their American Dream ‘is recalibrated and becomes a Cameroonian Dream’ (2018, pp. 197, 202, 217). A similar interpretation is offered by Julian Wacker, who comments on the Jongas’ readiness ‘to plant the American Dream into the town’s soil upon their return’, reading it as a symptom of their internationalisation of a belief system that ‘entraps people in an impenetrable, ever-repeating neoliberal nightmare narrative’ (2022, pp. 242–243). These scholarly views are substantiated by the couple’s materialistic preoccupations in organising their relocation in Cameroon. Jende plans ‘to start a business’ there, calculating the value of his American savings, which will make him ‘one of the richest men in New Town’ (Mbue 2016, p. 352). Neni devotes instead her last days in the US to compulsive shopping, ‘buying things not easily found back in Limbe’ which will help them ‘preserve their American aura’ (p. 348). What these quotations prove is the Jongas’ conversion to a neoliberal myth founded on material success and appearances, which they help to transplant into

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Cameroonian society. This spatial reading adds a grotesque element to the novel’s bittersweet conclusion. Seemingly destined to enjoy a comfortable life in their land of origin after failing as US immigrants, Jende and Neni continue to be fed by illusory ideals that they take back to Africa, circulating patterns of behaviour and consumption that are likely to generate frustration among others. With similar irony, the novel suggests that Vince becomes an unwilling accomplice of the global system of indoctrination he is determined to fight. His plan to open ‘a retreat center for American execs’ in India ‘so that they can attain peace and quiet between running round pursuing opportunities’ (p. 369) implies the creation of an exotic place offering fashionable New Age comforts to wealthy American businesspeople, whose relations with India are still based on geopolitical and economic inequalities. The different trajectories analysed above demonstrate that Behold the Dreamers calls into question the utopianism of globalisation, suggesting that the relatively free circulation of material things and services is not complemented by people’s equal opportunities of movement. This prospect is made more distressful by the diffusion of illusory myths like the American Dream, which penetrate borders freely, reaching the global South. Fed by these myths, ‘global pariahs’ aim to reach their dream countries, but they are often halted by repulsive mechanisms or forced to live in the margins of their host societies.

Social Divides, Metropolitan Niches, and Intersectional Discrimination In New York, the Jongas come to terms with the ethnocultural barriers that separate Americans. ‘All their relationships and social activities rotated within the African community’, writes Mary Linda Vivian Onuoha (2019, p. 65), suggesting that the Jonga family’s settlement in Harlem and their association with people of African origins are consistent with the spatial and identitarian subdivisions of New Yorkers along racial lines. These subdivisions are described by Neni when she first notices people ‘sticking to their own kind’ even in ‘a place of many nations and cultures’: a white man holding hands with a white woman; a black teenager giggling with other black (or Latino) teenagers; a white mother pushing a stroller alongside another white woman; a black woman chatting with a black woman. (Mbue 2016, p. 95)

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By suggesting that New York is underpinned by a multitude of racial and cultural barriers dating back to the time of slavery, Mbue ironises those celebrations of the metropolis (and America at large) as a space of multiethnic intersections and understanding, thereby ‘unmasking the “post-­ racial” society as a myth of the Obama era’ (Toohey 2020, p. 387). The novel’s debunking of this myth is confirmed if we compare the quotation above with an early passage in which Jende, waiting for his job interview at Lehman Brothers, notices the following Wall Street Journal headline: ‘BARACK OBAMA AND THE DREAM OF A COLOR-BLIND AMERICA’ (Mbue 2016, p. 5). Initially enthused over Obama’s promise of favouring meritocracy, Jende is later disillusioned by his American experiences that disprove the existence of a ‘color-blind’ society ready to valorise immigrants’ endowments.3 The novel’s representation of these racialising barriers is undoubtedly imbued with pessimism. Yet, Mbue also depicts two symbolic spaces that I propose to call metropolitan niches or borderlands: the car driven through New York by Jende as Clark’s chauffeur and the Jongas’ Harlem flat. In both niches, situated along the city’s social divides, members of the Jonga and the Edwards families meet and create temporary affective bonds which, though limited in time and space, reconfigure boundaries in terms of permeability and utopian potentiality. My reading of the car symbolism relies on Robert Tally’s interpretations of urban-street practices. In elaborating the figure of the flâneur, Tally highlights the contrast between ‘the perspective of the street-walker’ and ‘that of a “voyeur” who looks down upon the entire city from a lofty vantage’, adding that spatial practices associated with the street ‘resist the totalizing gaze from above […] actively disrupt[ing] and reorganiz[ing] the spatial relations of power’ (2013, pp.  128–130). These ideas can be usefully applied to Behold the Dreamers to interpret some changes in the characters’ relations produced by their car journeys across the metropolis. Despite some obvious differences (such as speed and enclosure), movements by car resemble pedestrians’ movements across urban space, as both kinds of movements elude the controlling gaze from above, challenging existing relations of power.4  On the novel’s interrogation of Obama’s writings and speeches, see Masterson (2020).  A city like New York has surveillance cameras positioned in the streets, which embody the power of institutions. Yet, we should consider that people’s interpersonal relations are not generally restricted by these apparatuses, which are used to track pedestrians and cars only in specific cases (i.e., crimes, national security). 3 4

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A main effect produced by car journeys in the novel is the narrowing of social and ethnocultural gaps between Jende and Clark. The two men first meet in Clark’s executive office on the ‘twenty-eighth floor’ (Mbue 2016, p. 4), a lofty place embodying the power of the Wall Street lobbies, whose financial policies impact on the lives of citizens, especially of illegal immigrants. When Jende starts to work as chauffeur, however, the car becomes a space of positive encounter for the two men. Besides showing curiosity about Jende’s life (pp. 37–40), Clark confides to him some of his personal troubles. Their friendly relationship reaches its peak when Jende becomes privy to the manager’s meetings with a prostitute: ‘there were two men bound by this secret, by their dependence on each other to move forward every day and carry each other to the achievement of daily and lifelong goals, by the relationship they had forged after almost a year of cruising on highways and sitting in rush-hour traffic’ (p.  187, my emphases). The italicised words suggest that what Clark and Jende temporarily forge in the car is a relationship of mutual respect.5 This respect resurges in their final meeting. After talking about their imminent relocations (Jende is returning to Limbe, Clark is moving to Virginia with his son Mighty), they shake hands and ‘part as friends’ (p.  371) confirming the connecting effects produced by their car journeys, which evoke ideas of mobility and permeability. The two men cross borders with their horizontal movements, laying the premises for cordial relations that enable them to temporarily overcome their distant positioning in the city’s vertical power structures. A similar impression is conveyed by the affective relations Jende establishes with the Edwards boys, whom he often drives around the city. In addition to winning Vince’s confidence, he develops a strong affection for young Mighty who is distressed by his parents’ disagreements. On one occasion, Jende stops the car to embrace and console the afflicted child, even though he fears that his gesture might be misinterpreted by passers­by: ‘someone might see him and call the police—a black man with a white boy against his chest, inside a luxury car, on the side of a street on the Upper East Side’ (p. 221). A reminder of the racial prejudices dominant in New York, the quotation implies that the car disrupts spatial relations of 5  Unlike Cindy, Clark and his sons establish affective relations with Jende. These relations cannot change the reality of their power imbalance in American society, as confirmed by the fact that the chauffeur loses his job also because he is privy to his employer’s secret. On a symbolic plane, however, the temporary bonds of trust Jende establishes with the male Edwardses fulfil an important function, as they challenge the rigidity of social hierarchies revealing the existence of marginal spaces of interethnic and cross-class encounter.

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power as long as it keeps moving; if stopped in Manhattan, however, it is immediately reinscribed in the city’s static hierarchies of class and race. The bonds of affection that Jende creates with the young Edwardses are reinforced in his family flat in Harlem. Invited for dinner by the Jongas, Vince and Mighty enjoy the welcoming atmosphere of the chauffeur’s home and the delicious Cameroonian meal cooked by Neni. As Sarah Wyman observes, on this occasion food plays a crucial role in the bonding of members of the two families, enabling the Jongas to ‘become surrogate parental figures’ to the two boys (2021, p. 85). By underlining the contrast between the ‘obvious signs of poverty in the apartment’ (Mbue 2016, p. 163) and its interpersonal warmth, moreover, the novel strengthens the positive connotations of this second niche, in which the Edwards brothers learn to overcome both racial and class prejudices. Class is indeed a main target of Mbue’s biting irony. Besides revealing the difficulties that racialised subjects face in pursuing upward mobility, the novel suggests that class boundaries haunt the peace of mind of many people, independently from their ethnocultural identification. A case in point is the tragic story of Cindy who, despite her privileged status as an upper-class, white woman, is distressed by memories of her low-class and disconcerting origins. Born in a ‘very, very poor family’ (p. 123), Cindy is also humiliated by having been ‘conceived in violence’, hated by a mother who unleashed her anger on the fruit of her rape: ‘“it was her right. To beat me, and curse me, and call me fat”’ (pp.  135–136). The shameful circumstances of her conception and her growth in a dysfunctional family affect her relational attitudes, preventing her development into a balanced, self-assured woman. Inclined to depression, Cindy craves love and the ‘approval of others’ (p. 116). Her happiness depends on the attentions she receives from her husband and sons, and vanishes whenever they fail to meet her expectations. Similarly, she is obsessed with social recognition and upset by trifles like a missed invitation (p. 115). Her uneasiness fuels her eating disorders. Influenced by what Jean Baudrillard calls the US obsession with ‘physical beauty’ and ‘anorexic culture’ (2010, pp. 32, 40), and professionally exposed to food anxieties as a nutritionist for models and movie stars, Cindy develops disorderly eating habits, loses weight, and becomes addicted to substances that finally kill her. Cindy’s vulnerability to poverty, male violence (as the fruit of her mother’s rape), and affective gratification (her disabling dependence on her husband’s and sons’ attentions) exposes the intersection of class and gender oppressions suffered by many American women, even among the

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white population. Yet, the novel also intimates that some of her problems are self-induced, as she makes no efforts to escape stereotypes of female frailty. Too concentrated on her own obsessions, Cindy also betrays indifference to the plights of dispossessed immigrant women, as evidenced by a patronising reply she makes to Neni: ‘“Being poor for you in Africa is fine. Most of you are poor over there’” (Mbue 2016, p. 123). By manifesting apathy towards the struggles of her employee, Cindy evokes the self-centred attitude of some mainstream feminists, who have been attacked by intersectional feminists for their disinterest in the multiple oppressions suffered by racialised women. More thought-provoking is instead the characterisation of Neni, which invites us to reflect on the challenges of intersectionality. A low-class immigrant African woman who pursues a dream of upward mobility, Neni makes a multidimensional experience of race, nationality, gender, and class discrimination in the US, coming to represent many individuals subjected to interlocking webs of oppression. Despite her strong will, diligence, and talents, she is repeatedly humiliated in her host society which erects ever-­ new barriers to impede her self-realisation. Forced to work both inside and outside her household, Neni makes sacrifices to play the roles of wife, mother, and wage earner successfully. Before temporarily working for Cindy, she is employed as carer of ‘incapacitated senior citizens’, fulfilling the ‘oft-gloomy task of feeding and bathing’ elderly patients (p. 109). Her efforts to contribute to the family’s income are coupled with her studying hard in the evening hours after fulfilling her household chores: ‘Midnight and she still hadn’t started’ (p. 52). Determined to become a pharmacist, Neni faces hardships without complaining and gains increasing confidence in her skills: ‘Life in America had made her into someone who was always thinking and planning the next step’ (p. 54). Although she lets her husband have the final word on many occasions, she becomes an  assertive person who strives to overcome gender limits. Mobility, education, and the prospect of a career are the instruments of Neni’s yearned-for American emancipation, which she favourably contrasts to the bleak memories of her youth in Cameroon: ‘For years she had stayed in her father’s house doing nothing but housework’, unable to resume school after her pregnancy ‘because her father didn’t think it was worthwhile paying for an almost-twenty-year-old to attend secondary school’ (p.  311). Subjected to an African patriarch, segregated in the domestic space, and deprived of an education, Neni had also been financially dependent on her parents who had long objected to her union with

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Jende. After consenting to her marriage, moreover, her father had negotiated her ‘bride price’ (p. 43) with her suitor in conformity with local customs, thereby confirming the tendency of African societies to commodify women as ‘fetish-objects’ exchanged between men to strengthen homosocial bonds (Irigaray 1985, p. 183). For all these reasons, Neni is thrilled at the prospect of moving to the US—a country that offers women an autonomy unthinkable in Cameroon. As the narrative unfolds, however, she becomes disillusioned with her immigrant life. First assailed by a sense of helplessness when she learns of Jende’s problems with documents, she is later confronted with other challenges posed by a system that offers limited opportunities to immigrant women. A telling example is her frustrating meeting with Dean Flipkens, whom she asks to support her application for a scholarship she needs to stay in the US. Besides refusing to help her, the white administrator advises her to opt for an ‘achievable’ job in ‘the healthcare field’ (Mbue 2016, p. 297)—an option Neni decidedly rejects. The humiliating implications of this advice are caught by Naomi Nkealah, who examines Mbue’s provocative representation of ‘the ways in which African immigrant women in the US are compelled […] to take on nursing jobs in the absence of alternatives’ (2020, p. 198). What Neni incarnates, in the dean’s eyes, is indeed ‘the feminization of labor and migration’ promoted by ‘global care chains’ in which women bear a specific labour power inscribed into their bodies by gender and ethnicity—a power that, in Mbue’s novel, is opposed to ‘the financialization of capitalism’ epitomised by Clark (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013, pp. 96, 105). By rejecting the dean’s suggestion, Neni performs an act of rebellion against a global system that compels immigrant women to supply care labour within transnational flows of demand and supply. In the same way as she had fled Africa to stop being a ‘fetish-object’, she refuses to be commodified as an immigrant female labourer and, instead, fights to pursue her dream career. In the novel’s conclusion, however, Neni is forced to give up her struggle and to follow her husband back to Cameroon, losing part of her newly achieved autonomy. This loss is prefigured by her compulsive purchase of clothes and beauty products through which she hopes to secure Jende’s favours against ‘loose young women there’ who ‘would be eager to pounce on him’ (Mbue 2016, p. 349). Neni’s fear of sexual competition substantiates the idea that she is going to depend on her husband’s income in the future, entrapped again in a patriarchal system she had hoped to escape. ‘This is where patriarchy again, this time black

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patriarchy, connives with a harsh immigration system to subject women to a precarious life’ observes Nkealah (2020, p. 206), who reads the Jongas’ relocation in Cameroon as a symbol of interlocking webs of oppression harming immigrant women both in the global North and South. In my view, however, the emancipatory effects of Neni’s American experiences are not all undermined in the conclusion. Nothing in the narration indicates that, after her return, she is going to relinquish the self-­ reliance she developed by working and studying hard in New  York. Similarly, the pride she takes in planning their future on the money extorted from Cindy suggests that she preserves the ‘courage’ showed in blackmailing her former employer—a bold act she performed against her husband’s will, as a compensation for her family’s deprivations and humiliation (Mbue 2016, p.  269). Represented as mere potentialities, these traces of autonomy imply that Neni has both suffered and learned from her intersectional experiences, discovering, as bell hooks claims, that the margins are ‘both sites of repression and sites of resistance’ (1989, p. 21).

A Brief Reflection on Genres and Literary Categories A novel marked by a pungent irony anticipated by its very title, Behold the Dreamers represents the many processes of rebordering activated in the present world, which impose growing restrictions to people’s freedom. In depicting these processes, the author combines crude realism with a utopian impulse, as she offers glimpses of alternative spaces of encounter and self-development. Complex in style, Mbue’s novel is also experimental in its structure and focalisation. The plot unfolds through Jende’s and Neni’s consciousness as in confessional or autobiographical writing, but the protagonists’ inner conflicts, memories, and desires are expressed in the third person, mixed with passages of direct speech and traditional narration. This heterogeneous form challenges the novel’s classification, which is further complicated by its rich symbolism and provocative themes. Scholars have defined Behold the Dreamers in different ways. Generally inscribed in the African novel tradition or classified as a text of ‘migrant’ literature (Toohey 2020, p. 399), it has also been viewed as an ‘anti-bush falling’ novel, a specific subgenre of Anglophone Cameroonian literature dealing with the hardships and illusions of clandestine migration (Nsah 2021). Some readings emphasise the novel’s similarities with the post-9/11

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fictional genre, especially with the second wave of this ‘new and burgeoning genre, which in many ways is very American but also transnational’ (Toohey 2020, p.  387). Another term used in relation to Behold the Dreamers is Afropolitanism. Initially conceived ‘to describe the social imaginary of a generation born outside the continent but still [culturally] connected to it’ (Gikandi 2011, p. 9), Afropolitanism has been recently criticised for its association with the global circulation and commodification of African styles and products, including literature. In light of these controversies, I agree with Wacker’s objection to interpreting Behold the Dreamers ‘against the backdrop of what has commonly been referred to as “Afropolitanism”’, because the novel ‘offers a reading that complicates and critiques the larger frameworks’ (2022, pp. 234–235). How should we then classify Mbue’s debut novel? My contention is that, exactly because it represents a variety of contemporary boundaries (of nation, class, race, and gender) that are challenged, penetrated, erased, or redrawn, this novel invites us also to rethink some critical categories used to differentiate literary works and group them together. Such a hypothesis is substantiated by the novel’s capaciousness. While sharing features with most of the literary subgenres listed above, Behold the Dreamers displays a heterogeneity that cannot be encompassed by any of these subgenres alone. In my view, the novel’s full potential comes to the fore if read in relation to the wider category of ‘world literature’, a ‘[l]iterature of the postcolonial South’ generated by the encounter between cosmopolitanism and postcoloniality (Cheah 2016, p.  11). In Cheah’s theorisation, this kind of literature ‘worlds and makes the world because the sharp inequalities created by capitalist globalization and their devastating consequences for the masses of postcolonial societies make the opening of other worlds a matter of the greatest imperativity’ (p.  11). Such ideas of ‘opening’ and ‘worlding’ suit Behold the Dreamers. A first thing to consider is that, alongside other social divides, Mbue’s novel focuses primarily on the plights of people from the global South who, either in the diaspora or in their native homelands, are confronted by ever-new obstacles and forced to renegotiate their identity across boundaries. In representing these borders, moreover, the novel not only shows their oppressive effects, but also sketches alternative spaces of encounter and freedom. Though difficult to create and preserve, these spaces suggest the permeability of borders, opening up an ‘ethicopolitical horizon’ that encourages the pursuit of new forms of human interaction.

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In addition to challenging generic boundaries with its heterogeneity, Behold the Dreamers offers thought-provoking images of the impact that socioeconomic and political divides have on people’s lives in the twenty-­ first century. Immigrants from the global South, in particular, are shown to be harmed by a variety of rebordering practices which prevent their integration into yearned-for countries of the global North. Even worse are the effects of intersectional discrimination described in the novel, as evidenced by the barriers standing in the way of  the Cameroonian female protagonist. As demonstrated above, however, Mbue not only depicts oppressive spatial dynamics; she also offers glimpses of alternative spaces of encounter, of margins turned into symbolic sites of resistance in which more fluid identities and interpersonal relations can be envisioned and developed.

References Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure. 2015. Boundaries and borders. In Handbook of political geography, ed. John Agnew, Anna Secor, Joane Sharpe, and Virginie Mamadouh, 13–25. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure, and Frédéric Giraut. 2015. Borderities: The politics of contemporary mobile borders. In Borderities and the politics of contemporary mobile borders, ed. Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary and Frédéric Giraut, 1–19. Basingstoke and London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bachelard, Gaston. 1994 (1958). The poetics of space. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1991. Modernity and ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Baudrillard, Jean. 2010 (1986). America. London and New York: Verso. Bhabha, Homi K. 1992. The world and the home. Social Text 31–32: 141–153. Biana, Hazel Tionloc. 2020. Extending bell hooks’ feminist theory. Journal of International Women’s Studies 21 (1): 13–29. Cheah, Pheng. 2016. What is a world?: On postcolonial literature as world literature. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1986 (1984). Of other spaces. Trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16: 22–27. Gikandi, Simon. 2011. Foreword: On Afropolitanism. In Negotiating Afropolitanism: Essays on borders and spaces in contemporary African literature and folklore, ed. Jennifer Wawrzinek and J.S.K.  Makokha, 9–11. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Hall, Stuart. 1988. Minimal selves. In Identity: The real me, ed. Lisa Appignanesi, 44–46. London: ICA.

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hooks, bell. 1989. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 36: 15–23. Irigaray, Luce. 1985 (1977). This sex which is not one. Trans. Catherine Porter and Carolyn Burke. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Jayasuriya, Maryse. 2018. Aspiration and disillusionment: Undocumented experiences in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers. In Critical insights: The immigrant experience, ed. Maryse Jayasuriya, 196–208. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press. Masterson, John. 2020. Bye-bye Barack: Dislocating Afropolitanism, spectral Marxism, and dialectical disillusionment in two Obama-era novels. African Identities 18 (1–2): 1–23. Mbembe, Achille. 2018. The idea of a borderless world. Accessed 16 October 2022. https://africasacountry.com/2018/11/the-­idea-­of-­a-­borderless-world. Mbue, Imbolo. 2016. Behold the dreamers: A novel. London: HarperCollins. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Nkealah, Naomi. 2020. Challenging precarious work in Anglophone Cameroonian women’s literature: A feminist analysis of Anne Tanyi-Tang’s Visiting America and Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers. Current Writing 32 (3): 198–207. Nsah, Kenneth Toah. 2021. The return of bush fallers: Anglophone Cameroon fiction responds to clandestine emigration. Postcolonial Text 16 (1): 1–24. Onuoha, Mary Linda Vivian. 2019. Acculturation and African identity in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers. Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development 2 (6): 57–68. Said, Edward W. 2000. Reflections on exile. In Reflections on exile and other essays, 173–186. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tadiar, Neferti. 2008. Introduction: Borders on belonging. The Scholar and Feminist Online 6 (3). Special issue ‘Borders on belonging: Gender and immigration’. https://sfonline.barnard.edu/immigration/tadiar_01.htm. Tally, Robert T., Jr. 2013. Spatiality. London and New York: Routledge. Toohey, Elizabeth. 2020. 9/11 and the collapse of the American dream: Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers. Studies in the Novel 52 (4): 385–402. Wacker, Julian. 2022. ‘Bringing the wisdom of Wall Street to Limbe’: Precarity and (American) dream narratives in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers. In Representing poverty and precarity in a postcolonial world, ed. Barbara Schmidt-­ Haberkamp, Marion Gymnich, and Klaus P. Schneider, 234–245. Leiden: Brill. Wyman, Sarah. 2021. Feeding on truth; living with lies: The role of food in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the dreamers. ANQ 34 (1): 82–86.

CHAPTER 8

‘Violent conclusion[s]’ versus ‘hopeful return[s]’: Zadie Smith’s The Embassy of Cambodia and the Performative Border-­Crossing of the Narrative Voice Mara Mattoscio

Europe has always represented itself as somehow autochthonous— producing itself, by itself, from within itself; whereas we have always been obliged to ask: ‘How does Europe imagine its “unity”? How can it be imagined, in relation to its “others”? What does Europe look like from its liminal edge, from what Ernesto Laclau or Judith Butler would call its “constitutive outside”’? —(Hall 2002, p. 60)

M. Mattoscio (*) University of Macerata, Macerata, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_8

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Introduction The so-called migratory crisis is among the events in Europe’s recent history that have most impacted the continent’s historical identity and prevailing self-representations. For European nations, the increasing movement of people towards their borders since 2011—with the Arab Spring uprisings, the outbreak of the Syrian war, the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, the Russian attack on Ukraine, the worsening of climate change, and the desire for better life conditions—have marked not only the revival of regressive political discourses, but also the start of a ‘crisis of responsibility itself’ (Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017, p. 1173). The countries currently at the receiving end of the migratory spectrum have historically characterised themselves as enlightened and morally responsible, and many of their citizens have tried to retain this sympathetic self-­image through their governments’ adoption of increasingly restrictive and dehumanising border policies at the detriment of migrants.1 On the one hand, European communities have striven to establish who has the right to belong in European spaces and on what terms. On the other, the alleged moral agency implicit in modern European identity has been challenged both by the ways in which the migratory movement has been tackled (or not tackled) by European governments and by the migrants themselves as they struggle to make their voices heard. Several questions arise from this conundrum. How are the borders of empathy and action interrogated in Europe when migration is under the spotlight? How do Europeans construct such borders in and through language, both political and literary? What do their speech acts indicate about their ethics and practice? And who is involved in redefining a European identity in relation to these challenges? The present chapter looks at these issues through the narrative world of The Embassy of Cambodia, a 2013 novella by Zadie Smith that directly focuses on the post-migratory experience of an illegalised immigrant in the UK.2 While probing the world-making and world-changing powers of 1  See, for example, the spontaneous offering of help and the volunteering efforts of many people in Greece, Germany, and Sweden at the arrival of the first consistent wave of Syrian refugees in 2015, and the general success of the Refugees Welcome movement in Europe notwithstanding the national governments’ rapidly changing border politics (Monforte 2019). 2  Rather than being illegal, the protagonist of this story has been made illegal by the system of mobility devised by European countries, by which most legal travelling routes from underprivileged countries are closed down and migrants end up in the hands of traffickers who often steal their documents and money. In this case, the protagonist’s passport is seized once in London by her employers.

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postcolonial literature, Smith’s text is also a perfect case study for the critical debate that addresses the negotiation of political, cultural, identitarian, and discursive borders. In particular, the chapter analyses the performative and political potential of the narrative voice to illuminate Smith’s interrogation of the values of a supposedly enlightened British (and European) community facing the perspective of a young migrant woman who narrates the world differently. The analysis is built on the notion that the phenomenological aspect and narrative strategy of some literary texts imply a potential performative quality that might have a direct impact onto the real world. Drawing on Mary Louise Pratt’s insights into the ‘simultaneously world-creating, world-describing and world-changing undertakings’ (1986, p. 71) of the narrative voice, and on Susan Lanser’s reflections on what she terms a ‘communal voice’ (1992, p. 21), I aim to demonstrate that Smith employs a unique dynamic of alternative and overlapping narratives in order to test the potential blurring of consciousness boundaries and generic conventions, and to unveil the ineffectiveness of local European communities’ self-celebrated ethics. The socio-geographical setting of The Embassy of Cambodia does not come as a surprise to regular readers of Smith: the facts recounted in the novella mostly take place in that North-West London microcosm that is the author’s signature narrative space. In particular, the action moves along Brondesbury Park Road, at the heart of Willesden Green, which hosts the actual Royal Embassy of Cambodia in the United Kingdom. However, rather than focusing on the experiences of Londoners, as is the case with Smith’s most famous novels, this text is concerned with the displacement and failed integration of a marginalised, racially marked, and violently gendered migrant—someone who is, as Stuart Hall would put it, ‘in but not of Europe’ (2002, p. 60). As many scholars including Walters (2009), Tew (2010), and Jansen (2018) pointed out, Smith is renowned for her keen preoccupation with multiculturalism and with the need to complicate entrenched identitarian schemes. Jansen, for instance, remarked that ‘writing from a hybrid black English subject position, Smith primarily engages in a postcolonial revision of Englishness’ (2018, p. 209). Yet, if the author has constantly addressed the theme of cultural identity and the traps of belonging, The Embassy of Cambodia seems to hold a special significance. The fact that this is Smith’s only novella to have been published in book form by itself signals that its narrative structure and the issues it articulates in a limited number of pages are for the author of the utmost importance—something that she confirmed in a 2020 interview,

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by stating that she ‘feel[s] fondly about [this novella] because it’s very small’ and yet is ‘a good example of when my mind is not changed: [it] does exactly what I wanted it to do’ (Smith in Ford and Smith 2020).3 Published before the 2015 and later peaks of the refugee (or migratory) crisis, The Embassy of Cambodia hits the nerve of some of the crucial issues at stake in the current debates over migration and borders. The protagonist, Fatou, has recently arrived in the UK from Italy after taking what is possibly the deadliest current migratory route from Africa, including the northbound travel from sub-Saharan territories (in this case Ivory Coast and Ghana) and the passage through Libya. Besides dramatising Fatou’s post-migratory situation in North-West London, the story lays stress on the local community’s contradictory attitude and ambiguous attempts at making sense of her story. In other words, Smith’s novella is concerned with spatial, social, and identity borders in a supposedly enlightened arrival country, in which nonetheless race and gender hierarchies seem to violently determine life opportunities, especially for migrants.

Narrative Confrontations: A ‘Communal Voice’? As Abigail Ward (2016) and Beatriz Pérez Zapata (2015, 2017) suggest, The Embassy of Cambodia can be defined as a tale of modern slavery that goes to great lengths to re-inscribe historical memory into the present. The story is set at the time of the 2012 London Olympics, a moment in British recent history when the public celebration of the country’s supposed multiculturalism was at its height. Fatou is a girl from the Ivory Coast with a traumatic migratory experience and a discouraging present as an alienated domestic worker in Willesden Green. In Ghana, where she worked as a hotel cleaner to raise the money for her travel, she was raped by a Russian tourist who expected all African women to be sexually available. The violent act occurred while the man’s wife was paying a visit to the infamous Cape Coast Castle, whose connections with a slavery past acquire symbolic undertones. Later on, both in her transition through Italy and on her arrival in the UK, Fatou can only find markedly gendered 3  In his review, Philip Hensher remarks that the single-volume publication of The Embassy of Cambodia has been criticised by some as too expensive for its length. The author’s choice to give her novella an autonomous life, however, not only proves its ‘awesomely global scale’ (Hensher 2013); it also suggests Smith’s early intention to raise the issue of Europe’s relationship with its immigrant inhabitants as central for the continent’s identity.

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types of jobs, relegating her to the constraining sphere of domestic or cleaning work. When working as a toilet cleaner in Rome, she enquires about the Bengali street performers and what seems to her their fascinating job, only to find out that ‘it was a closed shop, for brown men only. Her place was in the toilet stalls’ (Smith 2013b, p. 50). In other words, Fatou is a victim of that ‘sexual politics of border control’ that Billy Holzberg, Anouk Madörin, and Michelle Pfeifer identify as ‘a key strategy for the capture, containment and regulation of mobility and movement’ (2021, p. 1485): she is only tolerated in the European space on the condition that she performs the cleaning and caring tasks assigned to women— especially racialised women—by the traditional patriarchal and racist system in place. As a domestic worker for the Derawal family in Willesden Green, Fatou is particularly dehumanised. She is stripped of her passport, confiscated by her employers at the beginning of her stay, and her wages are retained to cover the rent and expenses for the room she has been given to sleep in. Her situation is thus possibly akin, as she herself speculates, to that of the modern ‘slave’ Mende Nazer, of which she learns from a newspaper, even though, unlike Nazer, she can walk out of the house to do the family shopping and other tasks, and is allowed a few free hours on Sundays.4 Paradoxically, the fact that she saves the family’s youngest child from choking to death results in her almost immediate dismissal, because her employers cannot accept the embarrassing situation of owing her a debt of gratitude. As Sam Okoth Opondo and Michael Shapiro remark, by saving the child, Fatou has in fact ‘exited the Derawals’ servant imaginary, which locates her in a zone of indiscernibility between a person and a thing’, so that they cannot help but ‘remov[ing] the body/person that threatens to expose their hierarchical allocation of personhood’ (2019, p. 584). In other words, Fatou’s right to move and develop is not only restricted in terms of 4  The case of the Sudanese Mende Nazer, abducted from her native Nuba Mountains and kept for years as a slave first in Khartoum and later in Willesden Green, received extensive media coverage after the publication of her autobiography, co-authored with journalist Damien Lewis (Nazer and Lewis 2004). Compared with Nazer’s story, Fatou’s legal status in the UK is unclear: even though she manages to carry her passport with her during her travel, Fatou is dispossessed of it once in the Derawals’ house, thereby losing her rights to move and prove her identity. Moreover, as Pérez Zapata (2017) notes, she does not seem to own a single suitcase from her travel, so that, after she is fired, she has to gather her few belongings into some plastic supermarket carriers, of the sort she uses to carry the Derawals’ shopping home.

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space, gender, and class borders; it is her very possibility to be recognised and treated as a proper human subject that is denied by her Indian employers on the basis of a hierarchy of humanness organised around racial boundaries. ‘Sometimes’, Fatou recounts, ‘she heard her name used as a term of abuse between [the Derawals children]: “You’re as black as Fatou”. Or, “You’re as stupid as Fatou”’ (Smith 2013b, p. 16). Thus, even though she has crossed a number of geographical and existential borders, Fatou continues to be confronted with the violence of an inextricable entanglement of gender, racial, and social boundaries that hinder her desire to redefine her subjectivity on her own terms. In fact, to use Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson’s words (2012), she inhabits a grey space between inclusion—in the British capital—and exclusion—from legitimate choices and a free life. From a topological point of view, she appears to remain on a border-space internal to her arrival country even after she has trespassed into the UK through Northern Africa and continental Europe. This liminal situation is epitomised by Fatou’s weekly observation of the Embassy of Cambodia’s high walls, which she perceives as surrounded by an aura of mysterious impenetrability. The presence of the walled Embassy also materialises the historical roots of the borderscape the protagonist is forced to navigate. As Pérez Zapata emphasises, the text’s direct references to historical violence—the Cambodian genocide evoked by the Embassy, as well as the transatlantic slave trade implied in the mention of the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, and the Holocaust Fatou discusses with her friend Andrew—are suggestions of the ‘presence of slavery and neo-­ colonial practices as present-day phenomena’ (2017, p.  202). In this sense, the recurring imagery of walls and speculations on what might be happening behind them reflect ‘the covert nature of slavery itself and the uncertainty that surrounds it’ (p. 206). This is particularly poignant in terms of the pervasiveness of modern forms of slavery, especially if one considers that it is not only the Embassy to be walled off from the neighbourhood street life: as the first narrator makes clear at the beginning of the story, ‘many of the private houses [in Brondesbury Park] have high walls, quite as high as the Embassy of Cambodia—but they are no embassies’ (Smith 2013b, p. 2).5  The imagery of the wall is so pervasive that it was chosen as the theme of Zohar Lazar’s illustration for the novella’s first publication in The New Yorker (Smith 2013a). The image features a high redbrick wall extended with further metallic barriers, behind which only a sloping roof with a couple of Cambodian flags is visible, and above which a badminton shuttlecock is falling down. Though reproducing quite faithfully the façade details of the real Embassy of Cambodia in London’s Brondesbury Park, Lazar’s illustration chooses a low angle that foregrounds the wall itself, and thus puts centre stage the feeling of ‘being walled in and yet not ceasing to move from wall to wall, like the shuttlecock’ (Pirker 2016, p. 69). 5

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Fatou, however, performs actively her resistance to the violence of her border-space by obstinately trying to exert her physical and intellectual abilities to the fullest, in the unshakable conviction that ‘the key to surviving [is] to make your own arrangements’ (p.  21). For example, every Monday morning she transforms her weekly shopping duties in a chance to increase her strength by clandestinely using the Derawals’ forgotten guest daily passes for the local swimming pool, which she found in a drawer. Wearing her black underwear, which she hopes will look like a swimsuit in the dim light, she tenaciously trains her swimming abilities to the point of outdoing not only the occasional ‘big [African] men, paddling frantically like babies, struggling simply to stay afloat’ (p. 4), but also the athletic white men that mostly populate the pool. Having taught herself how to swim in the ocean while in Ghana, Fatou relies on this skill as a source of personal autonomy, something that proves particularly meaningful in the context of aquatic danger implied in both her personal story of migration and the century-long history of the slave trade. Her determination also seems a response to a dramatic event she witnessed in Ghana and later reports in the text: the death of several Ghanaian children, who, unable to swim, drowned in the ocean near her workplace while playing games in the water. 6 Another way in which Fatou reclaims her rights to a free subjectivity is by often engaging her only friend, the Nigerian part-time student Andrew, in fierce intellectual debates over the ethical and political topics that occupy her thoughts, while also, in secret, critically appraising his sexual (in)desirability and his openness to dialogue. ‘I never met a man who didn’t want to tell everybody how to think and what to do’, she replicates to Andrew’s critique of the Nigerian government’s ‘Big Man policy’ (p. 55). And yet, she decides that ‘there [are] good and bad kinds of weaknesses in men, and she [has] come to the conclusion that the key [is] to know which kind you [are] dealing with’ (p. 55). In short, Fatou navigates her asphyxiating condition with subtle irony and determination, as well as

6  Connected with the historical risks of the diaspora, the assumption that black African people face aquatic dangers was reinforced by the racist prejudice that blacks are less able to swim than whites because of a difference in their bone density. This misconception has been recently disproved by geneticist Adam Rutherford, who observes that, because of it, 70% of African Americans are never taught to swim, and consequently ‘the death from drowning rate in African American children aged 5–14 is three times higher than for white children’ (2020).

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a relentless curiosity for what seems out of her reach, including the mysterious Embassy of Cambodia with its ‘strangely compelling aura’ (p. 9). Excluded as she is from the view of the Embassy’s internal structure and activities, the protagonist never tires of staring at the only visible sign of human presence inside it, i.e. the badminton game that takes place continuously in the building courtyard. The rhythmical movement of the shuttlecock, visible above the Embassy’s walls as it is lobbed back and forth by the invisible players, soon seems to embody for her the idea of an ever-present perspective alternative that remains available even in the gloomiest situations. As Fatou observes, ‘the shuttlecock floats in a wide arc softly rightwards, and is smashed back, and this happens again and again, the first player always somehow able to retrieve the smash and transform it, once more, into a gentle, floating arc’ (p. 5). Later on in the text, on a day of wayward wind, Fatou speculates on the chances of a break in this game routine: at some point it seemed to Fatou that the next lob would blow southwards, sending the shuttlecock over the wall to land lightly in her own hands. Instead the other player, with his vicious reliability (Fatou had long ago decided that both players were men), caught the shuttlecock as it began to drift and sent it back to his opponent—another deathly, downward smash. (p. 22)

The male gender Fatou imagines for both players is symbolically interesting, albeit never proved. It seems to point to her awareness that the unforeseeable destiny, with its constant turning points that are decided behind impenetrable walls, is traditionally placed in the hands of men. Her obstinate waiting and observing out of the building walls signal her determination in breaking that impenetrability and making the borders of her destiny porous to her own will. The oscillatory movement of the shuttlecock, charged with the tension of its mysterious confrontation, is replicated at the structural level of the story through a peculiar choice of focalisation. Understood as ‘mood’ or ‘point of view’ in Gérard Genette’s tradition (1980, p. 186), focalisation shifts continuously in the novella between Fatou’s own perspective, narrated by a non-intrusive third-person voice, and a broader viewpoint voiced by an intrusive first-person-plural narrator. By giving, from the very first page, the self-definition ‘we, the people of Willesden’, this latter narrative voice claims to represent the entire neighbourhood community,

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with its presumed shared attitudes and specific ethnic mix, foregrounded through the description of the ‘number of curious buildings’ (Smith 2013b, p. 12) in Brondesbury Park, ranging from an Arab mansion to a Roman Catholic nunnery, and from a Sikh institute to a faux-Tudor house occasionally rented by celebrities. As such, this ‘we’ point of view through which some sections of the text are focalised might appear to be an interesting case of what Lanser termed ‘communal voice’, or a narrator typology that ‘articulate[s] either a collective voice or a collection of voices that share narrative authority’ (1992, p. 21). In her elaboration of this concept, Lanser interestingly points out the radical potential that such a narrative voice could hold, considering that it can encompass characters of any gender, ethnicity, or social class. For her, in articulating a plural consciousness irreducible to one sex or gender, this we-narration affords a kind of proto-utopian exercise in which gender, race, sexuality, and other conventional social classifications fail to signify discreet features; instead, the collective is forged by shared circumstance and intentional community. (Lanser 2018, p. 9)

In the context of The Embassy of Cambodia, Lanser’s remarks would prompt one to posit the existence of a coherent local narrative community, which, albeit not homogeneous, might be unified by certain affective circumstances and express a consistent set of shared preoccupations. This is the interpretation given by Bettina Jansen, who sees Smith’s deployment of the we-voice in the novella as ‘a utopian vision of an inoperative, singular plural community where people tend to care for each other irrespective of the existence of familial, ethnic, religious, or any other essentialist ties’ (2018, p. 237).7 In my view, however, the communal voice deployed in The Embassy of Cambodia cannot be said to show Lanser’s ‘shared circumstance and intentional community’. Its referential limits are unclear, its coherence dubious, and it is difficult to regard it as reliable after we learn that the 7  Jansen is the only critic who interprets the novella’s depiction of the local community in unambiguous and downright positive terms. Contrary to her conviction that the Willesden ‘singular plural voice […] emerges as a promising and, in fact, ideal alternative’ (2018, p.  240) to identitarian notions of community, Eva Ulrike Pirker (2016), Pérez Zapata (2017), and Opondo and Shapiro (2019) all point out that the authority and real involvement of the collective voice are questioned by its own internal contradictions and obvious ineffectiveness with regard to Fatou’s story.

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‘we-speaker’ is actually contested as a legitimate representative of the community by its very members: Of the Old and New People of Willesden I speak; I have been chosen to speak for them, though they did not choose me and must wonder what gives me the right. I could say ‘Because I was born at the crossroads of Willesden, Kilburn and Queen’s Park!’ But the reply would be swift and damning: ‘Oh, don’t be foolish, many people were born right there; it doesn’t mean anything at all. We are not one people and no one can speak for us. It’s all a lot of nonsense. We see you standing on the balcony, overlooking the Embassy of Cambodia, in your dressing gown, staring into the chestnut trees, looking gormless. The real reason you speak in this way is because you can’t think of anything better to do’. (Smith 2013b, p. 40)

The confrontation imagined in this excerpt, a rare case in the novella in which the we-narrative’s first-person-plural is further contrasted with a first-person-singular, points to a heterogeneous neighbourhood community that refuses to identify as one people and seems to contest the necessity to speak altogether, at least to or about Fatou. In this sense, the reference to the dressing gown and the act of ‘staring into the chestnut trees’ is an obvious allusion to the inhabitants of a previously mentioned retirement home located in front of the Embassy. The speaker could thus be identified with an elderly person whose clarity of mind and reliability are questionable, while the reference to the ‘Old and the New people of Willesden’, which evokes the Cambodian Khmer Rouge ideology of country people versus city dwellers, adopts a much more ironic and domestic undertone. Most importantly, this excerpt shows some interesting sociological implications of the we-narrator’s intrusiveness. While Fatou’s own perspective is conveyed through a rather classical third-person voice that simply acts as a recording consciousness, and thus only draws the readers’ attention towards her actions and feelings or the plot development, the we-voice overtly reflecting on itself manifests a deliberate theatrical twist. Besides thematising the story that is narrated, in fact, it calls attention to what Schmid (2005) terms the ‘story of narration’: i.e., it configures the narrative discourse as dramatised, and more particularly as a staged oral speech even including imagined dialogic confrontations. This performative quality of the we-voice moves the reader’s attention away from the narrated events and towards the act of narrating itself, or, to phrase it differently, towards the theatrical scene of the speech act itself.

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Textual Performativity and Its Political Potential That all written narratives can be seen as speech acts has been variously demonstrated by both linguists and literary scholars following the lead of Mary Louise Pratt (1977, 1986), who, in her seminal work on speech, ideology, and literary discourse, calls attention to the affective and power relations among reader, author, and text in a context in which language ‘constitutes the world for people in speech communities rather than merely depicting it’ (1986, p. 71, emphasis added). If all speech acts—and thus all narratives—function as constituting the world, moreover, some particular written texts can be seen as staging it in a quasi-theatrical way. The texts that mimic oral speech—i.e., that include the narrator’s self-­thematisations, explicit comments on the story or the act of narrating, or direct addresses to the reader—have a particular performative effect. As Alberica Bazzoni points out, a narrative is clearly performative not only when it is addressed to a physically present audience, but also when it ‘realizes the narrator’s own identity formation’ (2017, p. 73), or, in other words, when it performs the narrator’s opinions, social positioning, and identification. In transforming the reader into the implied audience of the theatrical scene where the speech is performed, these narratives also call for the readers’ active engagement with the issues at stake in the story. In the case of The Embassy of Cambodia, where the central question discussed by both Fatou and the we-voice is that of the unfair hierarchies among different people’s suffering and the many borders (political, sociocultural, and identitarian) that construct such hierarchies, this active engagement equals an assumption of responsibility for such borders and hierarchies on the part of the reader. When confronted with the neighbourhood voice’s defence of ‘narrow, local scopes’ (Smith 2013b, p. 23) rather than global, historical considerations, readers cannot avoid defining their own positions on the matter. The issues at stake here are those crucial to Western societies as arrival countries of the migratory routes: how much do we really care for the pain of others? And how do we articulate our ethics discursively? The Embassy building, with its impenetrable walls and mysterious atmosphere, often compels the neighbourhood to think of the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. However, with her limited access to historical information combined with her acute awareness of the current structural violence affecting her and many of her fellow Africans, Fatou looks at the Embassy with an interest all focused on the present—and particularly on the

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possibility to see a real Cambodian for the first time in her life. This strongly contrasts with the patronising attitude of the we-voice witnessing her story, which ultimately intends to justify its own relinquishing of responsibility towards the pain of others: No doubt there are those who will be critical of the narrow, essentially local scope of Fatou’s interest in the Cambodian woman from the Embassy of Cambodia, but we, the people of Willesden, have some sympathy with her attitude. The fact is if we followed the history of every little country in this world—in its dramatic as well as its quiet times—we would have no space left in which to live our own lives or to apply ourselves to our necessary tasks, never mind indulge in occasional pleasures, like swimming. (p. 23)

Through the allusion to swimming, the ambiguous attitude of the we-­ voice seems to lump Fatou’s slave-like life together with the neighbours’ everyday routine and, in doing so, it questions the authenticity and effectiveness of its own proclaimed ‘sympathy’. Rather than the ‘inclusionary “we”’ and the ‘model of peaceful singular plurality’ that Jansen sees in it (2018, pp. 238–239), the collective voice implies a resigned acceptance of the differential treatment of historical violence based on gender and race power unbalances—a resignation made more evident by the voice’s theatrical performing of its own opinion, social positioning, and identification (‘we, the people of Willesden’). Fatou, on the contrary, is eager to prove what she has learned through personal experience: the pain of Africans seems to her to be deemed less worthy than the pain of other peoples, especially Westerners, so that a veritable hierarchy of suffering emerges from the geopolitical and sociocultural arrangement of the world. For example, she tells her friend Andrew about one day in Ghana when she had seen ‘nine children washed up dead on the beach. Ten or eleven years old, boys and girls’—a tragedy accepted with resignation by the witnesses who, after the removal of the bodies from the seaside, ‘carried on like before’ (Smith 2013b, p. 47). Her surprise had been great, therefore, when, a year later in Rome, the death of a 15-year-old boy knocked down on his bike had been followed by people’s ‘screaming and crying in the street’ (p. 48) and covered by a newspaper article the following day. The different reactions to the two episodes had convinced Fatou that the pain of Africans, especially in the West, is accepted as more inevitable and less scandalous than everyone else’s pain.

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It is for this reason that, while reclaiming her right to a full subjectivity and wondering ‘what is wrong to hope to be happy’ (p. 51), she remains suspicious of the condescending attitude of some Willesden inhabitants, who exhibit sympathy but are often patronising towards her. This is the case of the girl at the health centre reception who only after a long and hard-won negotiation allows Fatou to use, for once, two daily passes rather than one and take Andrew into the pool with her. When the same girl expects to be treated with particular appreciation on her next visit to the centre, Fatou is just ‘unwilling to be grateful for past favours. Gratitude was just another kind of servitude. Better to make your own arrangements’ (p. 68). The question of ethics, solidarity, and effective assumption of responsibility is raised again at the end of the story, when the protagonist, having saved the youngest Derawal child from choking, becomes such an uncomfortable figure for her employers that they fire her and ask her to leave the house immediately. At this point in the story, while she waits for Andrew to pick her up, she sits for hours on the bus stop pavement, surrounded by the plastic bags containing all her belongings. The we-voice narrator here assumes a witnessing tone that calls to mind the classic chorus function of the Greek tragedy. In that tradition, speaking for the entire community, the coryphaeus, or chorus leader, classically intervenes on the scene to express the collective sharing of the unfortunate protagonists’ feelings. Although this show of empathy cannot traditionally change the course of the tragedy, the chorus does not usually refrain from actively criticising and even publicly sanctioning violent acts or injustices suffered by the victims, even when they have been perpetrated by the city’s authorities. In this way, the audiences of classic tragedies are at least allowed to define their ethical positioning even in the face of the cruellest destiny.8 In the case of The Embassy of Cambodia, in which no authoritarian regime would forbid personal initiative, the we-voice’s concluding remarks apparently express sympathetic worry for Fatou. In reality, however, they differ from a Greek chorus because they do not only leave her to her destiny without 8  It is interesting to notice that narrative mechanisms reminiscent of the Greek chorus recur in an increasing number of contemporary postcolonial novels. A case in point is Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire (2017), a modern-day rewriting of Sophocles’ Antigone set among British Muslims in a fictional UK governed by an Anglo-Pakistani Prime Minister, and in which the national community’s chorus-like reactions to the events are expressed through reports of social media trends.

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establishing contact or offering help, but also refuse to comment on the structural violence inflicted upon her or on their possible complicity in it: Many of us walked past her that afternoon, or spotted her as we rode the bus, or through the windscreens of our cars, or from our balconies. Naturally, we wondered what this girl was doing, sitting on the damp pavement in the middle of the day. We worried for her. We tend to assume the worst, here in Willesden. We watched her watching the shuttlecock. Pock, smash. Pock, smash. As if one player could imagine only a violent conclusion and the other only a hopeful return. (p. 69)

If the unreliable Willesden community can only worry about a ‘violent conclusion’ because of its default pessimistic stance and its refusal to intervene, Fatou continues to admire the way in which the second player hits the shuttlecock back as if they would always be able to transform its movement, as she feels at the beginning of the narrative, into a ‘gentle, floating arc’ (p. 5) that puts hope back into the picture. Interestingly, the way in which the focalisation in this concluding paragraph subtly shifts from the community watching Fatou to Fatou herself watching the badminton game signals a further significant type of border-­ crossing operated by the text, with additional socio-political implications. Given the performative attitude of the we-voice, The Embassy of Cambodia can be said to exist at the borders of, and across, different literary genres: the explicit form of the novella, and the implicit forms of the theatrical monologue, the Greek tragedy (especially its chorus parts), and the embedded journalistic reportage on a local story, in the pages where the we-voice intervenes. Calling attention to how a contemporary story of migration can be told not only from different perspectives but also using disparate narrative conventions, Smith highlights the ambiguities and fallibility of monolithic national discourses on these topics. As with other types of short fiction, genre experimentation is a typical feature of novellas, since their quintessential brevity and episodic structure grant writers a greater freedom in thematising narration in a self-reflexive way. As Jochen Achilles and Ina Bergmann argue, short fiction is in fact ‘the liminal genre par excellence’, not only because it typically portrays transitional situations and fleeting moments of crisis or decision, but also because it ‘develops out of, and mediates between, essay and sketch […], poem and novel […], narration and discourse […], and elitist and popular culture’ (2014, p.  4). Short fiction’s poetics of liminality is, on this

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account, particularly relevant for women writers, who have historically had to work from the margins of society and identification, and even more so for racialised women writers, whose human subjectivity has been doubly threatened by gender and race hierarchies. Smith’s choice of the novella when dealing with this story of migration is thus significant as an exercise of (racialised) gender, as well as genre, freedom, even beyond the representational level of the story.

To Conclude: A Global/Local Critique The end of The Embassy of Cambodia sees Fatou’s perspective framed once again by the we-voice, which puts the affective and power relations at stake in the narrative back into the light. The collective voice’s exhibited preoccupations with self-definition and justification (‘we tend to assume the worst, here in Willesden’) compel the readers to consider their own positions with regard to Fatou and the differential humanity politics that she has denounced in the story. When the first-person-plural narrator resumes its self-indulgent oral speech-like tone, readers are again called to perform an active role. Fatou’s story is left suspended at the point in which she is waiting for Andrew to pick her up and still does not know how the badminton game, on one hand, and her life, on the other, will turn out. Readers, on their part, cannot avoid noticing how the multicultural and supposedly welcoming people of Willesden behave as if she existed on a distant, parallel level, even when she exits the invisibility that characterised her life as a domestic worker. As in most of Smith’s fiction, the community that animates The Embassy of Cambodia is hyper-local in scale. In this case, the reference to the author’s beloved North-Western London is further restricted to the sole neighbourhood of Willesden Green, which is to say to such a minimal part of the Council of Brent that one might wonder whether it is even possible to associate Smith’s critical discourse to the British and European societies at large. The answer is provided by the spatio-temporal span of the novella. While Fatou is unable to see much else than the Derawals’s house, the swimming pool, and a short section of Brondesbury Park, her memories of life in Italy and Ghana give a much wider frame to her (and the readers’) experiences of the world. The story unfolds in a few weeks of the late summer and early autumn of 2012, at the apparent microlevel of domestic and individual life. It also refers to widely celebrated global events, such as the Olympic Games, and offers sustained reflections on major episodes of

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historical violence from the whole world, among which ancient and modern slavery, the Cambodian genocide, modern-day migration, the Holocaust, and the Hiroshima bombing. As Pirker observes, Smith’s insistence on the microcosm of North-West London ultimately proves to be associated ‘with the idea of the global northwest, a region which has dominated the world’s economy, politics and culture throughout the phase of European colonialism and the 20th century’, and which is now a ‘spac[e] in which racialized conceptions linger’ (2016, pp. 70, 72). The fact that Smith apparently worked at The Embassy of Cambodia at the same time as writing the aptly titled NW (2012b) further seems to confirm that the author’s interest in this particular quarter of the British capital exceeds the spheres of personal affection and character, and points instead to an embodied, rooted reflection on wider-scale phenomena.9 Viewed in this light, the we-voice narrator of Smith’s novella seems to give a concrete and recognisable face to a much more widespread attitude of global North-West communities, which often insist on identifying themselves as relentless supporters of human rights but rarely turn their humanitarian theory into action. The Embassy of Cambodia dramatises these contradictions, offering poignant depictions of contemporary experiences of diaspora and of the global North’s discursive, as well as factual, ambiguities towards them. In particular, the British society of integration politics, multicultural Olympic Games, and abolitionist traditions seems ultimately unable to assume responsibility for the exclusionary practices and the new forms of postcolonial slavery that characterise its socio-­ economic system. As shown above, Smith’s novella blends classical focalisation with an engaging sort of theatrical speech-act, whereby the narrative discourse moves from one gendered and racialised individual’s tribulations to the collective responsibilities of those who witness that story without intervening. The alternation of narrative voices and viewpoints in The Embassy of Cambodia therefore has an actual performative effect on the readers, who are led to self-analyse their own voices and responsibilities in 9  On Smith’s affective involvement with her birthplace neighbourhood, see also her essay The North West London Blues, in which she writes, among other things, that ‘congregating for no useful purpose on the unlovely concrete space [of Willesden Library centre], simply standing around in the sunshine’ is to be ‘like some kind of community’ (2012a). The way in which this essay moves from very local issues to the national and international political debates is further proof of the author’s ability in articulating all-encompassing critical reflections through the microlevel of everyday, spatially rooted routine.

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witnessing contemporary migratory crises. In this sense, Smith’s own foregrounding of the text’s ability to do something in the aforementioned 2020 interview (‘It does exactly what I wanted it to do’) is revealing. The suspended temporality and conceptual in-betweenness produced by the border-­crossing of narrative perspectives opens up a space for re-discussing Europeans’ alleged innocence in respect to the pain of others and their own complicity in establishing and maintaining borders that cause such pain. In particular, the permeability of focalising consciousness and literary genres alike, contrasted with the apparent impenetrability of the racial and gender boundaries that constrain Fatou, invites a reflection on the co-constituting nature of gendered, racial, territorial, and political borders in the contemporary world. By operating a continuous crossing of textual and contextual borders in order to involve readers in the story, Smith indicates that the nominally elastic boundaries of empathy, a quality usually attributed to women as traditional caregivers, are actually kept rigid by the Europeans’ entrenched patriarchal culture on the scene of migration.

References Achilles, Jochen, and Ina Bergmann. 2014. ‘Betwixt and between’: Boundary crossings in American, Canadian, and British short fiction. In Liminality and the short story: Boundary crossings in American, Canadian, and British writing, ed. Jochen Achilles and Ina Bergmann, 2–30. New York: Routledge. Bazzoni, Alberica. 2017. The performative power of narrative in Goliarda Sapienza’s Lettera aperta, L’arte della gioia and Io, Jean Gabin. Italian Studies 72 (1): 72–88. Chouliaraki, Lilie, and Tijana Stolic. 2017. Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: A visual topology of European news. Media, Culture and Society 39 (8): 1162–1177. Ford, Ashley C., and Zadie Smith. 2020. Zadie Smith: Intimations. A conversation with Ashley C.  Ford. 92Y Poetry center online interview, October 20. Accessed 7 June 2023. https://www.92y.org/archives/zadie-­smith.aspx?orde r=1877555&perf=169111&utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email_order_ confirmation&utm_campaign=order_confirmation&mcSID=739062. Genette, Gérard. 1980 (1972). Narrative discourse: An essay in method. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hall, Stuart. 2002. ‘In but not of Europe’: Europe and its myths. Soundings. A Journal of Politics and Culture 22: 57–69.

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Hensher, Philip. 2013. Why small is sweet. The Guardian, November 1. Accessed 7 June 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/ nov/01/philip-­hensher-­why-­short-­is-­sweet. Holzberg, Billy, Anouk Madörin, and Michelle Pfeifer. 2021. The sexual politics of border control: An introduction. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44 (9): 1485–1506. Jansen, Bettina. 2018. Accidental Englishness: Zadie Smith. In Narratives of community in the Black British short story, 207–249. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Lanser, Susan S. 1992. Fictions of authority. Women writers and narrative voice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 2018. Queering narrative voice. Textual Practice 36 (2): 1–15. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. Between inclusion and exclusion: On the topology of global space and borders. Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4/5): 58–75. Monforte, Pierre. 2019. From ‘Fortress Europe’ to ‘Refugees Welcome’: Social movements and the political imaginary on European borders. In The Routledge handbook of contemporary European social movements: Protest in turbulent times, ed. Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Ramón Feenstra, 46–58. London: Routledge. Nazer, Mende, and Damien Lewis. 2004. Slave: My true story. London: Hachette Digital (Little, Brown Book Group). Opondo, Sam Okoth, and Michael J. Shapiro. 2019. Subalterns ‘speak’: Migrant bodies, and the performativity of the arts. Globalizations 16 (4): 575–591. Pérez Zapata, Beatriz. 2015. Decolonizing trauma: A study of multidirectional memory in Zadie Smith’s The embassy of Cambodia. Humanities 4: 523–534. ———. 2017. An endless game: Neocolonial injustice in Zadie Smith’s The embassy of Cambodia. In Postcolonial justice, ed. Anke Bartels, Lars Eckstein, Nicole Waller, and Dirk Wiemann, 201–216. Amsterdam: Brill/Rodopi. Pirker, Eva Ulrike. 2016. Approaching space: Zadie Smith’s North London fiction. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52 (1): 64–76. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1977. Toward a speech act theory of literary discourse. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 1986. Ideology and speech-act theory. Poetics Today 7 (1): 59–71. Rutherford, Adam. 2020. How to argue with a racist: History, science, race, and reality. London: Orion Publishing. Schmid, Wolf. 2005. Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter. Shamsie, Kamila. 2017. Home fire. London: Bloomsbury. Smith, Zadie. 2012a. The North West London blues. The New  York Review of Books, June 2. Accessed 7 June 2023. https://www.nybooks.com/ daily/2012/06/02/north-­west-­london-­blues/. ———. 2012b. NW. London: Penguin.

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———. 2013a. The embassy of Cambodia. The New  Yorker, February 4. Accessed 7 June 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/ 02/11/the-­embassy-­of-­cambodia. ———. 2013b. The embassy of Cambodia. London: Hamish Hamilton. Tew, Philip. 2010. Zadie Smith. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Walters, Tracey. 2009. Zadie Smith. In Twenty-first-century Black British writers, ed. R. Victoria Arana, 278–290. Detroit: Gale. Ward, Abigail. 2016. Servitude and slave narratives. Wasafiri 31 (3): 42–48.

CHAPTER 9

Morphing Forms: Metamorphosis in Twenty-First-Century British Women’s Experimental Short Fiction Helen Cousins

Where is the Society of Soil, Mourning and Metamorphosis, I wonder, where people who wander around fields slowly turning into something they don’t recognize gather for lunch and read transcriptions of soil song? —(Burnett 2019, pp. 143–144)

Introduction Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s book The Grassling (2019) suggests that human forms are changeable and that change manifests physically. The Grassling of the title is the human narrator reborn from the soil as something unrecognisable and the transformation of the human body into something other is a crucial aspect of the mourning process in the text. In the twenty-­ first-­century short stories by British women authors explored in this chapter, metamorphosis contributes to humans’ understanding of their physical

H. Cousins (*) Birmingham Newman University, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_9

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and emotional place in the world. There is an emphasis on the human body as something porous that bleeds into and connects to other forms. With their challenge to ‘the Humanist ideal of “Man” as the allegedly universal measure of all things’ and critique of ‘species hierarchy and anthropocentric exceptionalism’, the stories explore what Rosi Braidotti calls ‘the posthuman condition’ (Braidotti 2019, p. 7). By questioning the immutability of the human form, the texts ask readers to understand the world as a place where humans are not dominant nor the sole mediators of what the world means. The short stories being discussed in this chapter build on a pre-existing tradition of women’s writing and metamorphosis, which includes Angela Carter’s reimagining of traditional fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979) and the experimental genre-crossing of Brigid Brophy. Their work challenged both the assumed heterosexuality and gender hierarchies of human experience through gender fluidity and metamorphosis. The twenty-first-century texts I explore here also have an interest in gender; this is one of the focuses of Sarah Hall’s ‘Mrs Fox’ (2017) and ‘M’ (2019), ‘Starver’ (2016) by Daisy Johnson, ‘Kookaburra Sweet’ (2019) by Irenosen Okojie, and Helen Oyeyemi’s Mr Fox (2011a). However, the permeability of boundaries between humans and other non-human forms is what draws all these stories together. The familiar trope (from Ovid onwards) of animal metamorphosis is found in ‘Mrs Fox’, ‘Starver’, and in the short story ‘some foxes’ (2011b) from Oyeyemi’s Mr Fox. In The Grassling, ‘M’, ‘Kookaburra Sweet’, and Oyeyemi’s ‘is your blood as red as this’ (2016) women transform into other sentient but fantastical forms: the Grassling, a harpy, liquorice and a living puppet. With a focus on human to non-human metamorphosis, the stories are challenging anthropocentrism, sometimes, but not always, via a critique of patriarchy. Gender is relevant to this discussion as women are already placed on the side of the non-human in traditional Humanist thought. As Braidotti points out, the dualistic thinking at the root of the Humanities methodology traditionally defines the human as ‘Man’, excluding ‘sexualized’ others (alongside several other disallowed human categories around race, (dis)ability and so on) (Braidotti 2019, pp. 10–11). Challenges to injustices arising from exclusion have ‘historically been voiced by the anthropomorphic others of “Man”’ (p. 11) and these women writers engage with patriarchal injustices by writing about that liminal space between the human and the non-human that they are already thought to occupy by dominant social discourses.

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Short stories are, as Julia Ditter notes, ‘particularly suited to represent and negotiate borders and bordering experiences of all kinds’ (2019, p. 187) having been defined as a liminal form—for example, by Bergmann (2017), as Ditter notes. In her discussion of ‘Mrs Fox’, Ditter suggests that the short story is ‘a genre that is allusive rather than definitive, [… so] lends itself especially well to explorations of inarticulate and unknowable non-human worlds and of the borders constructed to separate these worlds from the realm of the human’ (2019, p. 188). I will explore how the short stories morph the narrative form and use experimental writing to express female experiences of metamorphosis. As Kate Aughterson and Deborah Philips point out, ‘women’s writing and reading against the grain of dominant ideologies, gendered, racialised and sexualised assumptions, must often be experimental in order to be both heard and authentic’ (2021, p. 4). Through their experimentation, the authors examined in this chapter challenge the idea that metamorphosis is fatally connected to anthropocentrism by way of anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is criticised for treating non-human animals as if they have ‘human motivations, emotions, language, consciousness, even morality’ and ‘such figurations of the apparently non-human lead inexorably to anthropocentrism, to the configuration of the world in human terms’ (Bennett and Royle 2016, p. 168). However, I will suggest that metamorphosis is a powerful literary tool for questioning what it is to be human (as is anthropomorphism); and that it is not a metaphor for the human in the animal but works differently to connect to the real changeable world across boundaries.

Form Burnett’s The Grassling and Oyeyemi’s Mr Fox enact a textual metamorphosis as short story cycles which are ‘blurring the boundary between what constitutes a short story collection and a novel’ (March-­ Russell 2009, p. 103). The Grassling’s sections are organised alphabetically as a set of short topical essays called ‘Acreage’, ‘Burnett’, ‘Culm’, ‘Daffodil’, and so on. Some of these take the form of geological explanations of soil, or geographical history; some are personal accounts related to the narrator’s father; others are more abstract. Jessica Lee suggests The Grassling is: sort of a memoir. It’s a sort of a book of poetry. It’s sort of a book of history, and an interrogation of place. Even stylistically, chapter to chapter, the form

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changes multiple times, so there are sections of straight prose, sections of poetry, sections that are quite experimental. (n.d.)

The multiple genres seem to suggest that The Grassling falls under the idea of ‘a “composite novel” […] in which an extended narrative is composed not only from shorter prose sections but also other genres such as poetry and drama’ (March-Russell 2009, p.  105). Mr Fox might be similarly defined as short story cycle. It draws on traditions of framed narratives, rooted in the oral tradition from European sources (such as The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron) (March-Russell 2009, p.  106) and possibly Oyeyemi’s Nigerian heritage. Mr Fox starts as a story competition between the author St John Fox and his muse Mary Foxe, but the tales and the framing become increasingly intertwined, losing the story-telling competition frame although the use of titles for the different tales contained within it is retained throughout the text. In both cases, the texts’ form reflects the metamorphoses within the stories emphasising the malleable and flexible nature of ‘literary species-blending’ (Asker 2001, p. 2) within a literary-blended form. Hall uses experimental writing in ‘M’ where the focaliser is a woman undergoing a visceral experience of transformation as ‘a medieval agony […] halving her body, winding her intestines apart’ (2019, p. 10). Unlike the other stories, this is not a permanent change; she moves back and forth from woman to a harpy-like creature bringing a continuity of consciousness between the two forms. Working against this, and to avoid too bluntly explicating the non-human consciousness, is the experimental form of the writing. For example, when manifesting as the harpy, ‘She hears, feels; she preens the masses of their disease. A star could be named for her. A blinding, new immaculate. Epiphany’ (p. 17). Obfuscation, a non-linear timeline, and broken sentences make the sentience in the story consistent but not clearly (only) human. Burnett uses experimental writing to voice other consciousnesses in The Grassling. The Grassling is ‘grass made flesh’ (2019, p.  148) and grass speaks: fast and scorn[ing] punctuation. whoisitwhatisitsbodyitsechoingspaceisithollowisitrungisitgrassorwomanisitoneofussprungfromusorwhoisitwhatisit (p. 95)

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The Grassling also momentarily becomes a blackbird when attempting its call, represented in the text as: Trill-la-la-lick wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrTrilllillaliiiiir wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr wurrwurr trickalickalickweowchipchipTrala-lilla. (p. 139)

Experiments in voice draw attention to the text’s thoughtfully anthropomorphic way of exploring the consciousness of non-human forms. They also counter a scientific discourse which divides the observing human subject from the observed animal object, both silencing the non-human animal and making them solely a product of human knowledge. D. B. D. Asker argues ‘we are unable to understand what it means to be human without having had experience of the non-human, in literary form’ (2001, p. 2), but narrative equally must be about reaching towards an understanding of non-human consciousnesses. As science becomes more open to acknowledging animal consciousness and emotion, and literature becomes more cautious in how it uses anthropomorphism, biology, and art come together powerfully as in Donna Haraway’s ‘figure’ where ‘the biological and literary or artistic come together with all of the force of lived reality’ (2008, p. 4). Inevitably stories are a speaking for, but the experimental nature of the writing allows an imaginative access to the consciousness of others. The morphing literary forms acknowledge non-human animals’ own presence and space. The use of metamorphosis in the short stories raises the issue of anthropomorphism when human characters transform into other animal (or any sentient) forms.1 If anthropomorphism only gives other animals a symbolic status in relation to human concerns, then it is hopelessly entangled with anthropocentrism being a phenomenon that reinforces the notion that humans are at the centre of the world. However, Derek Ryan suggests that: it is important to remain open to the potential in anthropomorphism, and that closing down discussions, even when they are based on efforts to point out the limitations of human knowledge, leads to a sometimes inadvertent, sometimes wilful, ignorance of animality. (2015, p. 39)

1  As humans are animals, I will use the terminology ‘human’ or ‘human animal’ to describe the former; and for non-human forms, I will use ‘other animal’ or ‘non-human animal’.

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If we refuse to acknowledge at all that other animals can think and feel because of their difference, at best we reduce them to a set of behaviours that demeans their complexity or at worse alienate them from human concerns. This leads Marc Bekoff to declare, if ‘we decide against using anthropomorphic language, we might as well pack up and go home because we have no alternatives’ (2007, p. 124). Instead, humans need to: recognise and agree that animals and humans share many traits, including emotions. Thus, we are not inserting something human into animals, but we’re identifying commonalities and then using human language to communicate what we observe […] carefully, consciously, empathetically, and biocentrically. (p. 125)

Bekoff is speaking as a scientist, but this also pertains in literary analysis when stories feature non-human animals or in some cases are told by a non-human character. Ryan suggests that: Literary fiction provides an ideal form to consider the pitfalls and potential of anthropomorphism. Reading animals in fiction demands interpretative strategies that are attentive to different uses of language and the multiple meanings that can be attached to words. (2015, p. 41)

In Ryan’s view, for example, the metaphorical use of ‘as if’ when humans encounter non-human animals in fiction, creates a gap within the anthropomorphic use of language. It draws attention to it as anthropomorphism but ‘as an imaginative possibility rather than a certain judgement’ which ‘need not signal appropriation of the animal but might allow for a subtle, careful speculation about nonhuman experience’ (pp. 43–44). This formulation is found in Hall’s story ‘Mrs Fox’ where a man tries to understand what his wife—transformed into a fox—is trying to communicate to him: ‘She cocks her head, as if giving him licence to speak. But no, he must not think this way’ (2017, p. 23; my italics). Alongside the ‘as if’ formulation, the man also reminds himself—and the readers—to be wary of interpreting her body language within a human frame of reference. Oyeyemi takes a more knowing approach in ‘some foxes’: twice the narrator notes that the fox ‘appeared to be smiling, but that was just a meaningless expression created by the look of his muzzle’ (2011b, pp. 266, 270). Both authors clearly are aware of the pitfalls of anthropomorphism, but how does this relate in texts where the human and nonhuman other are enmeshed via metamorphosis?

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Choices over narrative point of view are significant when it comes to voicing character. Even though it is the woman’s metamorphosis that drives the narrative in ‘Mrs Fox’, the narrative is in the third person and focalised through the husband. When she was in human form, he had found his wife ‘in part unknowable as all clever women are’ (Hall 2017, p. 3), bringing a gender dimension to the transformation but also indicating that in her fox-form his inability to communicate with her is not significantly different. Similarly, in Johnson’s ‘Starver’, the narrative is told in first person by Katy’s sister, Suze, who witnesses her transformation into an eel. Suze does not question or speculate about her sister’s decision to stop eating leaving the reader unclear about Katy’s motivation. Presenting the non-human animal as unknowable is a way of avoiding anthropomorphism, but it also refuses to ‘think one’s way into truly other minds’ (Daston 2005, p.  38). By trying to prevent anthropomorphism, these texts also seem to fall into androcentrism with its unknowable women. Whilst this is problematic, the narrators reflect the readers’ humanity when encountering a non-human other and highlight the challenges of anthropocentrism that resists connection between the human and the natural world.

Metamorphosis In anthropocentric terms, anthropomorphism is a metaphor; and this is also how Asker defines metamorphosis. It is a way of ‘seeing the human in the animal and vice versa’ (Asker 2001, p. 2) and the purpose of metamorphosis is ‘to lay bare human flaws and shortcomings by juxtaposing and intermixing human and animal qualities’ (Asker 1983, p.  191). Asker’s concerns are psychoanalytical, so the use of metamorphosis—either zoomorphism or anthropomorphism—in a fictional text acts as a metaphor, or even a fantasy, to describe the hidden impulses that lurk within the human being (1983, p. 183). Whilst the idea of metaphor embeds anthropocentrism, ‘fantasy’ has more scope to produce a non-metaphorical idea of metamorphosis connected with the material processes that occur in the natural world such as the holometabolism (or complete metamorphosis) that changes a caterpillar to a butterfly. Asker observes that fantasy and science are opposed in Western discourse, so stories of metamorphosis are viewed as only for children and fantasists; something that is outgrown, replaced by a scientific formulation of evolution and natural hierarchy that places humans at the pinnacle of a

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‘final’ evolutionary process (2001, p. 3). However, Asker states that ‘science and art strive in different ways to do the same thing: represent and interpret the world’ (2001, p. 5), breaking down the boundaries between an imagined transformation and an observed natural phenomenon. I suggest that metamorphosis, as it is represented in the short stories under discussion, might be described more accurately as fabulation. Brian Stableford (citing Robert Scholes’ discussion in The Fabulators [1967]) states that fabulation is defined as ‘“ethically constrained fantasy” or “didactic romance” […] by virtue of its acute consciousness of its own artifice’ (2009, p. 138). The use of metamorphosis in these fictions is not primarily metaphorical, nor fantasy but an imaginative way of connecting with reality. As jan jagodzinski describes it, they are ‘creative responses that can fabulate aesthetic imaginaries […] that address the […] Anthropocene and the ever changing modulating ecologies’ (2018, p. ii). This aligns with Haraway’s notion of a ‘figure’ which entangles the real with the imagined (2008, p. 4). Metamorphosis is a figurative device that breaks down difference between the human and the animal to dislodge the idea that humans are at the top of the animal hierarchy. In metamorphosis, the boundaries between animal forms are blurred suggesting a more heterarchical worldview, where authority and power are distributed more equally and flexibly across a network of relations. For jagodzinski, the challenge to anthropocentrism comes from an: understanding of the Anthropocene as a necessary (present) juncture for the re-evaluation of our species-becoming, especially now it is known that technological modifications can lead to our species extinction, to the extinction of other species […] through our own doing, all related to the widely discussed sixth extinction event of the present. (2018, pp. 16–17; italics in original)

The narratives in these short fictions reappraise human-ness within the Anthropocentric era by using metamorphosis to challenge the borders that separate humanity from the rest of the world. The stories confront anthropocentrism by showing that human forms are not the fixed, unalterable bodies that we assume. By emphasising their changeability, the capacity of humans to control and utilise their environment for their own gain is destabilised. The examples from the short stories fit broadly into three categories of metamorphosis: incipient forms; complete transformations; and liminal states. In the first group, metamorphosis is incomplete but the texts hint

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at the potential of change. In Hall’s ‘Bees’ (2011), the female narrator feels she is ‘a loose pink sack of human being’ (2011, p. 70). The female protagonist in ‘M’ (also by Hall), becomes ‘boneless material, a sack of herself’ (2019, p. 10) before finally mastering her transformations between woman and harpy. Both descriptions evoke the pupal stage of holometabolism where the creature’s body dissolves within the ‘sack’ of their chrysalis. It implies the possibility of a reformation into something else; something that may no longer be human as happens in ‘M’. A different dispersal of self occurs in Okojie’s ‘Kookaburra Sweet’. Having been given liquorice sweets by a man she meets at an airport, Kara finds that subsequently, ‘she had transformed into liquorice, a black, sweet liquorice woman, a liquorice sweet black woman, bendy, stretchy, adaptable in harsh conditions, resplendent and irrepressible’ (Okojie 2019, p. 14). Later in the text, her body parts start to separate, dispersing into her surroundings. However, at the point of her first transformation, she recognises that she is ‘herself but something different’ (p.  14). Initially, that difference is about flexibility of the female form facing the various ‘harsh conditions’ (p. 14) of all three stories. In the second group of examples, the transformation to another bodily form is completed. ‘Starver’ links Katy’s transformation into an eel to an ecological concern: the permanent drainage of the Fens to exploit the fertile soil for human farming activity. This destroys the eels’ habitat and allows them to be caught in vast numbers. Stored in vats, it is hoped that they will provide food for the workers engaged in the land reclamation project. However, the eels will not eat and so cannot be kept long term as a food source. In a too common image of humans’ wasteful practices, because there are ‘too many eels and not enough men […] They burnt the eels they could not eat in piles, stood watching’ (Johnson 2016, p. 3). The eels refuse exploitation, and similarly, Katy’s decision that ‘she wasn’t going to eat anymore’ (p. 4) can be linked to her own sexual exploitation (discussed further below), which is the trigger for her transformation. Food and transformation are also linked in ‘Mrs Fox’. Sophia transforms into a fox after days of vomiting and being unable to eat. The narrative is focalised through her husband, and he notes that, in her fox form, her interest in eating returns now she is ‘purg[ed] of the disease of being human’ (Hall 2017, p. 12). However, she refuses the ‘inoffensive dishes’ of milk and bread or cooked chicken that he tries to feed her; and the dog food is rejected (p.  17). Ultimately, he realises ‘in this terrible arrangement, it is he who is not adjusting; he who is failing their relationship’

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(p.  18). Once he gives her live prey, she will eat, and with this he feels ‘ashamed. That she could ever, even before this, be his pet’ (p. 18). In a fundamental shift in his understanding, he realises that the relationship between human and non-human animal should not be about control or exploitation. The women’s transformed bodies might be read as a metaphor for the exploitation of women who are only able to escape by sacrificing their humanity. For me, this interpretation fails to understand how women’s bodies already occupy a liminal space as they are designated as not quite human within Enlightenment ideas of mankind. These more liminal spaces challenge, for example, the influential ideas of René Descartes on Western thought where the ‘lines drawn by Descartes [between “man” and “animal”] are firm and clear’ (Ryan 2015, p. 7). In Descartes’ view, animals have no reason, and no mind therefore, ‘caught up in this split between the immortal soul of man and the automated functions of the body, the animal is trapped in a definition of all that the human is not’ (Ryan 2015, p.  7). However, as Ryan suggests, ‘what really creates the species barrier is not simply some unbridgeable difference between (our) humanity and (their) animality but rather the nature of the encounter itself’ (p.  4). The willed transformations to eel or fox acknowledge the power of occupying a liminal space where bodily meanings are not fixed. In fact, female-form metamorphosis in these stories is less a shift from one fixed form to another than recognising that borders are always in flux. Rather than being defined in relation to Man, the transformed woman is a metonym for a human encounter with the natural world that shifts away from anthropocentrism. In ‘M’, the transformation of the protagonist into a harpy-like creature is reversable, indicating how she holds the two forms within her rather than shifting over a fixed human/non-human divide. She moves between a human woman in the day and an avenging harpy at night, until the initially painful and slow transition becomes ‘painless now, a habit’ (Hall 2019, p. 17). Her ability to move between forms destabilises a sense of a true species identity. Anthropocentrically, the assumption would be that the human form is the real one but ‘M’ and ‘Mrs Fox’ challenge that supposition. In ‘Mrs Fox’, the fox/wife ‘dreams subterranean dreams, of forests, dark corridors and burrows, roots and earth’ (Hall 2017, p.  3) suggesting she might be equally a fox in human form. In ‘M’ the transformation is an ‘unzipping. […] Tick, tick, tick, across the abdomen, as if sutures are being unstrung’ (Hall 2019, p. 7). The harpy form emerges as

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if it has always been inside the woman. As the ‘sack’, the body merely holds the cells that will restructure into different forms. Starting slowly, eventually she leaves behind a ‘heap of flesh […] defecation of an old self’ (p.  12) like a discarded chrysalis. Increasingly, ‘in the mornings her [human] body begins to seem less true’ (p. 15) but her new form is not a different coherent self. She describes herself as ‘a creature unwhole’ (p. 19) blurring the boundaries that separate defined species into something less fixed. The third set of examples evokes a sense of being in-between, and in both The Grassling and Oyeyemi’s ‘is your blood as red as this?’, the transforming figures remain in blurred forms. The Grassling figure ‘pushes up from the soil’ with potentially human parts slowly emerging: ‘nose, lips, chin […]. Shoulders, breasts, back […]. Thighs, heels, the back of the neck’ (Burnett 2019, p. 91). But it is not human. What is born from the soil moves like an animal but is akin to a plant, living in and on the soil with ‘thin starch-storing veins. At its heart, a star: the xylem; and the phloem lies between the points of the star’ (p. 96). How far this figure is connected to the human narrator in other parts of the text is uncertain. However, by Section Two, she is tending towards unravelling, as ‘the separation that guards the self is dissolving as I am walking. I feel that the ways people unravel are tiny. And seem tinier in cities. In rooms. […]. Let’s unravel in big ways. In big dark. In big tree. In big, dark, bark’ (p. 97). Dispersal links her to her human ancestors who would have occupied this ground and are now absorbed into the natural landscape. Her father is terminally ill, moving to join those ancestors and her call to ‘unravel in big ways’ looks forward to his escape from his confined sick room into the natural world via the undoing of death. The Grassling can be understood as the narrator’s unravelling self: ‘I feel my internal circuitry change: I am plant as well as animal. My blood transports oxygen; my chlorophyll produces it. […]. I am grass made flesh. Grassling’ (p. 148). She understands she is transforming, reaching towards an alternate state of being in the world. The text asks: What is it the Grassling leaves here? That awful earthly clinging, that desperate human need to say ‘mine’ and fence in what was never yours to fence. But I had the joy of coming near—that is what I had—and that is what does not end. Perhaps, if anything, it is even closer, when you realize there is no possession, only ever drawing near. (p. 186)

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Whilst this relates to her mourning for her father, it also speaks to an environmental need to understand that the earth does not belong to humanity. Other sections of the text have explored the historical enclosing of land as fields but also the ways that the soil infrastructure cannot be bounded. The Grassling, in its liminal state, symbolises an unfencing. In ‘is your blood as red as this?’ figures blur between human and tree. The story revolves around a school for puppetry which seems less to teach humans how to manipulate puppets than to show them how to perform together. One student auditions for a place at the school with a puppet called Gepetta who tells her, ‘Simply translate what I say. I will speak; don’t worry about the controls, I will match your posture’ (Oyeyemi 2016, p. 95; italics in original). Gepetta explains that she is ‘living’ and was turned from human form to puppet when she was dying from plague. The puppets she maintained and mended all donated a part to make her a puppet body as her human form died. Rowan is the other sentient puppet in the text who started life as a carved ‘wooden devil’ guarding a grave (p. 114). Her/his ‘slight and vague’ (p. 115) sentience expands when s/he is touched by the puppet master’s daughter, Myrna. For both Gepetta and Rowan, the connection between humans and trees is key to their transformations although they remain cynical about humanities’ determination to exploit the natural recourses around them. Rowan has ‘retained the opinions of trees: one of them being that it was best not to have anything to do with human folk’ whose main connection with trees is to cut them down (p. 114). Oyeyemi’s text however opens the possibility of a different relationship between humans and their environment as the Grassling figure does in Burnett’s texts. Gepetta mourns her human body. She is envious of Rowan as: ‘He breathes; I do not’ (p. 106). Breathing connects Rowan to a category of living things (animals and plants respire) whilst she feels more like a dead piece of wood. She understands that the puppets who gave her a form, ‘thought they were helping; instead they turned motion and intelligible speech into a currency with which personhood is earned’ (p. 106). Whereas before her humanity was given, now, despite having a human form, she has to constantly assert her right for her selfhood to be given consideration (p. 106) by proving that she can move and speak like a human. This makes her feel more other as she can only ever be nearly human in those terms without acceptance in her own right. The separation of humans from non-human animals on the basis that they can speak is reminiscent of Descartes, but recent research into woodlands has revealed a complex communication system between individual trees known as the ‘wood wide

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web’ (Macfarlane 2019, p. 90). Recognising that other species can communicate in sophisticated ways has the potential to dislodge the human sense of species superiority based on anthropocentric assumptions only humans have a self-consciousness because they have speech. Understanding trees to be more like us fosters Burnett’s ‘drawing near’; important in promoting an economy like the forest’s ‘from a fierce free market to something more like a community with a socialist system of resource redistribution’ (Macfarlane 2019, p. 90) with less emphasis on what is mine. Whilst Gepetta is frustrated, feeling she lost her humanity and now must compete with humans on human terms, the human-plant connections in the text suggest a possibility of mutuality. In fact, for Myrna, the presence of non-human others draws her into the community. She is afflicted by a condition that prevents her feeling human touch but when other humans touch her, their pain is ‘dismantled’; this ‘twisted her relationships [with other humans] beyond imagining’ (Oyeyemi 2016, p.  110). Myrna knows Rowan is not human even though s/he is ‘a puppet built to human scale’ (p. 105), so she is happy to touch her/him in the graveyard. When she leaves her house keys in the graveyard, Rowan decides to return them having been ‘intensely aware of the arm that Myrna had casually flung around her shoulders, as if they were friends’ (p. 116). Myrna finds Rowan under her bed, and ‘reached for Rowan again, touched her wooden wrist, and felt something like a pulse flicker through it—she feared it would be hard to go on without it any more’ (p. 116). Myrna can feel the humanish figure and their wooden nature means they do not have fleshy pains to heal. The metaphorical nature of her/his pulse—as if s/he has one—gives Myrna the connection to a sentient being that she craves. She no longer feels like she is ‘living with hallucinations’ (p. 109). That connection pulls the puppets and the humans into a shared space within the narrative and implies a network of connections from the animal to the plant, stretching to include inanimate forms like wood.

Gender Frequently, these short stories show an environmental sensibility in keeping with predominant concerns of the twenty-first century. However, the femaleness of the metamorphosised bodies cannot be ignored, as discussed above. Read via gender, the stories either transcend fixed gendered identities, or they explore how women’s already othered, and sexually exploited

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bodies, enable an escape further into that liminal territory occupied by the non/not completely-human. The puppets in ‘is your blood as red as this?’ are not human but not entirely something other either. Human in form, but not human, they do not have to be male or female or any of the other gender identities that have multiplied during the twenty-first century. As Gepetta started her existence as a human woman, she chooses to retain a female identity, but Rowan is androgenous in appearance and sexless. Gepetta sees Rowan as male; for Myrna, Rowan is female. Asked about gender, Rowan says ‘take your pick. I’m mostly tree, though’ (Oyeyemi 2016, p. 105). As a plant-based sentience, gender is irrelevant to Rowan and her/his—or maybe ‘its’ or ‘their’—attitude exposes it as a human construct with its concomitant language forms that bound identity. Other stories explore liminality as occupying a state of being outside social norms (as described by anthropologists in relation to the temporary liminality of initiation rites). Patriarchal society polices a normal femaleness and femininity predicated on women’s otherness to Man but these short fictions tell stories of women escaping social norms and male control through metamorphosis. In ‘Kookaburra Sweet’, the respite is temporary. The liquorice sweets Kara eats trigger a metamorphosis into a liquorice woman, but the form soon disintegrates. Before her transformation, she had been damaged, ‘broken’ by a man she went to meet in Sydney (Okojie 2019, p. 14). The sweets she takes from an apparently sympathetic, male stranger at the airport—something every child is warned not to do—ultimately exacerbates the damage. Staff from ‘Sugar Mountain sweet shop […] rushed out carrying a jar each to catch bits of Kara’s body’ (p. 16) and a man ‘caught her vagina, sucking on it, the nectar of a goddess’ (p. 17). Her body has returned into parts that can be exploited commercially and sexually. A distinction can be made, however, between imposed metamorphoses, and those that are willed and reclaim the othered female space to own it. Sarah Crown notes in her review of Fen, that Johnson’s short stories do just that: By drawing parallels between the state of femaleness and the fens, [Johnson] reclaims the tired cliches of women as fluid, changeable, governed by mysterious tides and turns them on their head. In a liminal land where boundaries are unreliable and endlessly shifting, her women fit right in. (2016)

The changing female bodies have power within that landscape because they already occupy the borderlands. Johnson’s story ‘Starver’ suggests

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that Katy’s desire to transform is rooted in her increasing understanding that, as she matures, she will face sexual exploitation. Her transformation is accelerated after a sexual encounter at a party. When the boy carries her out of the bedroom, she is naked and her ‘spine was now a great, solid ridge, rising from the mottled skin of her back; the webbing between her fingers had grown almost past the knuckles and was thickening. Her face had changed too, her nose flattening out, nostrils thinning to lines’ (Johnson 2016, p. 116). Her escape from humanity into the water courses of the Fens removes her from the troubling sexualities that permeate the stories. As Crown notes, ‘Johnson’s protagonists are all female, and mostly young: women who are either in the process of transitioning from girlhood to womanhood, or recently graduated and exploring the powers it [womanhood] bestows on them’ (2016). In ‘Starver’, womanhood seems to be a liability rather than a power, and one which Katy can escape by slipping away from a body patriarchally defined as male-owned, into a different form. Similarly, in Hall’s ‘Mrs Fox’ and ‘M’, crossing over into non-human forms sheds the sexually exploitable body. The husband in ‘Mrs Fox’ is overtly sexually focused on his wife: ‘he rouses’ when she gets home from work, gazing at her taking off her coat and shoes, at the ‘hollow of her throat’, and watching her ‘waist and hips in the blue skirt’ as she moves around the house (Hall 2017, p. 1). Without the woman’s point of view, it is not clear what motivates her transformation. In Hall’s ‘M’, instead, sexual violence is at the core of the change. When she is left overnight with a male neighbour as a child, he rapes her and verbally terrorises her, saying: ‘I’ll fuck you till you come apart’ (Hall 2019, p. 11; italics in original). That night, with the threat that ‘We’ll do that again tomorrow’ (p. 16; italics in original) hanging over her, she ‘entered her own imagination, a cystic universe, grown by adolescent rage and disgrace; she is waiting for someone to come and help, waiting for herself’ (p. 16). Years later, she becomes that someone when the thing she imagines breaks out into reality. Her new form cannot be abused as it leaves behind her vagina in the flesh she discards in her transformation. Separated in this way, the ‘hole with all its laws and allure, [is] simply a fistula in meat’ (p.  12). Metamorphosis allows women to escape a society that legislates their bodies based on them having a vagina and a womb, and where their vagina is constructed as an invitation for penetration.

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Conclusions Stories matter in cultural change, and the twenty-first-century short stories by Hall, Johnson, Okojie, and Oyeyemi examined in this chapter offer to readers the idea that humanity can change how they occupy the world. By suggesting that human women occupy a borderland somewhere between the human, the natural world, and an imagined reality, these writers destabilise the ‘philosophical roots of ontological thought in the western world […] grounded in an anthropocentrism of a world-for-us’ (jagodzinski 2018, p.  16). Although the stories fabulate, the metamorphoses in them are connected to real, natural processes avoiding the metaphorical in order to remake human bodies. Importantly, the texts emphasise the transformation as deliberate on the part of those who change. As the husband in ‘Mrs Fox’ notes, his wife’s transformation is ‘an act of will’ (Hall 2017, p. 16) and, even though the other metamorphoses are not always clearly a product of personal choice, they are not imposed (with the exception of ‘Kookaburra Sweet’) as, for example, many of the classic transfigurations found in Ovid are. The effort of a willed transformation is illustrated in Oyeyemi’s ‘some foxes’, part II. A dog fox wants to communicate with a woman who saved him from being shot. Though it takes many years of effort, he learns to use human language and then ‘applied himself to living as the woman lived’ (Oyeyemi 2011b, p. 276). Overtime, he becomes less fox-like and more human—not a transformation across fixed species boundaries but a figure occupying the space between. Unlike the other stories considered in this chapter, this is a non-­ human animal to human animal transformation; it is also male. However, the metamorphosis similarly takes will, effort, and time, and it moves the scale of fabulation further towards reality by showing the process of learning to think into another mind, as Lorraine Daston suggests (2005). The fox is driven by love, an emotion that connects us more widely to the splendour of the world outside of ourselves. In a moment of sublimity, the husband in ‘Mrs Fox’ realises simultaneously that he will never get back his wife, and that it is the fox he most values. Before her transformation, he ‘suffers vertiginous fear [when he] imagines losing her’ (Hall 2017, p. 3), but now: ‘he thinks of the fox, in her blaze, in her magnificence. It is she who quarters his mind, she whose absence strikes fear into his heart. Her loss would be unendurable […] how could life mean anything without his unbelonging wife’ (p. 28).

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All the texts examined here remind us that it is nothing to be human if we lose everything around us; that to be human is to be embedded within the world, affected by, and responding to it, not controlling it for our own human needs. Metamorphosis suggests that humans need to be reducing the borders fixed by hierarchical thinking and connect heterarchically to the world as equals across them.

References Asker, D.B.D. 1983. Vixens and values: The modern metamorphoses of Garnett and Vercors. The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 10 (2): 182–191. ———. 2001. Aspects of metamorphosis: Fictional representations of the becoming human. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GE: Rodopi. Aughterson, Kate, and Deborah Philips. 2021. Introduction. In Women writers and experimental narratives: Early modern to contemporary, 1–20. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Bekoff, Marc. 2007. The emotional lives of animals: A leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy—and why they matter. Novato, CA: New World Library. Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. 2016. An introduction to literature, criticism and theory. 5th ed. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge. Bergmann, Ina. 2017. Nature, liminality, and the short story: An analytical triad. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 24 (3): 477–481. Braidotti, Rosi. 2019. Posthuman knowledge. Cambridge: Polity. Burnett, Elizabeth-Jane. 2019. The grassling. London: Allen Lane. Carter, Angela. 1979. The bloody chamber and other stories. London: Gollancz. Crown, Sarah. 2016. Fen by Daisy Johnson review—An impressive first collection. The Guardian, June 18. Accessed 24 July 2022. https://www.theguardian. com/books/2016/jun/18/fen-­by-­daisy-­johnson-­r eview-­impressive-­first-­ collection-­short-­stories. Daston, Lorraine. 2005. Intelligences: Angelic, animal, human. In Thinking with animals: New perspectives on anthropomorphism, ed. Lorraine Daston and Gregg Mitman, 37–58. New York: Columbia University Press. Ditter, Julia. 2019. Human into animal: Post-anthropomorphic transformations in Sarah Hall’s ‘Mrs Fox’. In Borders and border crossings in the contemporary British short story, ed. B. Korte and L.M. Lojo-Rodríguez, 187–204. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­ 30359-­4. Hall, Sarah. 2011. Bees. In The beautiful indifference, 68–86. London: Faber and Faber. ———. 2017. Mrs Fox. In Madame zero, 1–28. London: Faber and Faber.

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———. 2019. M. In Sudden traveller, pp. 5–19. London: Bloomsbury. Haraway, Donna J. 2008. When species meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. jagodzinski, jan. 2018. Introduction: Interrogating the anthropocene. In Interrogating the anthropocene: Ecology, aesthetics, pedagogy, and the future in question, ed. jan jagogzinski, 1–71. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, Daisy. 2016. Starver. In Fen, 1–14. London: Vintage. Lee, Jessica J. n.d. Fresh voices in nature writing. Five books: The best books on everything. Accessed 15 July 2022. https://fivebooks.com/best-­books/fresh­voices-­in-­nature-­writing-­jessica-­j-­lee/. Macfarlane, Robert. 2019. Underland: A deep time journey. London: Hamish Hamilton. March-Russell, Paul. 2009. The short story: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Okojie, Irenosen. 2019. Kookaburra sweet. In Nudibranch, 10–17. London: Dialogue Books. Oyeyemi, Helen. 2011a. Mr Fox. London: Picador. ———. 2011b. Some foxes. In Mr Fox, 262–277. London: Picador. ———. 2016. Is your blood as red as this? In What is not yours is not yours, 78–124. London: Picador. Ryan, Derek. 2015. Animal theory: A critical introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Stableford, Brian. 2009. The A-Z of fantasy literature. Plymouth: Scarecrow Press.

CHAPTER 10

‘This particular art [is] all about walls’: Nomadic Poetics of Identity in Ali Smith’s How to be both Claudia Capancioni

Nomadic Poetics of Identity Since the beginning of her career, the Scottish writer Ali Smith has aimed to transform categories of gender and literary genre and questioned concepts of the normative, the intelligible, and the human by experimenting with language and form, the boundaries of literature, and its poietic aptness to capture, in Daniel Lea’s words, ‘the difficult work of being human’ (2018, p. 396). Her writing tackles inadequate humanist concepts of subjectivities rooted in limiting and redundant binary oppositions that remain dominant in institutional, political, technological, and publishing systems. Autumn (2016), Winter (2017), Spring (2019), and Summer (2020), for instance, are four novels published singularly and simultaneously interconnected. Companion piece (2022) is also both a stand-alone novel and a subsequent fifth part to the seasonal quartet. Engaging with national and

C. Capancioni (*) Department of English, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_10

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global current affairs, these novels deal with the contemporary world through multiple central characters who create encounters across time and space, if read as an ensemble. Furthermore, they expand the boundaries of the novel form by interspersing lyrics and rhythms of popular songs and ekphrastic descriptions within narratives that break with punctuation and typographic genre conventions and are accompanied by epigraphs inspired by literature, philosophy, and the media, and by reproductions of artworks by visual artists such as Pauline Boty and Barbara Hepworth.1 Moreover, landscapes by David Hockney on their covers announce their innovative reach across artistic methods. By interrogating the nature of categorising margins, as Monica Germanà remarks, Smith’s writing ‘frequently challenge[s]’ (2017, p.  99) the boundaries between the real and the imagined through innovative literary experiments that cross disciplinary borders in pursuit of a new poetics of identity that is transitive and combinatory, conjunctive and transitional, and grounded on difference as a generative stimulus for transition and meaning. As Stephen Clingman writes, ‘difference is not the barrier but the space of crossing, where navigation is essential to the story we wish to become’ (2012, p. 241). This chapter studies Smith’s earlier novel, How to be both (2014), to demonstrate her writing’s ability to affirm the value of the novel form in rethinking being human through difference and borders as spaces of encounter and exchange. Through the wall motif, this text builds on the porous qualities of boundaries without forgetting the divisive politics that dividing walls, such the one that separates Israel and the West Bank, still represent, or the increasingly pressing global questions of migration. Her seasonal quartet championed her top position in the Times Literary Supplement’s 2018 ranking of the best British or Irish novelists writing today. Nevertheless, it was her 2014 novel that brought into the spotlight her powerful commitment to experimenting with the boundaries of literature2 and prompted Merritt Moseley to announce, in 2015, that Smith was ‘probably the most original voice in fiction of her generation’ (p. 287). This novel maximises the duality asserted in the title not only through innovative narrative techniques but also formal experimentation that asserts the poietic capacity of fiction through the act 1  Boty’s ‘The Only Blonde in the World’ (1963) and Hepworth’s ‘Winter Solstice’ (1971) are reproduced on the last page of Autumn and Winter, respectively. 2  It received the 2014 Costa Novel Award, the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize, and the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

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of reading. All readers of How to be both read a two-part novel, but they may not read the same story because their version may differ. Their first encounter with the two narratives varies because its parts are interchangeable, and both can be placed at the beginning of the novel. Readers come across either of them by chance or, if they have the e-book edition, they choose the part with which to start.3 The narratives are very different, but the readers have no obvious way of prioritising one over the other: the parts have the same numerical title, ‘one’, and almost the same number of pages. This device ensures the act of reading is essential to envisioning the collective dimension of the novel, whose parts work both as separate units and an assemblage. One part is a third-person narrative focusing on a teenager named Georgia who prefers to be identified as George. The text refers to George as she. Her story is set in the present day and begins between New Year’s Eve 2013 and New Year’s day 2014, when she attempts to decide on her resolutions for the new year and remembers her mother, who died in September. As she copes with grief, she falls in love with H., a classmate whose name is Helena. Also set in present-day England, the other part is the first-person narrative of the ghost of an unnamed female artist who, in fifteenth-century Italy, lived as a man to create her identity as the painter Francescho del Cossa.4 Smith’s narrative gifts the Italian Renaissance painter Francesco del Cossa, about whom little is known, with a past and an afterlife as a woman whose ghost is ‘attached’ to George by means of ‘a rope [that] has circled [her] and cannot be unknotted’ (2015, p. 224) or communicate with her because George cannot see or hear her. In her new purgatorial existence, like Dante’s Virgil, Francescho thinks she is tasked with helping George; however, as she accompanies George, her narrative is taken over by her own memories. The dissimilarities between these two 3  When the hardcopy firstly appeared in 2014, the two versions were published in equal numbers to facilitate readers’ accidental purchase of either. The first time I read How to be both, my material copy started with George’s story, establishing a first, immediate reaction to the novel through it. 4  This is the spelling Smith uses to distinguish her novel’s historical figure from Francesco del Cossa (c.1436–1477/8), whose work inspired her character and is reproduced through the ekphrastic mode and visual paratexts. The consonant h creates a subtle and significant difference; however, one of the novel’s epigraphs cites from Cossa’s only archival document, a letter that testifies to his commission for the Hall of the Months in Palazzo Schifanoia, showing how the fifteenth-century painter also spelt his first name with an h. This consonant also links Francescho to Helena, who likes to be called by her initial. I will refer to Francescho as she.

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parts are signalled visually: George’s narrative is symbolised by the image of a surveillance camera and Francescho’s by the reproduction of the eyes of Saint Lucy from a fifteenth-century altarpiece by Francesco del Cossa, whose work and fictionalised life are essential to both parts. The e-book alludes more to the two parts’ distinctiveness because it points out that there are two versions of the novel depending on the order of the parts one chooses. Furthermore, it refers to the parts as EYES and CAMERA, signalling how these images, devised by the British artist Sarah Wood, symbolise the importance of the means and points of observation in the narratives. Led to a divide from both parts, readers must discover the permeability of the border that appears to separate them and how to tell one story in multiple ways. This chapter contends that How to be both best demonstrates how Smith’s writing reclaims borders as liminal, magical spaces where paradigms interrelate overlying identities, pasts, and stories. This novel, it argues, is an experiment with a new poetics of identity that, influenced by Rosi Braidotti’s work on nomadic subjectivity (1994) and nomadic theory (2011), I define as nomadic, for it resists ‘settling into socially coded modes of thought and behaviour’ (Braidotti 1994, p. 5). It trials a nomadic poetics that envisions the complexity, dynamism, and connectedness of being human, and ‘actualize[s] a nomadology that instills movement and mobility at the heart of’ (Braidotti 2011, p.  1) reading. Braidotti explains that: Thinking is about tracing lines of flight and zigzagging patterns that undo dominant representations. Dynamic and outward bound, nomadic thought undoes the static authority of the past and redefines memory as the faculty that decodes residual traces of half-effaced presences; it retrieves archives of leftover sensations and accesses afterthoughts, flashbacks, and mnemonic traces. (2011, p. 2)

Like nomadic thinkers, readers of How to be both create cartographies to navigate the divide between George’s and Francescho’s stories. They shape spaces that are nonunitary but fluid, shifting, and relational, and ‘in perpetual motion in a continuous present’ (Braidotti 2011, p. 2), by figuring out geographical and temporal trajectories, and sensory traces, which they connect by means of their diverse linguistic, artistic, and cultural associations. Smith’s novel can be understood as an instance of nomadic

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thinking or, to echo Francescho’s narrative, of making and unmaking the novel both. In Artful (2012), another genre-crossing text, Smith reflects on the polysemantic possibilities of the word ‘edge’ contemplating how ‘there’s an edge in every meeting, between every thing about to come together with something beyond’ (p. 126). As geographical lines, edges are borders defined by national and territorial identity, but ‘on the border of things’ she also perceives the presence of magic ‘a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it’ (p.  126). Applying a topological approach, Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson conceive border as method, ‘a strategic angle on actually existing global processes’ (2012, p. 58) that highlight the instability of borders as markers of stable maps or taxonomies. For borders are also sites of connection, exchange, and negotiation. As an epistemological device, border as method can trace a cartography of processes within which borders are modifiable, shifting, and changing. In How to be both, the border is a poietic space of transition and metamorphosis, a devise through which the boundaries of the novel form are pushed further by intersecting literature with visual arts, music, and technology. It is an epistemological device that is captured in both narratives through the wall. Between the two narratives, Smith embeds a divide that fragments the novel’s diegesis: one part is suspended as another begins seemingly unconnected, even if the sequence of their page numbering is not interrupted. To read them as a novel, readers must discover the porosity of the wall between them and negotiate the spaces in between the bricks. Like Francescho, who is ‘fished through a / 6 foot thick wall made of bricks’ (Smith 2015, p. 189), they need to go through a wall to generate cartographies of traces, patterns, and repetitions to navigate the liminal space in between to connect and intersect them. As Cara Lewis observes, Smith’s How to be both ‘constantly reminds us that walls—[…]—are vulnerable, porous, material objects with significant depth’ (2019, p.  137). This chapter focuses on the wall motif, which Lewis briefly acknowledges, to show how Smith’s wall is not a fixed marker of accepted dualisms, but it is indeed porous, permeable, and collapsing. It is a location where ‘identity takes place in between nature/technology, male/female, black/white, local/global, present/past—in the places that flow and connect such seeming binaries’ (Braidotti 2011, p. 217). Thus, it actualises in-between spaces where ‘a nonunitary and multilayered vision of identity’ (p. 254) is generated. In this novel, there are walls made of bricks that delimit a town such as Ferrara in Italy or private properties.

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Helena’s choice of Bethlehem’s ‘massive blank concrete wall in the sun’ (Smith 2015, p. 75) as the subject for the school’s Christmas card reminds us of how some nation states still use it as a means of distinction, protection, separation, and exclusion. Walls also claim their possibilities as the surface of frescoes and sites of encounter, exchange, and dialogue both in Renaissance Italy and contemporary Britain. Furthermore, they are places of encounters where friends meet in-between and liminal spaces where different dimensions connect. To examine the multidimensional potential of the wall as an epistemological literary device, this chapter addresses first the palimpsestuous quality of the wall motif and then assesses its capacity as a literary experiment on border as method to create a dynamic cartography that questions the linearity of time, prose, and diegesis. It demonstrates ‘that the definition of identities takes place […] in the spaces that flow and connect in between’ (Braidotti 2011, p. 14) categories. The wall, it argues, is a means of experimenting with creativity for George, Francescho, and the readers. It is a literary device to rethink the boundaries of the novel form and of gender identity.

By the Edge of a Wall: Moral Conundrums and Dilemmas Critics such as Elizabeth Anker (2017), Lewis (2019), Tory Young (2018), and Mary E. McCartney (2022) discuss the palimpsestic structure of How to be both through methods provided by the visual arts and evoked within its two parts to investigate the novel’s ontological dimensions. Through postcritical readings of the lyric and the visual, respectively, Anker and Lewis examine how, as an art novel, How to be both stimulates ‘an almost philosophical meditation’ (Anker 2017, p.  20) on interpreting through seeing and reading, and ‘argues for—and through—a highly pluralized, constantly shifting epistemology of vision’ (Lewis 2019, p.  136). The novel affirms the value of art and literature as transformative devices through thought experiments that originate from a maternal desire to nurture daughters’ power of imagination. George’s mother, Carol, asks her daughter to conceive alternatives by posing her a ‘moral conundrum’ regarding an artist’s right to be remunerated more than other artists who collaboratively contribute to the same overall project: ‘You’re an artist, […]. Humour me. Imagine it. You are an artist’ (Smith 2015, p.  3). Francescho’s mother too encourages her daughter’s creativity through

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dilemmas she creates by withholding the ending of ‘terrifying stories’ (p. 248) of miracles and myths her daughter believes to be unfair and to which she is invited to partake: ‘What do you think? What should he do?’ (p. 247). The emphasis is, in this case, on the generative potential of open-­ ended stories. These provocative questions stimulate both the protagonists and the readers whose imagination is also activated as they simultaneously unfold two distinctive stories and open them up to new possibilities by connecting them actively across borders of time, place, genre, and gender. Like the protagonists, the readers are encouraged to be an artist, to think outside conventions and create alternatives. George’s reminiscences of the last journey with her mother and brother Henry to visit Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy, and look at Francesco del Cossa’s frescoes in the Hall of the Months before her mother’s death are central to her grieving. The last memory she has of her mother is too painful and linked to an instance in which language failed George because her mother ‘could hardly speak’ (p. 66). She is unsure she understood her mother’s words correctly: she believes her mother said either that ‘she was […] an open book’ or ‘an unopen book’ (pp. 66, 67). Recalling their time in Ferrara, instead, brings George back to intimate conversations she remembers clearly; in particular, she returns to their viewing of the Hall of the Months when her mother compared her to Cossa’s frescoes pointing out how they are, in her opinion, ‘A friendly work of art’ (p. 54). George therefore wants to understand what makes art welcoming, approachable, and inclusive to grasp how her mother saw her identity being ‘never sentimental [but] generous [and] sardonic too’ (p. 54). She feels both ‘Guilt and fury’ (pp. 108, 113) because in Ferrara she was not keen to engage with her mother’s conundrum but wanted to know about the artist who painted the frescoes her mother insisted they travelled to see. She wanted facts not visualisations. George was interested in knowing if the artist, whose work she was compared to, was a woman or a man and if women artists could have contributed to the paintings in the Hall of the Months. Her mother confirmed it would have been ‘pretty unlikely’ but also offered a scholarly thesis based on her interpretation of ‘the vaginal shape’ (p. 110) in the image of the astrological decan representing the constellation of Perseus (Sassu 2010) in the frescoes for the month of March, whom she identified as ‘that beautiful worker in the rags’ (Smith 2015, p.  110). Carol had studied history of art and women’s studies and turned, after an academic career, into a political activist who destabilised political and cultural

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contexts as an internet Guerrilla interventionist and a member of Subverts, an online art movement. In Ferrara, she demonstrated how critical theory could reveal pieces of evidence leading to a reading of sexual desire that did not give a definite answer but opened to the possibility for the artist to be both male and female. She encouraged George to go beyond binary categories that assume a mimetic relation of gender to sex and to imagine alternative readings of Cossa’s biography by surmising the artist’s sexuality from the work. Furthermore, she advocated what Sonya Andermahr calls a ‘both/and […] practice that is simultaneously self-consciously aesthetic and political’ (2018, p. 249),5 when George tried to identify the sex of another decan ‘dressed in beautiful rich clothes and holding an arrow or a stick and a gold hoop thing’ (Smith 2015, p. 51). ‘Male, female, both, [Carol] says. Beautiful, all of them, including the sheep’ (p. 52). However, in that moment, George insisted on taxonomies and classification asking: ‘[i]s it happening now or in the past? […]. Is the artist a woman or a man? […]. Past or present? […]. Male of female? It can’t be both. It must be one or the other’ (pp. 7–8). Carol instead stressed how categories have boundaries that can be moved, transformed, by stating that ‘this particular art, artist and conundrum are all about walls, […]. And that’s where I am driving you to’ (p. 8). She wanted her daughter to be daring and on the edge of walls as conceptual boundaries to see beyond their surface, through their layers and appreciate their polysemic qualities, as George already did with language. For this purpose, Carol recounted how, in the nineteenth century, the frescoes were rediscovered underneath the white plaster that concealed them. She also mentioned the letter that, found in 1871 by Fritz von Harck, ascertained that Cossa was the artist who realised the frescoes on the east wall of the Hall of Months. This is also the only historical document that evinces this artist’s life in Renaissance Ferrara. It is a request to the duke Borso d’Este, who commissioned the frescoes, for his work to be remunerated more for it is the sophisticated, superior result of his continuous studies (Di Natale and Sassu 2020; Sassu 2010). Carol wanted to debate the value of experimental art as well as the moral implications of demanding to be rewarded more than the other painters that also decorated the Hall of Months under the management of the polymath 5  Andermahr argues that Smith’s ‘both/and writing practice’ enables her to represent gender ‘as a fluid category allowing women and men, in the realm of art at least, to be both’ (2018, p. 249).

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Pellegrino Prisciani, who is thought to have devised the composition for the multilayered representation of the twelve months of the calendar year in this room, to which Cossa contributed three panels illustrating March, April, and May (Di Natale and Sassu 2020; Sassu 2010). Yet she dismissed their compositional contribution and agreed with her daughter in singling out Cossa’s work and highlighting how sensitive it was to modern aesthetic values. Carol was more fascinated by the palimpsestic quality of fresco painting, whose images are achieved by applying colours on a thin layer of fresh plaster on which underpaintings precede the final frescoes. Carol sees this same quality in the walls of the city of Ferrara and its castle, where the traces of the past can be superimposed to the present layer to generate multiple, transnational, transcultural, and transgenerational versions of the past. This is demonstrated by the walls in their hotel, which used to be Prisciani’s house. They conserve original Renaissance frescoes, which George can touch, and they hold a modern piece of art representing Leon Battista Alberti’s human winged eye which, through Egyptian iconographic influences, symbolises the Renaissance pursuit of knowledge through sight, giving the eye a central position as an intellectual tool. Furthermore, this symbolic image captures the theories Francescho studied: she often refers to ‘the great Alberti’ (Smith 2015, pp. 230, 235). She recalls applying his concepts by prioritising sight as the human sense for an artist’s knowledge. Francescho recounts learning from the experts, such as Piero della Francesca, Giotto, Cennino Cennini, and then challenging them until she found her own way of producing powerful, generative art, like the frescoes that touched George’s mother. As a present-day ghost, however, Francescho has no body and introduces herself as ‘a no eyed painter no one can hear’ (p. 223) who intends to complain about ‘having been shot back into being’ (p.  225) as soon as she discovers to whom to address her letter. She cannot produce art but often talks about the materiality of art. She explains the importance of the tools used by a painter and their quality, how she produced the colours she used, and her ability to work with walls as a surface to narrate a story through images. She is ‘good at walls’ (p.  236) and, in Carol’s and George’s opinion, the frescoes in the Hall of the Months prove it. Her ability is in rendering the layers of bricks, thin plaster, and paint one unique composite, and it comes from learning first in her father’s workshop where, with his sons, he produced the bricks that built the walls of the palaces of the House of Este in Ferrara. Francescho was encouraged by her mother to draw and turned her talent into a profession, or ‘a life beyond

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walls’ (p. 217) as her father puts it, when, after the loss of her mother, she chose to wear her brothers’ clothes and changed her name to be ‘reborn’ (p. 222) as a boy who learnt ‘how to tell a story, but tell it more than one way at once, and tell another underneath it / up-rising through the skin of it’ by successfully painting her ‘own walls’ (p.  237) as the artist, Francescho del Cossa. When it comes to her ‘own walls’, Francescho remembers how she experimented with the ways in which their two-dimensional surface can produce three-dimensional effects to bring ‘the real and the true and the beautiful’ (p. 199) together in one place. In her images, people from her life experiences provide the features for characters in mythological and astrological scenes and portraits of saints. Her ‘pictures cross the border between’ (p. 344) life and death by immortalising those whom she lost, like her parents, and those whose encounters uncovered facets of her identity, such as the women in the ‘house of pleasure’ (p. 238) and ‘the infidel in his white work rags’ (p. 312), whom Carol admires so much. Francescho refers to the Hall of the Months as a collective project to which she contributes three out of the twelve calendar months; however, her narrative is focused on realising the months of Spring she is assigned. Within her monthly panels, she interprets Prisciani’s brief by mixing her colours to the plaster, and real and imaginary figures to tell her story and the story she is commissioned to illustrate, that of Borso d’Este. She does not consider how her frescoes contribute to the Hall of the Months as a composite; how her work connects to that of the other artists involved in the same project and with the same brief, without whom the representation of a year in the life of the city of Ferrara would not be conveyed. She thinks her work stands out and should be compensated differently. In Palazzo Schifanoia, the significance of the collective composition is intuitively recognised by George, who points out that it ‘resembles a giant comic strip’, capturing how the individual panels are connected by a ‘broad blue stripe which goes all round the middle of the wall, all through the middle of the picture splitting it into an above and a below’ (p. 49). The panels representing the twelve months were designed to include three different registers framed by three parallel stripes: the Olympian gods on the top level, the Greek astrological signs and its decans in the middle, and the life of Borso d’Este in the lower (Sassu 2010). George is attracted by the blue stripe that unites all the panels and by the multiple possibilities generated by looking at the links within the tripartite composition of the

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individual panels and their assemblage in a year in the life of Ferrara. She explains how: It is like everything is in layers. Things happen right at the front of the pictures and at the same time they continue happening, both separately and connectedly, behind, and behind that, and again behind that, like you can see, in perspective, for miles. Then there are the separate details, […]. They’re all also happening on their own terms. The picture makes you look at both—the close-up happenings and the bigger picture. (Smith 2015, p. 53)

She looks simultaneously at the diversity of the individual panel and the features the panels share, understanding that there is a line of narrative that links them all together. George is also the one that doubts how a palimpsest can provide an intelligible story, ‘[b]ecause if things really did happen simultaneously it’d be like reading a book but one in which all the lines of the texts have been overprinted, like each page is actually two pages but with one superimposed on the other to make it unreadable’ (p. 10). She considers reading two stories simultaneously impossible because language on the page does not acquire a spatial dimension through changing points of views. She senses that stories told through images can instead be more immediately versatile and multifarious, because readers can view the stories’ compositional frame as well as the details of their content. If stories are to be looked at as the tripartite frescoes, George’s approach also points out that connecting lines can be drawn not only vertically, upwards or downwards, but also horizontally, from side to side. How to be both endorses George’s suggestion and pushes the boundaries of the novel beyond the ekphrastic mode in pursuit of what Anker aptly describes as ‘a materialist, sensory, and embodied immersion in the experience of reading’ (2017, p. 19). It combines visual art with literature to affirm the epistemological value of reading by proposing two stories which, like the frescoes in Palazzo Schifanoia, are vertically and horizontally connected. Readers are faced by the same task if they want to assess the experimental capacity of How to be both as a cartography where seeing and reading take place also ‘in spaces that flow and connect in between’ (Braidotti 2011, p.  14) through the porosity of the wall as an epistemological device. To behold the novel as a year in the life of George, we need to see the novel’s spatial dimensions

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both as the individual panels and as a composite by choosing how to navigate the liminal space between the two parts.

On the Wall: Looking Beyond Borders The spatial dimensions of How to be both as an art object are interrogated by Adel Cheong (2022), Charlotte Terrell (2020), and Yvonne Liebermann (2019), who stress the significance of the inclusion in the volume of some of the images of the artistic work (frescoes, altarpieces, and photographs) verbally described within the narratives. Cheong studies how the novel contains visual and musical stimuli to reading and looking repetitively and expanding connections through other means of interpretation, including popular songs and films. She analyses the reproduction on the cover of the Penguin paperback edition of the photograph of the French singers Sylvie Vartan and Françoise Hardy by Jean-Marie Périer, which Helena gives to George,6 and those of the images of two of the three decans that form the middle stripe in the tripartite fresco of Cossa’s Month of March on its inside front and inside back, to highlight how they invite to look closely at the images independently and compare them to their ekphratic descriptions. Liebermann considers how the inclusion of these reproductions blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, the historical and the imagined, and maintains that Smith’s two-part novel ‘replaces the middle part of the fresco, which is not reproduced’ (2019, p. 147). Furthermore, as Robert Kusek and Wojciech Szymański contend, the reproductions assert an artistic space for the narratives, presenting ‘an underpainting and a wall painting’ (2017, p. 270) of a fresco. The distinct tripartite frame stimulates ways to envision simultaneously the detailed scenes and their compositional scope. They create, I posit, a space to read How to be both as a comic strip or a room in a gallery. Like the panels in the Hall of the Months, the novel’s two parts are composed by three sections, which are not titled or numbered. They are literary panels that capture moments of becoming in the lives of George and Francescho that connect and intersect as readers move from close readings to bigger-picture readings creating nomadic cartographies. The two parts are connected beyond the page numbers: George and Francescho share a desire for gender fluidity and for capturing their world through images. Their stories are separated by time and space but linked through 6

 Helena thinks George looks like Sylvie Vartan.

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their active subversion of gender expectations, pursuit of artistic talent, and grief. Francescho explains that what painters are ‘is eyes looking for the unbroken or the edges where the broken bits might fit each other’ (Smith 2015, p. 245). Her trained eyes are capable of perceiving George’s world even if she lacks the terminology to describe it accurately. It is Francescho that figures out George is ‘an artist’ (p. 344) in the making who strives to piece together a portrait of her mother as a multifaced human being by looking into the art, music, and films her mother liked. Their narratives demonstrate how George and Francescho can perceive and recreate through art such liminal spaces where layers of mnemonic traces of learning and experimenting with knowledge and distant memories assemble. Readers may initially struggle because, like George, they demand clearer taxonomies of fact and fiction, present and past; however, they also develop strategies to look beyond the surface of single parts and visualise the diverse layers that construct them as a composite. They too need to become ‘picturemakers’ (p. 275) and, as an art object, How to be both provides them with material to compose their comic strip, fresco, or picture-wall. The latter is a term used by George to describe the walls in the Hall of the Months and by Francescho to define the collage George produces on her bedroom’s wall. For George and Francescho, becoming a maker of picture depends on the help of a trustworthy friend who sustains their experimenting with inhabiting the border as a liminal space where encounters, exchanges, and empathy ignite transformations. At the start of a new year, with Helena’s help, George reminisces her late mother through Cossa’s art and popular French music and films that her mother liked or that belong to significant decades in her mother’s life.7 Helena and George connect translating into Latin the lyrics of contemporary pop songs they like and those of the 1960s their mothers enjoyed.8 Helena suggests first they do a presentation on Cossa, then they centre their school project on empathy/sympathy on the painter. George worries about doing ‘all that dreary historical imagine you are a person from another time stuff’ (p. 138) and instead, together with Helena, comes up with some of the features of Francescho’s narrative, whose language easily 7  George is interested in work of Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini; Francescho instead pays attention to the poster of the Italian actor, Monica Vitti, who worked in some of the most iconic films directed by the Ferrara-born Michelangelo Antonioni. 8  George’s narrative reverberates with popular songs such as the  Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Being Boring’ and Chubby Checker’s ‘Let’s Twist Again’.

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moves from very current expressions to obsolete ones, such as the initial Shakespearean Ho. Helena imagines Francescho as ‘an exchange student, not just from another country but from another time’ (p.  138), while George thinks their idea is ‘exactly the kind of stunt her mother would pull’ sustaining that, instead of coming back herself, her mother would rather send ‘some dead renaissance painter going on and on about himself and his work and it’d be someone you knew nothing about and that’d be meant to teach you empathy’ (p. 139). Reading George’s part first, this supposition induces the readers to contemplate the possibility that Francescho’s story is the result of the project George starts with Helena and then pursues on her own, after Helena moves to Denmark with her family, returning regularly to the National Gallery in London, where Cossa’s portrait of Saint Vincent Ferrer is displayed. There, George discovers that a friend of her mother, Lisa Goliard, also comes to observe it. Lisa had such a profound effect on Carol that George compares it to the one Cossa’s frescoes in Ferrara had on her mother. To Carol, Lisa introduced herself as an artist who produced one-off books, ‘like artworks, books that were themselves also art objects’ (p. 117) but ‘sealed in a glass case’, which, as Carol observes, would not be enjoyed without ‘breakage’ (p. 118). The challenge for the novel form is to be like a picture-wall, not a single piece of art, but a functioning art object. As Francescho’s narrative recounts, George follows Lisa and decides to sit on ‘a low wall opposite’ (p. 185) her house to ‘keep an eye on’ her and honour her mother (p. 185). Her mother explained to her the complexity of the relationship between seeing and being seen by admitting that, even suspecting Lisa spied on her because of her activism, she liked ‘being watched over’ (p.  123) by this woman. George decides to take photographs of Lisa’s house with her phone, which become essential contributions to George’s artistic attempt to visualise her mother beyond her parental identity through a collage of posters and photographs that she collects on the wall of her bedroom. Francescho recognises it as a picture-­ wall, a work of art ‘in the shape of—a brick wall’ (p. 345), and feels she has accomplished her task. She compares the photographs to ‘little studies’ (p. 345) that, like bricks, compose a wall and realises that George has created her own wall which, with the help of Helena and her brother Henry, becomes ‘a good opened-up wall’ (p. 367). George’s bricks are made of paper and can be peered through, broken, used to be wrapped into. George has felt stuck like ‘a piece of wall’ (p. 101), but, with help, she creatively produces a wall whose strength is its plasticity. In George’s

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collage Francescho sees a wall that ‘curls off’ (p. 345), ‘breaks’, and ‘comes apart’ (p. 366), bringing people together, and in so doing supersedes a brick wall in offering artistic dimensions. How to be both too is a ‘paper wall’ (p. 366) whose malleability is demonstrated by its two interchangeable parts. McCartney argues that ‘[b]y using the metaphor of an open door between stories, Smith constructs the novel with an architectural framework, and readers are left to ponder what passes through this open door’ (2022, p. 332). I contend that the wall is the epistemological device to move between the narratives of George and Francescho and fit them together. Francescho returns from the dead in the National Gallery when she finds herself attached to George ‘and where [George] goes [she] must go’ (Smith 2015, p. 224). Francescho is not a haunting ghost, because she is the one who is entrapped in another world that appears recognisable but utterly different, where she feels she is ‘sent for some reason to shadow’ (p. 229) George. ‘Here I am again: me and a boy and a wall’ (p. 244), she first exclaims, assuming George is a boy. She then realises that George’s identity and gender are not univocally connected and turns to liking her, her ‘very strong eye’ (p. 253), and the wall of bricks where George returns regularly to spy on Lisa. George’s gender fluidity surprises and pleases Francescho, who recounts the difficulties she encountered in becoming a professional artist, starting with hiding her female identity and living as a man. Her narrative marks her life’s transformative stages through the wall motif. Even as a ghost, she senses that walls remain essential to understanding her role in this new dimension where George insists on being on a wall looking at a closed door until Lisa comes to sit on the wall  and engages with George and Helena as they reproduce the detail of the eyes in Cossa’s portrait of Saint Lucy. When Francescho questions George’s approach, she is reminded of another wall where, on her twelfth birthday, she met Bartolomeo Garganelli (p. 243), or Barto, an upper-class member of the local community who became her confidant. They shared rites of passage, successes, and difficulties. Barto kept her secret and supported her artistic career. Most interestingly, the first image Francescho remembers of him is as ‘a boy leaning over the top of the wall’ (p. 238), who challenges her to climb it. He ‘showed [her] all the things you can do if you’re balanced on the top of a very tall wall’ (p. 242). Francescho may initially associate George with Barto, but she soon recognises his qualities as a trustworthy friend in Helena. Like Barto, Helena can innately reach out to George and get through to her. In Helena, Francescho recognises

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‘a good skilful friend’ (p. 367) who helps George rediscover the pleasure of language and laughter, and find ways to pay tribute to her mother’s legacy. Helena singled George out in school because of her storytelling skills and, in the new year, helps her find ways to express her grief and face difficult circumstances at home where her father has turned to drinking. Similarly to Lisa, Helena is bold, creative, and daring. At school she is reprimanded for pushing boundaries but also bravely stands up to bullying and racism. The narrative does not describe Helena but informs us that she has a French mother and a father who is ‘from Karachi and Copenhagen [and sustains that] it is actually perfectly possible to be from the north and the south and the east and the west all at once’ (p. 88). Her multicultural identity links her figure to the three decans on the unifying blue stripe of March in the Hall of the Months, who, as revealed by Aby Warburg, are ‘survivals of astral images of the Greek pantheon [that] over the centuries, in their wanderings through Asia Minor, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Spain, […] have lost their Grecian clarity of outline’ (1999 [1912], p. 565). In line with the maternal intergenerational dynamics suggested by the novel, Helena can be seen as a modern Perseus, the first decan of Aries, who brings complexity and fuller understanding to George’s identity. Helena has changed five schools in four years and moves again after meeting George; she represents mobility and an ability to adjust and transform. For example, to ignite some fun into their revision sessions, Helena proposes to synthesise the history of the DNA by adapting the lyrics of Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball, which then George translates into Latin. This playful learning strategy becomes significant after Helena relocates abroad as they connect via text messages that translate into Latin the lyrics of popular songs. The DNA’s double helix also takes on a symbolic connotation: whilst Helena underlines its twisting shape, George sees it as ‘a kind of shout, if a shout to the sky could be said to look like something’ (Smith 2015, p. 172), which moving upwards denounces the deception of a history that does not acknowledge the endeavour of women like Rosalind Franklin, or Francescho del Cossa if she were a real historical figure. Francescho’s narrative certainly takes part in the game too as it begins and ends with shaping words into a twisting helix to visualise Francescho’s ghost being twisted out and into the wall. Helena provides George with suggestions on how to piece together Carol’s story; significantly she is with George in the last scene Francescho witnesses of them by the wall with Lisa, ‘painting 2 eyes on to a wall’ (p.  369). Putting into practice

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Renaissance painting techniques, George and Helena reproduce Francescho’s work with Lisa’s advice. This is the moment Francescho is drawn ‘down to / that thin-looking line / […] / there at the very foot of this / […] / wall at the place where the crumble of / the brickbase meets the paving’ (p. 370). She returns to the afterlife maintaining that a wall may appear two-dimensional, ‘but [it] is deeper than / sea should you dare to enter or / deep as a sky and goes as deep into the / earth’ (p. 371). Its lines drawn vertically up towards the sky or down into the ground can be twisted ‘to be / made and / unmade / both’ (p.  372). Francescho recognises in the crumbling wall, whose fragility worried her so much, the same qualities of George’s paper wall, a cartography of encounter, exchange, and collaboration, where all the parts can fit and contribute. How to fit the novel’s parts remains open to the readers and their willingness to being on the wall and looking beyond its boundaries.

On Nomadic Reading With the help of skilful friends, being on the wall empowers Francescho and George to claim their identity through art. Readers of their stories rely on How to be both as an art novel that opens up to diverse, multiple layers beyond the limits of lines on a page to experiment with the border as a method. Smith’s novel dares them to break literary conventions of linearity and primacy and to interconnect multiple forms of arts, to experiment with the plasticity of language and, ultimately, with concepts of narrative ownership. It demands active readers who engage with thought experiments and are committed to nomadic reading. As this chapter maintains, they are compelled to practise nomadic thinking as they trace internal and external connections, defy historical, cultural, as well as philosophical constructions of subjectivity, and most significantly those of gender and sexuality. Through the wall motif, How to be both asserts the creative potential of ambiguity and plurality, of the ways in which polysemy and polyphony bring depth to appreciating and emphasising the complexities of being human. By replacing dual with plural perspectives, this novel crosses boundaries of time, place, and gender to claim the imaginative power of a fluid nomadic poetics of identity that does not subscribe to notions of primacy, linearity, or normative dichotomies but defies them. It turns borders into sites of collaboration, exchange, and creativity. Smith’s nomadic poetics of identity trusts borders as liminal, magical spaces but does not undermine the risks taken in crossing them. Through

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multigenerational maternal advice, both narratives insist on the need to look in depth into what is on the surface to break through conventions, initiate change, and tell the story multiple ways. Carol has a warning against the surficial reading practices validated by the use of technology to access knowledge rapidly and effortlessly. In the western world, she points out, through technology ‘we’re all migrants of our own existence now. […] So we better get ready. Because look how migrants get treated all over the world’ (p. 41). Through the internet we appear to be connected to a world without borders but, in surfacing the world-wide-web, George does not develop nomadic thinking. Watching repetitively a pornographic video on her tablet, she does not develop empathy but an inability to connect with victims of sexual trauma, and an apathy to the power relations it reproduces. ‘Read a book’ (p. 41), Carol advises, to develop a more perceptive understanding of empathy, of migrants’ experiences, of what lies underneath the surface, and of the potential of nomadic thinking. Through the productive agency of reading, Smith transforms accepted dualisms into processes of relations and negotiations that are multiple and multilayered and resist normative conventions. She aptly reclaims literature’s responsibility in shaping the fluid, shifting, nonunitary, and relational liminal spaces between self and other.

References Andermahr, Sonya. 2018. Both/And aesthetics: Gender, art, and language in Brigid Brophy’s In transit and Ali Smith’s How to be both. Contemporary Women’s Writing 12 (2): 248–263. Anker, Elisabeth S. 2017. Postcritical reading, the lyric, and Ali Smith’s How to be both. Diacritics 45 (4): 16–42. Braidotti, Rosi. 1994. Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2011. Nomadic theory: The portable Rosi Braidotti. New York: Columbia University Press. Cheong, Adel. 2022. The ways of seeing and making in Ali Smith’s How to be both. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 63 (3): 344–356. Clingman, Stephen. 2012 (2009). The grammar of identity: Transnational fiction and the nature of the boundary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Di Natale, Pietro, and Giovanni Sassu. 2020. Schifanoia e Francesco del Cossa: l’oro degli Estensi. Ferrara: Fondazione Ferrara Arte.

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Germanà, Monica. 2017. Ali Smith: Strangers and intrusions. In The contemporary British novel since 2000, ed. Acheson James, 99–108. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kusek, Robert, and Wojciech Szymański. 2017. Ali Smith’s How to be both and the Nachleben of Aby Warburg: ‘neither here nor there’. HJEAS: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 23 (2): 263–284. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-­j ournals/ali-­s miths-­h ow-­b e-­b oth-­n achleben-­a by-­ warburg/docview/2187382055/se-­2. Lea, Daniel. 2018. Ali Smith. In The Routledge companion to twenty-first-century literary fiction, ed. Daniel O’Gorman and Robert Eaglestone, 396–404. London: Routledge. Lewis, Cara L. 2019. Beholding: Visuality and postcritical reading in Ali Smith’s How to be both. Journal of Modern Literature 42 (3): 129–150. Liebermann, Yvonne. 2019. The return of the ‘real’ in Ali Smith’s Artful (2012) and How to be both (2014). European Journal of English Studies 23 (2): 136–151. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. Between inclusion and exclusion: On the topology of global space and borders. Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4/5): 58–75. McCartney, Mary E. 2022. The architecture of narrative reciprocity in Ali Smith’s How to be both. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 63 (3): 331–343. Moseley, Merritt. 2015. Booker Prize 2014. Sewanee Review 123 (2): 286–294. Sassu, Giovanni. 2010. Guida a Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara. Ferrara: Musei Civici d’Arte Antica. Smith, Ali. 2013 (2012). Artful. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2015 (2014). How to be both. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2016. Autumn. London: Hamish Hamilton. ———. 2017. Winter. London: Hamish Hamilton. ———. 2019. Spring. London: Hamish Hamilton. ———. 2020. Summer. London: Hamish Hamilton. ———. 2022. Companion piece. London: Hamish Hamilton. Terrell, Charlotte. 2020. Seeing and seeing again: Close reading in the gallery. Women: A Cultural Review 31 (3): 283–298. Warburg, Aby. 1999 (1912). The Italian art and the international astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara. In The renewal of pagan antiquities: Contributions to the cultural history of the European Renaissance. Trans. David Britt, 563–591. Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute. Young, Tory. 2018. Invisibility and power in the digital age: Issues for feminist and queer narratology. Textual Practice 32 (6): 991–1006.

CHAPTER 11

Oblique Emotions and Border Intimacies in Dionne Brand’s Theory Libe García Zarranz

… this oblique affection … Dionne Brand, Theory (2018, p. 5)

Introduction The Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (CAAPP) at the University of Pittsburgh, directed and co-founded by poet and essayist Dawn Lundy Martin, ran the Collective Protest & Rebellion: A Black Study Intensive in 2020. Committed to Fred Moten’s counterformulation of study as ‘talking and walking around with other people, working, dancing, suffering, some irreducible convergence of all three, held under the name of speculative practice’ (Harney and Moten 2013, p. 110), this initiative consisted of a series of lectures, performances, and conversations between poets, artists, and scholars held over five consecutive days. As Black Studies

L. García Zarranz (*) Department of Teacher Education, Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_11

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scholar Christina Sharpe would put it, this transdisciplinary series reflects the vibrancy of Black thinking and Black knowledges ‘in and outside the contemporary’ (2016, p.  14). One of CAAPP’s Black Study Intensive events, ‘These Tyrannical Times: Poetry as Liberatory, Poetry as Undoing’, features poets Dionne Brand and Harryette Mullen in conversation. When Brand finishes reading from the long poem Ossuaries, Martin, who introduces the event, catches her breath and confesses: ‘Any time I encounter your work, I feel more uniquely alive’ (Brand and Mullen 2020, 00.20.50). Staying with this feeling of aliveness becomes an ethical and a political act, especially at a moment where violence against Black people is on the rise, as a result of ongoing histories of exploitation and oppression. Attending to past and present realities, Sharpe interrogates ‘what … survives this insistent Black exclusion’ (2016, p. 14), urging for the design of alternative  literary and cultural speculative practices). Brand’s monumental archive, I would argue, is firmly situated amidst these entangled temporalities, and the ‘radiant moments of ordinariness’ (Brand 2001, p.  19) that pulsate from her work are written in response to and in excess of Black terror, a liminal space where oblique emotions and border intimacies begin to materialize. In Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, feminist killjoy Sara Ahmed unravels how orientations ‘involve directions toward objects that affect what we do, and how we inhabit space. We move toward and away from objects depending on how we are moved by them’ (2006, p.  28). Being drawn to or withdrawn from an object thus necessarily involves complex forms of emotional attachment. In turn, these affective orientations and disorientations systematically shape bodily, spatial, and social boundaries. For the last four decades, Brand’s oeuvre has contested the naturalized orientation of bodies and subjects towards heteronormativity, whiteness, and other normative structures of power in the context of settler Canada, where I situate my research. Echoing Sharpe, Brand’s poetics gifts readers with a grammar, a paradoxical language of attunement and dislocation attentive to Black histories, presents, and futures otherwise. Brand’s affective grammars convey a sense of aliveness and capaciousness that blends the poetic with the theoretical and the philosophical. When I started reading Brand in 2008, while being a 30-year-old international PhD student at the University of Alberta, one of the first things that pulled me was the theory that continuously emerges from her words. By ‘theory’ here I mean speculations, stories, and ways of seeing, honouring the etymology of the term. I would argue that Brand’s speculative

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practices trace pathways to resee and re-feel the world while insisting on the ethical imperative of holding oneself accountable. The inseparability of the theoretical, the poetic, and the ethical is also central to Brand’s award-winning novel, Theory (2018). The ungendered first-person narrator is an almost 40-year-old PhD candidate, dubbed Teoria, who is on a life-long mission: to finish their doctoral dissertation. Offering a sharp and humorous critique of academia, the narrator’s delay in knowledge production mirrors their difficulties to collect themselves emotionally. Constantly unlearning how to do intimacy, the narrator’s speculative practices traverse beauty, desire, and sociality, resulting in a disorienting inventory of ‘oblique affection’ (Brand 2018, p.  5). Interweaving Black feminist and queer theory with affect studies, I will attempt to theorize these oblique emotions as the result of instances of dis/orientation, following Ahmed (2006). I will consider formal aspects in the text, such as the use of footnotes, as discursive and affective borderscapes. I will further discuss how Brand’s novel presents various orientations towards liminal spaces such as doors, doorways, and windows, signalling the paradoxical relation between emotion and motion in what I call border intimacies. In Theory, these intimacies seem characterized by oblique emotions that are unevenly distributed and that dis/orient the characters, shaping the textual, affective, and temporal landscapes they occupy.

Footnotes and Other Borderscapes The act of composition in Brand’s Theory takes place through an engagement with a certain geometry: ‘All my life I’ve sat at an angle, observing the back and forth of other people’s lives. Even as a child I found myself on the diagonal to events’ (2018, p. 6). Visually, the book includes images of different geometrical shapes. The first page, for example, contains a heart with twelve separate contours and a dodecagon, both in grey colours. A few pages in, the reader encounters another full page with three shapes: a dodecagon, a heart with twelve irregular contours, and a triangle facing down. Composed of twelve vertices and twelve edges, the dodecagon relates to a plurality of perspectives and orientations, which can be connected to Brand’s narrator, whose mission is to narrate their story, shaped by the act of writing their dissertation and by navigating a series of relationships with past lovers and their various angles on life. The number twelve is highly symbolic, with references to how time is organized in the

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West, the zodiac, religious connotations in Israel, and as an indicator of wisdom. Twelve is also considered ‘the ancient number of completion as it signals the end of childhood and the beginning stages of adulthood’ (Chwalkowski 2016, p. 47). It is thus significant that Theory begins with these geometrical shapes that frame the narrator’s first-person narrative, as they reflect on their past, present, and future life. The first written page in the novel contains the two words ‘Occam’s razor’, followed by a footnote, a narrative technique that simultaneously orients and disorients the reader. The narrative voice calls for simplicity, following William of Occam’s philosophy: ‘Look, what follows is all in the past tense, naturally. So much is. Soon, in October, I’ll be forty’ (Brand 2018, p. 1). The footnote situates the narrative, orienting readers to the narrator’s lived experience. At the same time, typed on a smaller font, the footnote forces readers to shift their gaze into the borderscapes of the page. Footnotes are, according to literary scholar Shari Benstock, ‘inherently marginal’ (1983, p.  204). They belong to a liminal space on the page, often supplementing or extending the author’s argument. Footnotes, in this sense, act like windows into other contextual worlds. Together with other paratexts, footnotes further contain meaning relating to genre. As genre theorist Malcah Effron further contends, ‘[b]y examining the footnote in fiction in relation to issues of genre, we can explore the correlative stability between the boundaries of the page and the boundaries of generic form’ (2010, p. 199). In Brand’s words, Theory is a novel of ideas, where the unnamed narrator experiments with the capacious complexities of designing and completing a doctoral thesis. Brand explains how the ‘form of the dissertation crosses into the form of the novel. Gradually, the thesis that the narrator tries to attend to walks into the novel; the thesis is performed in the novel’ (Brand and Lubrin 2018, n.p.). The text’s self-­ reflexivity, which is a common trait in the genre of the theory novel (Huehls 2015, p. 285), is further problematized through the framing of the narrative around footnotes that focus on the thesis itself, the self, or family dynamics. This tecnique urges readers to turn inwards towards the contained space of the text, refusing to open up to the social world.1 Ahmed has written extensively about the politics of citational practices, claiming that citations function ‘as academic bricks through which we create houses’ (2017, p. 148). Normative methodologies and theories often 1  As Brand puts it, Theory ‘doesn’t build a physical world. You are in the mind of the narrator’ (qtd. in Robb 2018, n.p.).

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occlude Black histories, feminist histories, that are relegated to the space of the footnote as a discarded inferior location. Black Studies scholar Katherine McKittrick further complicates Ahmed’s project by conceptualizing referencing as unknowing: ‘What if we read outside ourselves not for ourselves but to actively unknow ourselves, to unhinge, and thus come to know each other, intellectually, inside and outside the academy, as collaborators of collective and generous and capacious stories?’ (2021, p. 16). As an architect and designer of their thesis, the narrator in Brand’s novel uses the form of the footnote as a structural device to set the contours of this bordered house, in this case, the novel itself. At the same time, they embark on a process of affective unknowing through the process of writing their dissertation titled ‘A Conceptual Analysis of the Racially Constructed’ (2018, p.  173). And yet, they are not a collaborator, in McKittrick’s sense of the word, but a collector.2 In this regard, the narrative that readers encounter does not concern the social but the inner self. The footnotes thus underline textual authority, while countering normative citational practices. The content of the footnote further challenges the expectations of this genre, when the narrator shares with the readers their current dissertation work, their family dynamics, the toxic world of academia, and their own responsibility in this process. Narrated in the present tense, this footnote allows the narrative voice to present the story they are about to tell as an act of archiving and recollecting: ‘I have to collect myself. I must collect myself. Why am I here now and what is my next move? […] one ought to take stock of one’s own bullshit’ (Brand 2018, p. 2). Theory opens in the form of a meditation, but the irreverent tone invites readers to take the narrator’s somehow ironic words with some distance. This mediating effect exacerbates the materiality of the text itself as an artful artifact, a common trait in the novel of ideas, a ‘notoriously unstable genre’ (2020, n.p.), as aptly described by cultural theorist Sianne Ngai. The narrator’s quest for knowledge creation is further mediated through the interaction with various lovers who act as conveyors of affect and desire in oblique ways.

2  Brand’s oeuvre brings to life myriad collectors and archivists, such as the figure of the clerk in the prose poems in The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos (2018) and the unnamed narrator of the long lyric poem Inventory, who collects the losses of contemporary times with a clear sociopolitical and ethical impulse. See Siemerling (2020), García Zarranz (2017), and Lousley (2008) for further reference.

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Oblique Emotions In A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging, Brand writes how ‘To desire may also be to complicate’ (2001, p. 194). Resisting commodified forms of transactional desire, Brand is preoccupied instead with unravelling how ‘one collects it, piece by piece, proceeding through a life’ (2001, p. 195). The image of the poet as collector resonates with Brand’s long lyric poem Inventory (2006), where one of the narrative voices accounts for the catastrophic losses of a post 9/11 world in ruins because of multiple ‘regimes of extraction’ (Okoth 2021, p. 381). This disintegrating archive of loss has been emptied out of life and desire. In turn, the unnamed narrator in Theory offers a catalogue of snapshots of ordinary life where love and desire are described as ‘a shared aesthetic’ (Brand 2018, p.  7) that, while oppressive and repetitive, also seems unavoidable. The book speculates and complicates normative, and often linear, conceptualizations of intimacy, desire, and love by situating them in oblique ways. As discussed earlier, these affective orientations and disorientations are also textual; they are imprinted on the borders of the page. Ahmed theorizes orientation in relation to ‘how it is that we come to find our way in a world that acquires new shapes, depending on which way we turn’ (2006, p. 1). Becoming closer to or distancing oneself from an object is thus the result of familiarization and habituation, Ahmed claims. These objects, in turn, become ‘anchoring points’ (Ahmed 2006, p. 1). Turning to Brand’s Theory, I would argue that the narrator’s past lovers become these landmarks and familiar signs, following Ahmed’s terminology. Significantly, the main body of the novel is divided into four sections, three of them named after some of the narrator’s past lovers: Selah, Yara, Odalys, and the last one named Teoria/Theory. As you can see in Fig. 11.1, the lovers’ names are all cut through with a diagonal line, which conveys an affective response to these women through the use of a slanted shape. Set at an angle, the bent line becomes a marker of authorship emphasizing the role of the narrator as the architect of this narrative. At the same time, crossing out the lovers’ names, almost erasing them, places these stories in the past, securing some emotional and physical distance from them. Engaging with processes of habituation and familiarization, Ahmed contends that ‘bodies take shape through tending toward objects that are reachable, that are available within the bodily horizon’ (2006, p. 2). In Brand’s narrative, the narrator collects stories of past lovers, a textual and

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Fig. 11.1  Image from Theory (2018, p. 4)

emotional strategy that both orients them towards and disorients them away from the thesis. When the narrator talks about Selah, for example, readers are transported into an episode in their life when they are twenty-­ eight. Quickly, they state how their life’s work is their thesis and how lovers like Selah become some needed supplements to their story: ‘I wanted Selah to spare me only a few glances and gestures while she took care of her most singular concern—her body. I imagined her thoughts passing over me briefly while she did her eyes or painted her nails red. I believed this oblique affection, like the one has for landscapes or animals, would be sufficient for my needs’ (Brand 2018, pp. 5–6). Notice how the narrator seems to need very little care from Selah, only a form of slanted affect. However, this oblique affection is sustained through the objectification of Selah, who is described as engaged in mundane activities, and through the idolization of her body: ‘I preyed upon Selah’s body. Her body was the central terrain and I, like some bird with taloned feet and beak, attacked her flesh and bones’ (p. 11). The body of the lover becomes the location

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that orientates the narrator. As Ahmed aptly puts it, ‘[t]o be orientated is also to be turned toward certain objects, those that help us to find our way’ (2006, p.  1). I would argue that Selah’s body is portrayed as an object that aids the narrator’s quest of collecting themselves through the act of writing their thesis. The narrator describes themselves as a ‘scientist of love, […] or a surgeon of love’ (Brand 2018, p. 11), phrases that highlight the instrumental quality of their approach to this emotion; a dissection of love that puts emphasis on the theoretical dimension rather than the embodied one, thus creating a distance from the object of desire. The oblique emotions in Theory cannot be disentangled from storytelling. In other words, the stories that are shared by this unreliable narrator are produced and sustained through a series of oblique affective expressions and responses. The narrative is thus saturated by meaningful gaps and interruptions: ‘I would pry and poke around, asking her about her life before me—to which she would give elliptical answers, not filling in the true details’ (p. 9). The result is often one of missed moments of communication and the emergence of what I call border intimacies, that is, instances of latent unspoken desire, affection, and closeness that seem to be trapped in liminal spaces, thus creating various intended disorientations. According to Ahmed, if ‘orientation is about making the strange familiar through the extension of bodies into space, then disorientation occurs when that extension fails’ (2006, p. 11). The narrator’s act of storytelling contains gaps, selected memories, and moments of forgetting. This interrupted storytelling is mirrored in the moments where intimacy eludes the characters, often evaporating before materializing. As Teoria puts it, ‘[t]here was a feeling between us like fine sand, a curtain of fine sand, a distance that made me sad and lethargic’ (Brand 2018, p. 43). This oblique emotion is presented as a liminal space, a boundary between the two lovers that disallows the complete orientation of their bodies towards each other.

Border Intimacies Circling back to Martin’s words at the beginning of this chapter, Brand uses language as countermapping, making words and worlds alive in complex ways. In the acknowledgements section in Monstrous Intimacies, Sharpe thanks Hortense Spillers and Brand ‘for each, in different ways, giving [her] a “grammar” and a “map”’ (2010, p. xi). The weight of language and a historical sense of orientation and disorientation are central to

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Brand’s oeuvre; a poetics and aesthetics that are centered in a sense of aliveness that resonates with Kevin Quashie’s work. Aliveness, as conceptualized by Quashie, entails ‘a quality of being, a term of habitat, a manner and aesthetic, a feeling—or many of them, circuits in an atmosphere’ (2021, p. 14). The narrator in Brand’s Theory experiences a disorienting feeling when their lover Selah tells them she is leaving them: ‘I had a spell of catatonia. I lay on the bed for two days … or was it three? My eyes descended to the bottom of my life, it seemed, and my brain felt underwater. […]. I thought that I was dying’ (2018, p. 52). This episode of emotional withdrawal and sense of drowning is one of the few instances in the narrative where the narrator’s oblique emotions overtake and paralyze them with fear. After retelling this memory, the following section in the novel retraces back to the world of ideas and knowledge as a form of aliveness. The narrator is now thirty-four and they tell the story of their relationship with another lover: ‘This is what I loved about Yara—her pure delight and her sharp, if unscholarly, insights’ (p. 69). Notice the condescending and perhaps judgemental tone in their words. The narrator distances themselves from Yara, again becoming a surgeon of intimacy, analyzing the benefits of other ways of knowing and unknowing: ‘Perhaps knowledge could be arrived at from a more visceral and intuitive knowing of the world’ (p. 71). These moments of wonder, however, are ultimately followed by an insistence on how feeling and emotion belong to a separate realm than that of the ideas. Teoria’s relationships, with their oblique affects, are described as ‘distractions’ (p. 75) to what matters ultimately: the completion of the thesis. The textures of the social world thus remain outside the narrator’s affective boundaries. In Blackening Canada: Diaspora, Race, Multiculturalism, Canadian Studies scholar Paul Barrett examines the memoir A Map to the Door of No Return. Notes to Belonging and the long poem thirsty (2002), claiming how ‘Brand’s poetics of the everyday rewrites the patience, longing, and grace that she observes in the diaspora as a hopeful expression of life that transcends the haunting traumas of the past’ (2015, pp.  28–29). The space of the ordinary in Theory, nonetheless, shifts some of these common tropes in Brand’s oeuvre to present instead snapshots where impatience and arrogance take centre stage. The unnamed narrator conveys their struggles settling down on a thesis title, showing feelings of isolation and anxiety about committee members only wanting to steal their ideas: ‘Added to which—and I don’t say this boastfully but as a statement of fact—my brain is faster than the academy allows’ (Brand 2018, p. 47). The

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superiority conveyed in these words is supplemented by their impatience having to attend to a politics of citation that takes time: ‘Does Spivak have to array around her all the dead philosophers and theorists to prove her credentials for speaking? […] there’s no reference for what I want to do’ (p. 48). The passage offers a sardonic commentary on the precariousness of citational practices in academia, which often erase Black feminist genealogies, among other minoritized traditions, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Citation, Ahmed contends, ‘is feminist memory’ (2017, p. 15), and these citational practices are driven by an ethics of slow time. Thus, the narrator’s impatience offers a moment of ironic relief that helps the reader reflect on the need for slow feminist and anti-racist practices of citation, while signalling an attentiveness to the boundaries of text, genre, and temporality. I would argue that it is at this borderscape where glimpses of intimacy erupt in Brand’s Theory. Barrett contends that ‘silences, erasures, and lacunae are depicted along a continuum of absence and presence’ (2015, p.  32) in Brand’s work. Thinking with Barrett, I argue that the border intimacies in the narrative emerge from this transtemporal line of absence and aliveness. In the section titled ‘Yara’, Teoria reminisces about their past in relation to their lover: ‘I loved Yara as I loved myself. Or as I loved myself as another self, with Yara’s coordinates. […] Yara opened the terrain in me for feeling. I’m not saying that I was able to traverse the entire geography of that terrain, but I became aware of its existence’ (Brand 2018, p. 105). The narrator uses spatial imagery in an attempt to locate affect in a particular territory that exceeds the self; in other words, the elusive affect of love surfaces relationally at the border between bodies. At times, the boundary is dissolved through touch, allowing for intimacy to materialize: ‘sometimes when I was washing the dishes and I was angry with her, she would come and stand silently next to me, then reach to touch my hand or my back. […] and all my anger would dissipate’ (p. 110). Notice how silence in this passage only intensifies the moment of intimacy, which takes place in an ordinary snapshot of domestic life. Yara orientates her body towards Teoria, a repeated and habitual action that, in turn, allows the narrator to situate themselves outside of anger momentarily. These border intimacies are negotiated in liminal spaces between silence and word, distance and approximation, and, as such, they can be read as queer processes of dis/orientation. Etymologically speaking, Ahmed reminds us that the word ‘queer’ refers to what is adverse or oblique, according to the Greek root (2006,

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p. 161). Ahmed further argues that this sense of the term ties to the practice of nonnormative sexualities, which involve ‘a personal and social commitment to living in an oblique world, or in a world that has an oblique angle in relation to that which is given’ (2006, p. 161). As discussed in this chapter, the narrator in Theory sits at ‘an angle’ (Brand 2018, p.  222), observing and experimenting with life’s affects in oblique ways, which leads them to various locations and dislocations. Significantly, these are often liminal spaces such as doorways, windows, and frames. In the last section in the novel, the narrator tells readers about their intimacy with their childhood friend, Iolanta: ‘We walked hand in hand all the way home […]’ (p. 177). This habit of touch is interrupted when Iolanta becomes quite ill at the age of thirteen and has to remain at home. The narrator then continues to be in contact from a distance, stopping at Iolanta’s window twice a day, and performing a hug that fails to materialize. The window thus becomes a material and symbolic borderscape that signals entrapment and freedom, both allowing and disallowing the development of what I have been referring to as border intimacies. Focusing on the novel Another Place, Not Here, Black Diaspora Studies scholar Ronald Cummings contends that the ‘question of queerness is also explicitly linked to flight in Brand’s writing. […]. Yet flight and freedom are never straightforwardly equated’ (2019, pp. 314–315). The negotiation of intimacy in Theory further unravels around historical landmarks, which stand as paradoxical sites of longing, escape, and failure. Teoria and their lover Selah visit Córdoba’s Mezquita in one of their trips, and Teoria’s reaction is one of strong desire: ‘my eyes glistened with its magnificence, its light; my own body shone with the whole of its history. My legs weakened entering its grandeur. I held out my glowing hand to Selah’ (Brand 2018, p. 18). Their body vibrates and radiates life at the sight of this historical space, generating in Selah feelings of resentment and longing for not being the object of that pulsating look: ‘That is what I want. That look. Why don’t you bring home some of that’ (p. 18). Being away from home, somehow being in the not here of the domestic, becomes a terrain that continues to disallow the possibility of intimacy. The fact that they are in southern Spain is also meaningful in that its history as a colonial power may drain the space of sustainable affects to instead castrate desire. The Mezquita in itself is a contested space of conquest, having been historically occupied by various military and religious forces. It can thus be read symbolically as a violated space that has been subjected to colonialist

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systems of extraction.3 At the same time, Córdoba was in the tenth century one of the leading learning centers across the Mediterranean, a site of scientific and intellectual exchange, so it is unsurprising that Brand’s narrator shows a strong connection to the site. Teoria continues to exoticize this space, being mesmerized, as it is also elsewhere from the thesis. In doing so, they turn away from Selah, disorienting themselves from the body of the lover. Cummings observes how the notion of ‘not here’ is a constant in Brand’s work, becoming both ‘a haunting and a promise’ (2019, p. 308). Putting Brand’s concept in conversation with José Esteban Muñoz’s ‘not yet here’, Cummings persuasively argues how both notions ‘are linked with utopian longings for other kinds of collectives, formations, relationships and terms of communal, political and intimate belonging’ (2019, p. 308). Following Cummings, I would contend that Brand’s Theory problematizes these oblique yearnings and intimacies in slanting ways both at the level of content and form.

Re/fusing Speculative Practices Theory closes, or better refuses to close, with three partly blank pages accompanied by three footnotes. The borderscapes of the footnotes thus frame and embrace the narrative in discursive and affective ways. Read together, the three closing pages tell fragmented stories in slanted ways. The first one, which includes the words ‘First, as a starting point …’ (Brand 2018, p.  225), disorients the reader through its contradictory nature. The footnote that is supposed to supplement or extend the information conveyed in those five words is deliberately left open-ended through the use of three dots. The unfinished paratext mirrors the narrator’s thesis, which remains unfinished too. The borders of the novel itself hence remain destabilized, somehow at an oblique angle. The penultimate page opens with the words ‘I must say here without equivocation’ (p. 226), signalling the authority of the narrative voice, while simultaneously critiquing the masculinist arrogance of some academics, such as Slavoj Žižek, whose contributions are explicitly described in the footnote as ‘a parody of what he does not know’ (p.  226). Knowledge in fact becomes the last word in Brand’s Theory. The last page contains the words, ‘Regarding my 3  The couple also visit Seville during one of their trips, and the narrator makes a reference to Spanish colonialism, and what they refer to as ‘the obvious Arab qualities’ (Brand 2018, p. 13) of the city.

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father’ (p. 227), followed by a footnote where the narrator confesses their limited knowledge of him: ‘I only place this note here to say that he may not have been adequately represented in my account, since my knowledge of him is based on extant references that are not sufficient to lay out his psychologies’ (p. 227). Notice how gender and genre are intimately intertwined here with questions around knowledge. As the narrator states in closing, they invoke their family histories ‘neither as narrative, nor as trauma, but as epistemology’ (p. 227). The narrator’s mission of knowledge creation is further shaped by the oblique affects and border intimacies developed in the narrative. Selah, Yara, and Odalys are described by the narrator as follows: ‘the life itself, the theory of my life’ (p. 224). Their ways of seeing and looking at the world continue to affect the narrator’s orientation towards their thesis, a desired but elusive object that remains out of reach. Life is, for Brand, a collection of aesthetic and practical experiences and making sense of it ‘may be what desire is. Or, putting the senses back together’ (2001, p. 195). Reading Brand’s Theory certainly urges readers to ponder about the paradoxes of experience and the vibrancy of life, echoing Martin’s words in the opening paragraph of this chapter. Brand’s speculative practices in this novel further invite us, academics, to address and interrogate the boundaries of academia, where ideas and knowledges exist in but also exceed the discursive, often permeating affective realms. As I often share with students, the etymology of the term theory invites us to look at, to contemplate, to experiment with ways of seeing for ‘thinking and living otherwise’ (Ieven et al. 2020, p. 1). Theory, I would add, is also a form of storytelling, as McKittrick boldly puts it (2021, p. 7). These are valuable lessons that I have learned by being mentored through various feminist theoretical genealogies: to imagine new worlds while being attentive to situatedness; to recover untold stories; to unlearn pernicious essentialisms; and to create new feminist tools as we navigate troubled university waters from different vantage points. Hannah McGregor, Julie Rak, and Erin Wunker, scholars and educators in settler Canada, expose a university in ruins by exploring the capaciousness of the term refuse. As McGregor, Rak, and Wunker contend, the verb refuse can be used as in ‘saying “no” to the serious inequities, prejudices, and hierarchies’ (2018, p.  9) that govern academic institutions; the noun refuse also stands as a synonym for waste, so we can consider what wastes the time of educators and learners; importantly, we can also re/fuse, with a slash, that is ‘to put together what has been torn apart, evoking the idea that, after something is destroyed,

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something better can take its place’ (p.  9). Brand’s oblique speculative practices refuse to follow expected orientations of genre and gender, while re/fusing the page with new grammars and affects, inviting us readers to question learned habits and disciplinary borders, and see the world from unexpected geometries. Acknowledgements  The author would like to acknowledge the valuable feedback provided by the editors and the two anonymous reviewers, together with the support of the research project ‘Cinema and Environment: Affective Ecologies in the Anthropocene (AFECO)’ (PID2019-110068GA-I00) in the completion of this chapter.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. ———. 2017. Living a feminist life. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Barrett, Paul. 2015. Blackening Canada: Diaspora, race, multiculturalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Benstock, Shari. 1983. At the margin of discourse: Footnotes in the fictional text. PMLA 98 (2): 204–225. Brand, Dionne. 2001. A map to the door of no return: Notes to belonging. New York: Vintage Canada. ———. 2018. Theory. Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada. Brand, Dionne, and Canisia Lubrin. 2018. Q&A: Canisia Lubrin speaks to Dionne Brand about her two new books, The blue clerk and Theory. Quill & Quire, September 13. Accessed 8 June 2022. https://quillandquire.com/omni/ qa-­canisia-­lubrin-­speaks-­to-­dionne-­brand-­about-­her-­two-­new-­books-­the-­blue-­ clerk-­and-­theory. Brand, Dionne, and Harryette Mullen. 2020. These tyrannical times: Poetry as liberatory, poetry as undoing. Accessed 5 May 2022. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=tF8NEwjGsnA. Chwalkowski, Farrin. 2016. Symbols in arts, religion and culture: The soul of nature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Cummings, Ronald. 2019. Between here and ‘not here’: Queer desires and postcolonial longings in the writings of Dionne Brand and José Esteban Muñoz. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 55 (3): 308–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 17449855.2019.1617973. Effron, Malcah. 2010. On the borders of the page: Artificial paratexts in golden age detective fiction. Narrative 18 (2): 199–219.

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García Zarranz, Libe. 2017. TransCanadian feminist fictions: New cross-border ethics. Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press. Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. 2013. The undercommons: Fugitive planning & Black study. Wivenhoe, New York, Port Watson: Minor Compositions. Huehls, Mitchum. 2015. The post-theory theory novel. Contemporary Literature 56 (2): 280–310. Ieven, Bram, Eliza Steinbock, and Marijke de Valck. 2020. Introduction: Taking aesthetics from resistance to resilience. In Art and activism in the age of systemic crisis, 1–6. London: Routledge. Lousley, Cheryl. 2008. Witness to the body count: Planetary ethics in Dionne Brand’s Inventory. Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews 63: 37–58. McGregor, Hannah, Julie Rak, and Erin Wunker, eds. 2018. Refuse: CanLit in ruins. Toronto: Book*hug Press. McKittrick, Katherine. 2021. Dear science and other stories. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Ngai, Sianne. 2020. The gimmick of the novel of ideas. The Paris Review, June 25. Accessed 8 June 2022. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/06/25/ the-­gimmick-­of-­the-­novel-­of-­ideas. Okoth, Christine. 2021. The extractive form of contemporary Black writing: Dionne Brand and Yaa Gyasi. Textual Practice 35 (3): 379–394. https://doi. org/10.1080/0950236X.2021.1886705. Quashie, Kevin. 2021. Black aliveness, or a poetics of being. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Robb, Peter. 2018. Ottawa writers festival: Dionne Brand confronts theory and practice. https://artsfile.ca/ottawa-writers-festival-dionne-brand-confrontstheory-and-practice/. Sharpe, Christina. 2010. Monstrous intimacies: Making post-slavery subjects. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. ———. 2016. In the wake: On Blackness and being. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Siemerling, Winfried. 2020. Accumulated time, the anecdote, and the vertical imagination. In Anecdotal modernity: Making and unmaking history, ed. James Dorson, Florian Sedlmeier, MaryAnn Snyder-Körber, and Birte Wege, 181–196. Berlin: De Gruyter.

CHAPTER 12

An Unresolved Crossing: David Foster Wallace’s ‘Oblivion’ Adriano Ardovino and Pia Masiero

Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that allows the wheel to function. We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. We fashion wood for a house, Although this chapter is the result of a close and mutually enriching collaboration, Adriano Ardovino is the author of the sections “Mapping Borders” and “Stubborn Voices”, and Pia Masiero is the author of the sections “The Formal Border: From Monologue to Dialogue and Back” and “Thematic Borders: From Within a Dream”.

A. Ardovino Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy e-mail: [email protected] P. Masiero (*) Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_12

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but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable. We work with the substantial, but the emptiness is what we use. —Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 1996, chapter 11

Mapping Borders ‘Oblivion’, the title story of David Foster Wallace’s third short story collection first published in 2004,1 spans slightly more than forty-six pages and presents an overbrimming, freely associative monologue told in the first person by Randall Napier. With excruciating and highly idiosyncratic details, Randall recounts the complicated marital conflict caused by sleep issues, turning his marriage into a battlefield: his wife, Hope, complains about her husband’s snoring, and Randall maintains that she dreams it. Both lament that their sleep is greatly disrupted, and Randall details their decision to settle the issue and determine who is right by monitoring their sleeping patterns in a sleep clinic. The monologue also accounts for the (literally unsettling) results of the assessment. Other sinister materials complicate this plot line: Randall’s attraction to his stepdaughter, Audrey, and Hope’s father’s, (Dr.) Ed Sipe’s, alleged abuse of his daughter(s). The final page interrupts the monologue abruptly and shifts to a somewhat surreal dialogue between a man, possibly Randall, and a woman, probably Hope, which seems to change everything. As everyone who has read Wallace’s short story knows, this summary is very far from conveying what this short story does and asks the reader to do. Our reading contends that the structure, which revolves around the generic border-crossing of monologue and dialogue and their deep interlacing, precedes and provides the foundations for any standard synopsis of the short story. One of the results of Wallace’s narrative construction is that it overwrites the possibility of thinking about the short story in terms of plot. As in the more famous case of ‘Good Old Neon’ (2004), the interpretive horizon of ‘Oblivion’ shifts dramatically on the final page. Here, too, Wallace concocts a narrative predicated upon a necessary folding on itself; here, too, the ‘share of the linguistic work’ (McCaffery 2012, p.  34) 1

 All the following quotes come from the first Back Bay paperback edition (2005).

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readers must put in implies that they must retrieve their steps and start reading again. This second reading is guided by the need to make ends meet, to find in what comes before—the long and winding monologue—a narrative justification for what comes next—the very brief dialogue. The readerly experience this story requires, thus, is structured both on a prospective/retrospective sense-making movement and the (inevitably tentative) interpretation of the juncture between monologue and dialogue. The reader’s job is to navigate two interconnected boundaries, one thematic/ typological—the waking-dreaming boundary—the other formal—the monologue-­dialogue boundary—along with their respective functioning rules and interwoven semantic clusters. As we will see, the thematic/typological boundary contains another embedded boundary concerning gender-­related inflections of the self. The most detailed analysis of the short story to date can be found in Greg Carlisle’s Nature’s Nightmare. Analyzing David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion (2013, pp. 99–114). According to his reading, nicely condensed in a figure that captures well how each facet of Hope’s sexual abuse is doubled oneirically in terms of denial (p. 113), the dialogue that wraps up the short story points to a retrospective interpretation of the monologue as Hope’s dream. In the dream, a young traumatized Hope ‘tries to fantasize about an adult future away from [her abusive stepfather, Ed Sipe] … but in that fantasy, her daughter [Audrey] has a potentially abusive stepfather [Randall], too’ (p. 112). Hope is eventually roused by the very person she is trying to move away from, namely, her stepfather, who dictates her role—‘You are my wife’—while she tries to convince herself this is not happening—‘None of this is real’—as a coping mechanism (p. 112). Far from presenting his reading as the only one possible, Carlisle offers it as ‘the likeliest interpretation of the story’ (p.  112): he is the first one to couch his closing remarks with tentative words and points to a recalcitrant element that would defy his interpretation straightaway, as shown later. We will address Carlisle’s interpretation in the following pages and provide our interpretation. To do so, we will wear the shoes of a reader who takes the (necessary) retrospective journey across the border between monologue and dialogue and tests the seams of the other border— dreaming-­waking and the cluster of related binaries—that the formal one both hides and contains.2 Our guiding hypothesis, which the chapter  ‘Good Old Neon’ hinges upon the same necessary retrospective reconfiguration and will loom in the background to allow us to point to critical contrastive items and propose our interpretation of this borderland journey. 2

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develops incrementally, is that recalcitrance, or to use James Phelan’s term, stubbornness (2017, p. 82), condenses the different facets of the interpretative work this short story requires up to facing the emptiness it conjures up and centers on. This implies that ‘Oblivion’ must be read as another example of the ‘porousness of certain borders’3 and as an emblematic demonstration that porousness may lead to an unresolved crossing, that is, to a non-existent, non-tangible land. This intangibility, however, is the most helpful feature of ‘Oblivion’/oblivion since it does not lead to annihilation but to incessant movement. Let us start at the beginning and briefly consider some macroscopic features of the two textual blocs as the reader encounters them for the first time.

The Formal Border: From Monologue to Dialogue and Back The monologue opens by joining three characters in the very first line— ‘Fortunately, Hope’s stepfather and myself […]’—and is brought to a halt forty-six pages later, in the precise moment in which the narrating-I sees his own face and mouth begin to distend ‘in a “grinningly” familiar and sensual or even predatory facial ex’ (Wallace 2005, p. 237) in the videotape of his and Hope’s nights in the Sleep chamber at the Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic. We will return to the specific image these final lines conjure up later and concentrate for the time being on the implications of this kind of truncation. The reader has no trouble in completing the word that interrupts the monologue:4 it is easy to connect the adjective ‘facial’ to the word ‘expression’ (a word that appears thrice in the monologue). And yet, we cannot but register that the interruption is brutal, extreme in its absolute shape: neither suspension dots follow the cut, nor the truncation takes a more natural form such as expr- or express-, which would follow the flow of speaking more realistically. We are left with a pure prefix, shorn of its semantically full root. As the prefix is left self-standing, the following 3  We are referring to the title of a series of short pieces that appear in Brief Interviews of Hideous Men: ‘Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders’ (Wallace, 2000). 4  The ending of The Broom of the System presents a similarly easy way to solve the interruption: ‘I’m a man of my’ (2004, p. 467). Interestingly, Wallace’s first novel may be said to stage the same kind of absent center—grandma Lenore Beadsman—that prods the characters to take action.

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dialogue opens with a similarly suspensive move: ‘“up. Wake up for the love of”’ (p. 237). ‘Up’ is not only italicized but does not present the capitalized letter that marks the standard beginning of a sentence. In its ambiguity, it gestures to various grammatically different candidates for completion, the most obvious one being ‘wake’, then repeated in its complete form. Notwithstanding this solution, the impossibility of merging ‘ex’ with ‘up’ suggests an intriguing possibility: viewing the monologue as pre-fixed to a dialogue which thus becomes its (the monologue’s) semantically meaningful root. Contemplating this possibility implies that the dialogue becomes sub-fixed and, therefore, semantically central and backward-­ looking. This formal interlocking coexists with a thematical suggestion that runs counter to the relation of dependence it formally contains: the nesting of the monologue in the dialogue (which confirms the semantic centrality of the dialogue). Furthermore, the interruption in mid-word breaks the narrative frame readers have been thus far relying on (if with increasingly more pressing doubts): the monological voice they have attributed to Randall is interrupted by someone whose identity seems to be—at least at first sight— Randall himself. Considering the precise moment of the interruption of the monologue, which will be explored in more detail later, we believe Randall cannot be both the narrator of the monologue and the one who interrupts the monologue waking Hope.5 The result is the creation of a sequence that turns on itself, swallowing—so to speak—its foundation. The coupling of monologue and dialogue in their oscillating and mutually invalidating interweaving becomes, thus, the structural skeleton that must guide any interpretive maneuver. The unstable and unnatural/non-­ mimetic confluence calls for a reading that depends on immersing in a generic and thematic space revolving around the porousness of borders. Contextually, inhabiting this space requires negotiating a double movement of surface linearity and deep backward movement. It furthermore inaugurates the first recalcitrant/stubborn element of the backward journey the reader is about to take: in which sense can a dreamer be deemed 5  It could be argued what Carlisle proposes: Ed Sipe and not Randall wakes Hope. Alternatively, it could be Randall that interrupts his monologue compelled by the urgency of waking Hope. This alternative does not honor the graphical presentation of the monologue, reaching us without inverted commas: we cannot, therefore, but consider the two blocks as separated. As what follows makes clear, it is not crucial for us to determine the identity of the person who wakes Hope as we concentrate on the implications of the fact that the monologue is not self-standing but is nested within Hope’s dream.

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the narrator of a dream while dreaming? Against which mimetic horizon are readers to measure the reliability of what they are reading once they learn they are reading a dream? The second time around—that is, in the first re-reading—readers frame their experience starting from these very impactful textual materials, which grow from within the already unresolvable stumbling block of the narrating instance. This first structural stubbornness is—significantly—correlated with the first emptiness: once readers cannot ascribe a diegetically recognizable name to the narrating-I, they must accept the condition of what we may call the disnarratedness6 of the monologue. The juncture of monologue and dialogue, thus, provokes a clash between the primacy effect of being immersed in a monologue with a well-defined (if highly idiosyncratic) narrator and the recency effect of denying the very existence of that I and the powerful mono-vocality of the I’s narrative.7 Given these premises, it is rather evident that the two components of the Latin and Greek words for reading seem to be inherently at work in attending to Wallace’s story: legere and legein contain both the notion of connecting, gathering, and uniting and that of selecting, distinguishing, and choosing. These two contextual activities are so intrinsic to the reader’s work as to suggest their being an integral part of the intentional system Wallace has devised, that is, part of the kind of reading experience he wanted to create. And yet, readers cannot but wonder whether retrieving their steps and dismantling for good the stickiness of the primacy effect will be enough to 6  It could be argued that the entire monologue is a disnarrated element: according to Gerald Prince who coined the term back in 1988, the disnarrated is constituted by ‘terms, phrases and passages that consider what did not or does not take place’ (1988, p. 3). More specifically, Prince writes, ‘I am referring to alethic expressions of impossibility or unrealized possibility, deontic expressions of observed prohibition, epistemic expressions of ignorance, ontological expressions of nonexistence, purely imagined worlds, desired worlds, or intended worlds, unfulfilled expectations, unwarranted beliefs, failed attempts, crushed hopes, suppositions and false calculations, errors and lies, and so forth’ (p. 3). Quite differently from the examples Prince provides, Wallace’s disnarrated is ‘essential to narrative’ (p. 4) and, as we hope to demonstrate, is essential to the experience Wallace had in mind for us. 7  Menakhem Perry defines the primacy effect as ‘the effect of information situated at the beginning of a message’ (1979, p. 53). Its demonstration is ‘people’s tendency to persist in the direction wherein they embarked on any activity’ (p. 53). As for the recency effect, Perry writes: ‘the literary text exploits the “powers” of the primacy effect, but ordinarily it sets up a mechanism to oppose them, giving rise, rather, to a recency effect. Its terminal point, the point at which all the words which have hitherto remained “open” are sealed, is a decisive one’ (p. 57). As we will see, in Wallace’s storyworld the recency effect does not seal any words.

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attend to this composing work and make room for its empty center. Readers cannot but wonder when the story is over and they are ready to re-read, whether the story presents an instance of stubbornness—we cannot comprehend the events and the facts that compose the progression because they are not retrievable from the text—or of mere difficulty.8 Does the title concern readers as well? Is the highly emphatic (and rather awkward) ‘“It’s all all right”’ (p. 237) closing the dialogue and the short story an invitation to accept the impossibility of a univocal interpretation and espouse a sort of readerly oblivion, a forgetfulness that disregards all understanding? In other words, are readers invited ‘to simply go back to sleep and forget all about it’? We will have to return to these ponderous questions. First, let us consider the pragmatic steps readers may take to diffuse stubbornness into difficulty and negotiate the disnarrated/empty bulk of the story.

Thematic Borders: From Within a Dream In Carlisle’s view, ‘the only thing we can be certain of’ is ‘that the dreamer is Hope’ (2013, p. 111). This is the most obvious interpretation of the brief dialogue that closes the short story and which must be the first textual portion to be considered in the retrospective journey we are about to make. It is worth quoting it in its entirety: ‘up. Wake up, for the love of.’ ‘God. My God I was having.’ ‘Wake up.’ ‘Having the worst dream.’ ‘I should certainly say you were.’ ‘It was awful. It just went on and on.’ ‘I shook you and shook you and.’ ‘Time is it.’ ‘It’s nearly—almost 2:04. I was afraid I might hurt you if I prodded or shook any harder. I couldn’t seem to rouse you.’ ‘Is that thunder? Did it rain?’ ‘I was beginning to really worry. Hope, this cannot go on. When are 8  We follow here Phelan’s definitions: the stubborn is ‘textual recalcitrance that does not yield to interpreters’ efforts to master it’ whether the difficult concerns those ‘textual phenomena that initially appear recalcitrant but are designed to yield to interpreters’ efforts to interpret them’ (2017, p. 82).

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we going to make that appointment?’ ‘Wait—am I even married?’ ‘Please don’t start all this again.’ ‘And who’s this Audrey?’ ‘Just go on back to sleep now.’ ‘And what’s that—Daddy?’ ‘Just lie back down.’ ‘What’s wrong with your mouth?’ ‘You are my wife.’ ‘None of this is real.’ ‘It’s all all right.’ (Wallace 2005, p. 237)

Of the two participants, Hope’s name is the only one to be spelled out: she is the one who was sleeping and who was ‘“having the worst dream”’. The worst dream is inferable by the other speaker (‘“I should certainly say you were”’) and might be the very reason for his trying to rouse her. Straightforward as this may seem, the fact that Hope is having a nightmare seems to be the only knowledge the two speakers share. The still incomplete recovery of the state of full consciousness on the dreamer’s part is not enough to explain the weirdness of the dialogue. Almost every single word of the exchange—so the story’s intrinsic dynamics goes—points to the preceding monologue. There are bits we can recognize: ‘“For God’s sake”’ (p.  222), which is in brackets within square brackets and, apparently, the narrator’s clarification of the exact words used; ‘“Do stop”’ (p. 231), which is also in square brackets and on its own for no easily discernible reason; ‘“… up!”’ (p. 232) that appears in brackets and, apparently, is Randall’s internal echo in reference to the word ‘erect’ during the Sleep specialist’s sharing of the results of the tests; ‘“not start this again my”’ (p. 233), which is placed in brackets within square brackets and presents an example of Hope’s vain effort to preserve her ‘daughterly charms’—the precise relationship between the example provided and the italicized part is obscure; ‘“only hurt a tiny”’, which is in brackets in the middle of a twenty-line-long sentence used adjective-like to refer to the Somnologist—‘the (only hurt a tiny) Somnologist’—for obscure reasons (p. 234); ‘“Please!”’ (p. 235), which is positioned in brackets on its own for no easily discernible reason; and finally, ‘“or hurt you if”’ which, in brackets within square brackets, is appended hazily to the word ‘paralyzed’ (p. 236).

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This list of occurrences belongs in the scene that marks the end of the sleep experiments and arguably shows Randall at his most hypnotized (and thus prone to oneiric infiltrations of his own) by what is happening. Another, less connotated, echo is traceable to Dr. Sipe’s wife saying to her husband: ‘For God’s sake, Edmund, straighten up’ (p.  196). Others belong to Randall’s own hallucinating moments: ‘I myself standing precariously on a rise in the statue’s great granite lap […] with someone far larger behind me’s [sic] hand heavy upon my shoulder and back and a dominant or “booming” voice from the darkness of the great stone head overhead repeatedly commanding “Up”, and the hand pushing or shaking and saying “For God…” and\or “…Hope” several times’ (p.  211). This scene echoes not only some words that appear in the dialogue but the same relational context—the commanding voice, the heavy hand—that, together with the predatory and grinning expression, constitutes the recurring image of the threateningly abusive male running in the family.9 And yet, amid this web of words that refer to Hope’s probable liminal state of consciousness (she does not seem to relate to her being married or having a daughter named Audrey) or that can be considered oneiric material (being shaken either by a loving or molesting hand), the word ‘appointment’ can be considered the first genuinely recalcitrant item.10 The relevant (for the dialogue) appointment the monologue refers to concerns the excruciating core of the marital dispute about Randall’s alleged snoring. However, in the monologue, some kind of medical or 9  As the detailed list of fragments that cross the border of the dialogue (arguably the real) and the monologue (arguably the dream/hallucination) makes clear, Hope (arguably the victim) is so immersed in her painful negotiation of a livable life as to be trapped between reality and its ‘oblivion’. Her being in the world cannot bypass her traumatic experience, causing the dreaming-Hope to speak like the awake-Hope to her abusive father (or husband). We could therefore argue that Hope may be remembering some past abuse and/or may be abused in the present and reacts to the abuse with distancing moves (dream and/or hallucination). These coping moves shield the victim from the overwhelming real without severing her bond with it: on the contrary, they lead the victim to negotiate it through its (partial) oblivion. The consequence for the reader is, again, facing a stubborn structural element that problematizes the nesting of the monologue within the dialogue, that is, wondering to what extent the reported words and fragments in italics and double quotation marks can or should be attributed (1) to the victim who suffers or remembers the abuse, (2) to the perpetrator who perpetrates it or has perpetrated it, or (3) to both. 10  The appointment, if differently, is recalcitrant for Carlisle too. He writes: ‘This would seem the likeliest interpretation of the story, except that Sipe would just make an appointment for Hope rather than ask, “When are we going to make that appointment?” That sounds more like Randall’ (2013, p. 112).

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psychiatric appointment is presented as already made. In the dialogue, the appointment refers clearly to something that must be made because ‘this cannot go on’. This temporal positioning allows for a characterization of the interlocutor as being worried and wanting to do something to stop an unbearable situation, and opens up a space for various intentional horizons that depend on the interlocutor’s identity and a recurrent thematic issue—endlessness. Deciding upon the interlocutor’s identity is part and parcel of navigating the recalcitrance and looking for a definite answer in the monologue. Here begins the back-and-forth movement across the generic border that depends on dismantling and reconfiguring what we thought we knew. The issue of attribution is upfront in pondering the other word in the dialogue that poses interpretive problems—Daddy. The monologue has conjured up two potentially abusive scenarios, one concerning Randall himself and his daughter Audrey, the other concerning Dr. Sipe and his two stepdaughters. While the former is presented as a persistent fantasized relationship, the latter emerges as more threateningly real.11 In both cases, the two micro-narratives, be they abusive or inappropriate, spread across the narrative through a net of repeated tags: the saffron perfume that belongs to Audrey and Dr. Sipe’s grimacing mouth and the skin of his hand with pre-cancerous amber lesions. The spelling out of the appellative Daddy could, if differently, be indexed back to both potentially abusive narrative threads. Alternatively, it could (more neutrally?) be read on a par with the preceding item in Hope’s mouth—‘And who’s this Audrey? […] And what’s that—Daddy?’—the two sentences asking for persons that belong in the dream and that the dreamer does not seem to recognize as belonging to her life. The second, definitely less linear than the first, may be read similarly—‘what is that … is it Daddy?’ We can, as readers, rule this option out as somewhat stretched (and ungrammatical), but we cannot deny that all the lines present some sort of infraction or, at the very least, gap that may support this further extravagance as well. We can safely state that the dialogue presents its own version of back-­ pedaling as the two characters’ lines make sense, if they do, only when read as couplets or as an alternated chain. Furthermore, both couplets and 11  The abusive situation is hinted at transversally but unequivocally: ‘[…] the terrible stepfatherly knowledge of what our Audrey could have been to me, perhaps as Hope—as well as Vivian [as she had “hysterically” claimed to have later been professionally helped to “Recover” unconscious memories of]—had one served as or been to himself’ (Wallace 2005, p. 214).

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alternate lines are formed, only bypassing (forgetting?) punctuation marks, as we have seen at the beginning of the dialogue. Periods both truncate and point to a completion of the back-to-back, alternating utterances. Thus, the dialogue does not strike a more linear and mimetically recognizable narrative note; instead, it mirrors the same interruption and sliding pattern that force readers to compose fragments and circumvent gaps in search for meaningfulness away and beyond punctuation and grammar. The most complete and linear line of all (‘It’s nearly—almost 2:04. I was afraid I might hurt you if I prodded or shook any harder. I couldn’t seem to rouse you.’) not only responds to a very awkward line presenting a double deletion (what and the question mark)—‘Time is it’—but contains a somewhat weird detail, namely, the redundant nearly/almost. The combination of the modal (‘might’) and the conditional (‘if I prodded’) concurs in representing a formally polite voice, as if this were an enacted scene. A superficial politeness is, thus, added to the surreal mix. Furthermore, among the many hours and minutes that are possible, the time happens to be the same as the recorded video the couple is shown as proof of the conclusion of the diagnostic iter. It could easily be argued that the day could be another one. Still, the authorial choice cannot go unnoticed: the spelling out of the time of waking does not provide the solid ground its precision promises and forces the reader to confront another recalcitrant cross-referencing. Readers move as in a quagmire, unable to move swiftly or linearly. This borderland is marked by deictics that fail to be the guiding signposts they could and should be because they are rooted in slippery ground: ‘this’ and ‘that’ float unmoored from any univocal antecedent and thus create a nightmarish echo chamber that fosters a sort of readerly dizziness. In the myriad resonances that belong in the monologue we have sketched above and find their way into the dialogue, dizziness is the key component of the reader’s experience. Reading the monologue the first time around had already required a certain amount of interpretive stamina because what had begun as a somewhat mimetic account of the interruption of a round of golf at the ninth hole by a violent storm of the protagonist and first-­ person narrator, Randall Napier, and his stepfather-in-law, Dr. Edmund Sipe, and the consequent time at the nearby Clubhouse, turns out to be a disturbingly non-mimetic text. The short story’s textual surface also strikes awkward notes: a typically ungrammatical employment of the reflexive pronoun ‘myself’, the highly idiosyncratic employment of hyphenation, capitalization, and quotation marks complicate the processing of sentences

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that tend to be long, heavily digressive, and overbrimming with minutiae. Readers confront square brackets that aim to avoid ambiguity but end up sounding redundant at best. The kind of reading experience these choices foster is ruminative: the macroscopic back-pedaling the text demands, which seems to be condensed in the highly eccentric employment of backslashes instead of slashes (‘and\or’), is reflected at the sentence level, and readers cannot but stop and ponder the reasons of this or that anomalous capitalized or hyphenated word while negotiating contents presenting, explicitly or implicitly, sexual imagery. The recurring backslashes and hyphenations condense, graphically, the kind of work the reader is asked to do: confronted with the paradoxical presence of a divided unity, s/he cannot but experiment a whole which contains both the separation and the very possibility for that whole to exist. The microscopic dual nature of hyphenated words mirrors the macroscopic structure ‘Oblivion’ stages: the short story’s unity depends on a generic duality across a border that must be disjoined before being joined, an empty in-betweenness that must be experienced. The mimetic reason that the narrator himself provides for these anomalies—hallucinations and disorientation are the alleged effects of the persisting sleep deprivation he suffers from—is not enough to dispel the sense of weirdness and unreliability the text presents. Most notably, readers have difficulty figuring out a context for Randall’s monologue. Whom might he be speaking to of such unflattering contents? Besides the issue of the context (and thus of the addressee) of this telling, one cannot but wonder what kind of retrospective narrative this is. On the one hand, the thick web of parentheses and words in single quotes projects a narrating-I that takes the excruciating pain of annotating his telling to couch it in the most precise terms possible; on the other hand, one wonders how such an accurate recollection of an incredible number of details is likely. The particulars, together with many parenthetical materials (we have already presented some that cross-reference with the dialogue) that are difficult to relate both to a relevant context and a plausible subjectivity, result in the subtle and progressive mining of the telling itself. The identity of the narrating-I becomes more unstable and shakier: the I crumbles under the de-­ structuring impact of the perversions, manias, and oblivious removal, on the one hand, and the exasperating need to rephrase and over-punctuate single words and expressions and sentences, on the other hand. Terminological punctiliousness implodes in mutually invalidating clusters (‘I then either imagined, hallucinated or witnessed,’ p. 231; ‘I either saw,

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hallucinated, “imagined” […], or actually watched or literally “witnessed”’ pp.  236–237)12 or obscure explanations (‘when (‘dreaming’) dreaming’ p.  234) and heightens the sense of unreliability. The first reading too, thus, might have already registered the possibility that the monologue stages an oneiric scene, even though the spatio-temporal coordinates allow readers to sketch a timeline spanning one year.13 As Clare Hayes-Brady perceptively suggests, the vocal characteristics of the monologue reveal ‘a narrator uncomfortable with his own voice’ (2016, p. 145). The second reading processes all these materials differently as it looks for confirmation of the embedded and, thus, necessarily oneiric nature of the monologue. The readers’ reconfiguration proceeds in the dismantling, and a self that is only the vestige of itself, a failed self, comes to the fore. The timeline, too, that had infiltrated a sense of reliability at first sight crumbles once an appointment to be made is mentioned. Furthermore, in the retrospective reading, Randall’s intention to tell his stepfather-in-law about the marital conflict seems to concern the conflict before the diagnosis. This implies that the scene at the Raritan Club, which had appeared as the container, so to speak, of all that was in Randall’s mind, does not contain—at least chronologically speaking—all that we thought it did. As we have already suggested, this is encapsulated in the absence of a mimetically tenable narrating instance that readers can refer to. This points to a structural stubbornness: despite the difficulty we have already confronted in conjuring up a plausible context for this unflattering telling, despite its oneiric undertones and its unreliable verbal underpinnings, it is undeniable that the more we immerse in the story, the more we familiarize ourselves with Randall’s (as told by Randall) most intimate emotional landscape. The consequence is that Randall makes vocal sense to us; we are immersed in a ‘mimetic narrative voice’, in a monologue ‘typically distinctive and tic-riddled’ (Hayes-Brady 2016, p. 145). Once the dialogue severs the indexical relationship between Randall and the I as self-standing in its own right, that is, in a first-order discourse, we are left orphaned of the 12  In Thomas Tracey’s view, ‘the narration’s use of conjunctive “or”s [sic] has a generally destabilizing effect, as it eschews a categorical description of the situation witnessed’ (2010, p. 182). 13  Actually, the major events’ sequence is rather fuzzy, but the overall impression is of narratorial confidence: the reference to the time of speaking/narrating—‘to this day’ (Wallace 2005, p. 192)—belongs in the numerous mimetic anchors that abound in the monologue. One may argue that the reference is to an unspecified now, but its very existence is a very strong move that counterbalances the paradoxical component of the monologue.

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voice we had grown accustomed to, the voice which, in saying ‘I’, has built a precise deictic field around itself and has named its own name— Randall. Now, the text requires us to apprehend that the Randall we have listened to is Hope’s version of her husband: there is no Randall preceding this oneiric creation to whom we can refer to measure the distance with this new one. Shedding this Copernican change and the strength of a primacy effect forty-six pages long requires attending to what now takes center stage—the dreamer: to make narrative sense of the new, nested, narrating-Randall, we have to consider the cognitive and emotional stuff Hope is made of. We have two textual items that may help us: Hope’s raw voice as we listen to it in the dialogue and Hope’s voice as it emerges in the projection/creation of her husband in the monologue. ‘Oblivion’, thus, becomes about Hope.

Stubborn Voices We now have a narrative reason for the impression that had subtly eroded the stability of the narrating-I during the monologue. The woman who dreams reaches us through what she says as someone who is suffering, caught in a nightmare that touches upon her most intimate relationships. She enters the stage of the first-order discourse as someone who is caught between dream and reality, in the process of realizing where she comes from and where she is. Her voice is bewildered, confused, and recognizable as authentically raw and in pain. Her realization has a powerful reality effect, past the traps of linguistic sophistication. From within this suffering, we must then reconfigure everything. Hope dreams of her husband and crucially projects him as the one who says I. This move may be fruitfully compared to what Wallace does in ‘Good Old Neon’; there, too, the final pages of the short story suggest that the speaking-I, Neal, may be read as the fruit of Wallace’s diegetic imagination. This similarity, however, is only superficial as Wallace does not— ever—speak in his voice but is presented as imagining Neal and his voice. This implies that it is easy to argue that Neal contains Wallace’s imagination and not the other way around.14 ‘Oblivion’ does not present the same possible vying interpretations as the monologue is firmly rooted in Hope’s 14  For a detailed analysis of the implications of these two interpretive trajectories and the employment of the same analytical method centered on the (re-)reading experience, see Ardovino and Masiero (2022).

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oneiric activity. There is no possible bypassing of this basic tenet. Hope’s dream, thus, names herself as wife and daughter and mother but not as I: all these roles are presented as conflicted and unstable because of the forces—abuse or perverse fantasizing—inhabiting the significant males of her life. Her identity emerges mediated by a filtering-I—her husband’s: Hope thus projects herself as being spoken of as an object not a subject. Her self is dreamt as linguistically appropriated: as Hayes-Brady points out, ‘Wallace literalizes the loss of self by way of overidentification with another subject’ (2016, p. 146), which implies emptying its very meaning. This feature thematizes the back-pedaling the short story, as we have seen, hinges upon: Hope projects an I that speaks against her own individualized absent voice and a self—hers—that accepts the possibility of being herself (at least partially) guilty of what is happening in her life. It is worth emphasizing that these references across the formal and typological boundaries also involve the issue of gender: the monologic-I comes to us as male only to become the oneiric shape of a male voice grafted onto a female self. On the other hand, the dialogue instantiates the presence of a female self through the spelling out of a name—Hope. It is highly tempting to stretch this to its extremes and posit the female as the origin of everything this story thematizes: hope and oblivion, or hope through oblivion. Despite (or should we say because of?) these considerations, the dream which produces the monologue, and thus Randall, presents another instance of stubbornness because of its inherent complexity. One wonders: maybe the mystery of the dream is not masking the reality of the trauma diffusing its ponderousness and letting the unconscious speak about it only in an allusive or distorted or symbolic guise. The mystery of the dream points to the essence of what oblivion is: a reality to be touched without its representation, a reference that is named through its being forgotten. We can translate these abstract concepts in Wallace’s chosen events for this story as follows: I do not deny the snoring (and all the molesting behaviors it may stand for), but I absorb it as disconnected from its cause. This amounts to saying that I do not wake up because someone is snoring, but I dream of the snoring without hearing it: it is not the noise that triggers the dreaming of the noise. The dreaming of the noise is a way to be with the noise, to find a way to belong in the same place and live notwithstanding. Given this possible interpretive reframing, we are urged to ask: oblivion of what? Of the necessity to proceed according to cause-­ and-­effect-chains, of considering disnarrated elements as non-essential to

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a narrative and a life, in other terms, of considering resistance as the original formal stubbornness the text stages and thematizes. Hope resists/has difficulty in waking up; Randall is dreamt of as someone resisting the reality of his snoring (and of his incestuous penchants); readers resist modifying their interpretive horizons. Stubbornness, thus, is the one textual element that pervades ‘Oblivion’ at every possible level. The reader does not confront, line after line, instances of mere difficulty but instances of inherent recalcitrance: Wallace’s short story is not simply reluctant, ungenerous in providing readily available answers and connections. It is refractory in a radical—structural—way: the text stages an act of resistance systematically staving off and boomeranging back the umpteenth readerly effort to channel the various items in one or the other defined and stable direction. It is the quintessence of textual insubordinate, rebellious, persistent disobedience. This inherent structural texture appears to be the narrative instantiation of the etymological meaning of stubborn, which comes from the Old English stybb (i.e., arboreal stub), to be related to the Greek stypos and the Latin stipes, all traceable back to the Indo-European root to which the verbs ‘stand’ and ‘establish’, and the nouns ‘stability’ and ‘stance’, together with ‘stick’ and ‘stub’, refer to. In Wallace’s ‘Oblivion’, there is something that not only remains immovable but keeps protruding, bulging obtrusively in sight, knocking at the reader’s attentional door, and creating its own peculiar kind of reader. The text resists passively the reader’s interpretative forays and mines any of his/her interpretive efforts, sapping their vitality at the root. The reading experience, thus, accepts the indisputable fact that putting in one’s share of work is not enough: readers must take in and host the unresolvable in their minds and hearts. This remains the thorn in the reader’s side, a hovering residue that never dissipates, an element that is constitutively a stub, intrinsically not whole and thus partial but a presence nonetheless. Its vestiges attest to the work the reader has been able to broach, but not to complete, the baffling evidence that the whole is unattainable because the residual is beyond readerly metabolization. Stubbornness has infiltrated everything in every possible re-reading. Its very protruding, nagging nature both requires and frustrates interpretation: the text defies recapitulation, and the reader faces a structural opacity. This veil cannot be lifted. The story’s trajectory aims at bringing the reader to experience this impervious obstinacy belonging to the long list of undecidable items from which we have excerpted some examples, even though it surpasses the

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total of their happenings. This is part and parcel of the story’s intentional system: an invitation to inhabit the liminal space of being across borders, neither here nor there, but both here and there, a nowhere place that is empty but whose emptiness is up front in the very moment the short story begins. After all, we are in the Club’s 19th Hole Room, ‘what Raritan Club members often refer to as simply “19” or “the Hole”’ (Wallace 2005, p. 210), a hole which would come after the regular ones but does not exist. We as readers of ‘Oblivion’ are invited to that borderland, ‘the type of semi-waking, oneiric state in which some people “‘talk’ in their sleep”, confabulating past and present and truth and dream, and “believing” it all in such a way that there is simply no reasoning with someone in such a state’ (p. 201). The question is: can this possibly be the most objective representation of what life is in the never-ending Wallacian explorations of the boundary between life and storytelling? The answer is yes, but only insofar as this boundary (and the others we touched upon) is negotiated along the lines of Chapter 11 of the Tao: ‘We work with the substantial, but the emptiness is what we use’ (Lao Tzu 1996).

References Ardovino, Adriano, and Pia Masiero. 2022. ‘A matter of perspective’: ‘Good old neon’ between philosophy and literature. In David Foster Wallace between philosophy and literature, ed. Allard den Dulk, Pia Masiero, and Adriano Ardovino, 68–88. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Carlisle, Greg. 2013. Nature’s nightmare: Analyzing David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion. Los Angeles: Sideshow Media Group. Hayes-Brady, Clare. 2016. The unspeakable failures of David Foster Wallace: Language, identity, and resistance. London: Bloomsbury. Lao Tzu. 1996. Tao te ching. Trans. Jeffrey McDonald. Accessed 5 June 2023. https://simplybeing-­s w.co.uk/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2016/12/Tao-­Te-­ Ching-­J.H.-­McDonald-­1996.pdf. McCaffery, Larry. 2012. An expanded interview with David Foster Wallace. In Conversations with David Foster Wallace, ed. Stephen Burn, 21–52. Mississippi: Mississippi University Press. Perry, Menakhem. 1979. Literary dynamics: How the order of a text creates its meanings. Poetics Today 1 (1/2): 35–161. Phelan, James. 2017. Somebody telling somebody else: A rhetorical poetics of narrative. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. Prince, Gerald. 1988. The disnarrated. Style 22 (1): 1–8.

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Tracey, Thomas. 2010. Representations of trauma in David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion. In Consider David Foster Wallace, ed. David Hering, 172–186. Los Angeles: Sideshow Media Group Press. Wallace, David Foster. 2000. Brief interviews with hideous men. New York: Back Bays Books. ———. 2004. The broom of the system. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2005. Oblivion. New York and Boston: Back Bay Books.

CHAPTER 13

Crossing Gender: Andy Warhol’s Candy Darling, America, and Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve Marie Mulvey-Roberts

[T]he novel was sparked off by a visit to the USA in 1969. It was the height of the Vietnam war, with violent public demos and piles of garbage in New York streets. If you remember, it was the year of gay riots in Greenwich Village, when they even chucked rocks; so my scenario of uprisings isn’t all that far-fetched. —Angela Carter (qtd in Gamble 2006, p. 152)

Introduction As Angela Carter observed in her notorious polemic, The Sadeian Woman (1979), ‘our flesh arrives to us out of history, like everything else does’ and ‘Flesh is not an irreducible human universal’ (Carter 1979a, p. 9). In line with these statements, her speculative fiction can be read as an

M. Mulvey-Roberts (*) University of the West of England, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_13

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exposition on how the gendering of flesh is shaped by culture and historical movements and is subject to different interpretations. From the start of her career, she was writing at a time of seismic social change, namely the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The distorting mirror she held up to this challenging and chaotic milieu is her darkly, satiric, and dystopian novel, The Passion of New Eve (1977), which parodies feminist groups and notions of gender and sexual difference. Close connections will be made between the novel and the visit she made with her husband Paul to New York in the summer of 1969. Through the intersection of fiction and real-life, this chapter analyses the ways Carter’s characters negotiate their crossings in the borderlands of gender. At the time of her arrival, Manhattan was witnessing the burgeoning of the gay liberation movement, the S.C.U.M. manifesto was in circulation advocating extreme radical separatist feminism, and, by 1968, drag queens, according to avant-garde artist Andy Warhol, had become ‘sexual radicals’ (Currid-Halkett 2007, p. 27). The way in which Carter presents gender as a socially constructed performance has been linked by many literary critics to the gender-­ performative theories of Judith Butler in a ‘Butlerification’ of her work (Bristow and Broughton 1997, p. 19). At the same time as recognising the influence of Butler, Joanne Trevenna argues that Carter’s approach has more in common with the earlier feminist views of Simone de Beauvoir. An important difference between the two theorists is that, unlike de Beauvoir, Butler believes that there is no established sexual subject prior to gender being constructed through social conditioning, but that it is ‘like a fiction, perhaps a fantasy, retroactively installed at a prelinguistic site to which there is no direct access’ (Butler 1993, p. 5). In The Sadeian Woman, Carter refers to ‘the unarguable fact of sexual differentiation; but, separate from it and only partially derived from it, are the behavioural modes of masculine and feminine, which are culturally defined variables translated in the language of common usage to the status of universals’ (1979a, p. 6). The latter point about how gender is socially constructed is one on which all three writers agreed. The most well-known expression of this is de Beauvoir’s famous pronouncement in The Second Sex (1949) that one is ‘not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ (1953, p. 273). In The Passion of New Eve, Carter’s protagonist starts off as a man called Evelyn who ‘becomes’ a woman, Eve, through involuntarily surgery and psycho-programming. Enforced feminisation is a punishment for Evelyn’s misogyny and sexual abuse of women. After being captured in the desert by a member of a radical separatist feminist community, Evelyn is taken to

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the underground town of Beulah. The ruler of this subterranean matriarchy is Mother, a mythological monstrosity, who displays a fringe of teats on her chest, transplanted from her now one-breasted Amazonian acolytes. She is a travesty of an essentialist Earth Mother figure and a perverse avatar of a New Age goddess, who rapes Evelyn. This brutal act is for the bizarre purpose of harvesting his sperm with which to impregnate him once he has metamorphosed into a woman. Carter plays with the notion of femininity being man-made (to be discussed in more detail later), by demonstrating how Eve’s new female body is actually woman-made, having been sculptured by a female surgeon, who turns out to be Mother. In this alternative reality, Eve is able to menstruate, conceive, and bear a child. Having materialised her brainchild, Mother is now intent upon realising her mythological ambition which is for Eve to give birth to a new Messiah. In order to prepare Mother’s surgical experiment for this future maternal role, Eve is exposed to cinematic images of femininity. These focus on the uber-feminine Tristessa de St Ange, an old-style film star whom Evelyn had once feverishly admired and who is later discovered to be biologically male. Tristessa’s métier is for roles depicting womanhood as a state of suffering. Eve’s female indoctrination is supervised by Sophia, who not only administers hormone injections but also turns down the audio on the movies she screens in order to deliver feminist sermons. Through her proselytising, Sophia describes the brutal customs to which women have been subjected in various cultures such as genital mutilation, Chinese foot-binding, and Indian Suttee. This list is reminiscent of the contents page of Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology (1978), the bible of radical feminist metaethics which advocated that women should seek out relationships with other women in the form of Amazon bonding.1 Every night Mother’s Amazonian ‘storm-troopers’ (Carter 1987, p.  79) go above ground to embark upon military training, armed with bayonets, guns, limited range missiles, and even futuristic nuclear hand weapons. There is a hint that Mother is preparing them for combat in Carter’s fictional New York City’s Siege of Harlem against a blockade by black militants, who have taken up arms, and patrol Park Avenue in tanks. The Carters arrived in the city on 29 July in the tumultuous year of 1969 when the United States was the scene of racial protests sparked by 1  As Sarah Gamble notes, Carter disagreed with Daly’s arguments, some of which inspired her parody of Mother as an extreme essentialist feminist (2006, p. 147).

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the Civil Rights movement. Twenty-one Black Panthers had been charged in June of that year with conspiracy to bomb police stations in the city. Such militancy almost certainly informs the description of how Evelyn, who has travelled from England to New York to take up a lecturing post, is prevented from entering the university by black militants wearing combat gear, guarding doors and windows with machine guns. This connects to another real-life event, taking place the same year as the Carters’ visit, which involved violent clashes surrounding the closure of the City University of New York after the campus had been occupied by African American and Puerto Rican students protesting against the low admission of applicants from their ethnic backgrounds. Furthermore, Puerto Rican youths, mainly from East or Spanish Harlem, started a garbage offensive, which Carter witnessed and undoubtedly smelled first-hand. Dubbed Young Lords, this Puerto Rican version of the Black Panthers was made up of poor working-class young men who had spread garbage around the city as a protest against the neglect of their areas by sanitation workers. Rotting food waste attracted rats, which Carter fictionalises in her novel as ‘black as buboes’ (p. 10) and the size of six-month-old babies. The Young Lords cause further disruption by setting trash cans and rubbish on fire. In a similar vein, the hotel where Carter’s fictional protagonist Evelyn is staying catches fire and it is unclear whether the arson was started by the black militants or ‘The Women’ (p. 11).

S.C.U.M and Drag Queens In a crossing of biographical and fiction genres, Carter recreates the gender wars of the 1970s through ‘The Women’, a group of militant separatist feminists who have declared war on men. One of them sexually assaults Evelyn in the street, by disdainfully grabbing his genitalia in a reversal of the more common male harassment of women. Female snipers take aim at men outside blue movie theatres who ogle posters advertising pornographic films. Other members of the group are rumoured to have infiltrated street sex workers with ‘a kamikaze squad of syphilitic whores who donated spirochetal enlightenment for free to their customers out of dedication to the cause’ (p. 17). Brides are sent razors as wedding presents by these castrating females who leave graffiti symbols on the city walls, depicting the vagina dentata contained within the female sex circle signalling, ‘Women are angry. Beware Women!’ (p. 11). As an alternative image of

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castration, the women of Beulah wear red armbands with the insignia of a broken phallus contained within the female sexual symbol. For her satiric parody of radical feminism, Carter would have been able to draw on numerous American feminist groups, such as New York Radical Feminists, Redstockings, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Cell 16, named after the number of the building at 16, Lexington Avenue, New York, where their meetings took place. Cell 16 called for a vanguard of women to lead the way for a new society and through their journal, No More Fun and Games, campaigned for a female liberation front. Cutting their hair short, members were trained in self-defence, specifically karate. They urged women to separate themselves from men who were not consciously working for female liberation, and to insist upon periods of celibacy. Their founder was Roxanne Dunbar who had been inspired to form the group after reading S.C.U.M, an anti-male diatribe which she and her fellow members would consult at the start of their meetings (Hamilton 2018). Sold on the streets of New York’s Greenwich Village in 1967 as a mimeographed pamphlet, S.C.U.M. was published as a book the following year. This extremist inflammatory manifesto rant, which advocated militant violence, aimed to revolutionise the social order by eliminating men. Its projection of an all-female utopian world is echoed in Carter’s conception of Beulah in The Passion of New Eve, where Evelyn’s involuntary transition from male to female takes place. S.C.U.M. is an acronym for ‘Society for Cutting Up Men’, whose founder, sole member, and author was Valerie Solanas. She may have been a model for Carter’s female castrating surgeon, Mother, who cuts up the originally male protagonist in order to erase his masculinity and reshape him as a woman. Solanas’s most destructive anti-male act was in attempting to murder Andy Warhol on 3 June 1968 for not returning the manuscript of her play entitled Up Your Arse. The thinking behind S.C.U.M., as Germaine Greer explained, is the notion that men wanted to be more like women (1971, p. 99), an idea which is parodied in the novel through the character of Tristessa and subverted in how Evelyn’s manhood is forcibly destroyed by Mother. In S.C.U.M., Solanas declared that since the male is an incomplete female, the imperative was for him to complete himself by becoming female. This credo is an inversion of the Freudian idea of women suffering from ‘penis envy’, hence Solanas’s insistence that men experience ‘pussy envy’, which they express either through effeminate homosexuality or transvestism:

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The male dares to be different to the degree that he accepts his passivity and his desire to be female, his fagginess. The farthest out male is the drag queen, but he, although different from most men, is exactly like all the other drag queens […] he has an identity—he is female. […]. Not completely convinced that he’s a woman, highly insecure about being sufficiently female, he conforms compulsively to the man-made stereotype, ending up as nothing but a bundle of stilted mannerisms. (Solanas 1983)

In his biography, Edmund Gordon reveals that Carter visited Max’s Kansas City nightclub on 213 Park Avenue South, frequented by Andy Warhol and his superstar drag queens, who were amongst the artists, musicians, and writers populating Warhol’s nearby art studio, called The Factory, at 33 Union Square West (2016, p. 134). At the time when Warhol was creating portraits of men in drag for his Ladies and Gentleman (1975) series of paintings, he wrote: ‘Drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be’ (Dedichen 2013, p. 114). Carter regarded the exaggerated femininity and outrageous mannerisms of drag artists as a travesty of a femininity which is man-made.2 In her Guardian review of Peter Ackroyd’s book, Dressing Up, Transvestism and Drag: The History of an Obsession (1979), in which she refers to Warhol’s drag superstars, Carter notes that Japanese women go to Kabuki theatre to learn how to be feminine by watching male actors perform as female impersonators. The point made here is that Carter was convinced that men understand female praxis, as the construct of a patriarchal idea of femininity, better than women. Since dressing in feminine apparel to please men is ‘one of the most horrible and masochistic things women do to themselves’, she concludes that some cross-dressing men find the peek-a-boo bras, stilettos, and corsets irresistible for themselves and that ‘the notional femininity that always lurks behind male cross-dressing—the stereotypical femininity […] is a man-made construct’ (Carter 1979b). Evelyn/Eve’s fetishistic post-operative reaction at the sight in a mirror of his/her newly created naked body as sex object is to experience the same erotic male impulse as that aroused by a pornographic image marketed for men (Sivyer 2019, pp. 232–233):

2

 For different perspectives, see Garber (1992) and Shopland (2021).

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They had turned me into the Playboy center fold. I was the object of all the unfocused desires that ever existed in my own head. I had become my own masturbatory fantasy. And—how can I put it—the cock in my head, still, twitched at the sight of myself. (Carter 1987, p. 75)

This response of the male brain responding sexually to the female body, within which it is housed, marks the start of Eve’s acculturation as a woman. She advances towards fully embodying the feminine by learning through mimesis, which involves copying women’s behaviour and navigating the inevitable slip-ups. But what is most telling is the realisation that she shares this experience with many other members of the so-called second sex: I knew that, in spite of Sophia’s training in Beulah, I would often make a gesture with my hands that was out of Eve’s character or exclaim with a subtly male inflection that made them raise their eyebrows [….] although I was a woman, I was now also passing for a woman, but, then, many women born spend their whole lives in just such imitations. (pp. 100–101)

Carter extends this notion of gender simulation or mimesis to drag artists, which is in line with Butler’s view that ‘in imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself’ (1990, p. 187). However, Butler’s idea of gender as thoroughly naturalised and performative does not align entirely with the way Carter presents femininity through Eve’s becoming a woman, as a culturally choreographed and more self-conscious performance, similar to an actor playing a role (Trevenna 2002, p. 269). In a revealing interview with Kim Evans, who directed the BBC 2 Omnibus documentary, Angela Carter’s Curious Room (1992), Carter employs theatrical imagery for her conception of womanhood by insisting that ‘showbusiness, being a showgirl, is a very simple metaphor simply for being a woman, for being aware of your femininity, being aware of yourself as a woman and having to use it to negotiate with the world’ (Carter 1992).

Tristessa de St Ange: The World’s Most Beautiful Woman In The Passion of New Eve, this ‘showgirl’ metaphor is made explicit through the career of screen goddess Tristessa de St Ange, the object of the hero/heroine’s titular passion. Tristessa is the epitome of a

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hyper-­femininity manufactured by Hollywood’s dream-factory. Her name, in deriving from the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese for ‘sadness’, equates to her roles showing female suffering. Evelyn’s initial adoration of this movie star had been tempered by a growing disillusionment after being sent a signed fan photograph of Tristessa playing golf, a far cry from her onscreen aura of elusive divinity. Her cinematic image is further shattered when, much later in the novel, it is revealed that she has the body of a biological male, causing Eve to reflect: ‘He, she—neither will do for you, Tristessa’ (Carter 1987, p. 143).3 She had witnessed Tristessa being forcibly stripped naked by the acolytes of the homophobic and transphobic cult leader Zero who, up to that point, had always assumed her to be a natal woman. His obsession with her screen image, as his bȇte noir, had propelled his desire to destroy her. Zero’s messianic misogyny was modelled on Charles Manson, whose followers murdered film starlet Sharon Tate and her companions in August 1969. These homicides were blasted across the news channels at the time of Carter’s American tour and, arguably, Tate provided the author with another model for Tristessa (Mulvey-Roberts 2019, pp.  156–164). En route from New York to California, where the murders took place, Carter passed through Arizona. This arid setting inspired the desert landscape in which Eve is captured by Zero’s female disciples, following her escape from Beulah, and where she is forced to join his polygamous commune. Having a different wife for sex every day of the week, he cannot resist adding the beautiful Eve to his harem as number eight. Disturbingly, it is Zero’s rape of Eve and the savagery of his continued sexual abuse which speed up her apprenticeship as a woman. When her behaviour, according to Zero, becomes ‘too much like a woman’ (Carter 1987, p. 101, original emphasis), his suspicions are aroused that she could be tribadic. So virulent is his homophobia that any lesbian activity amongst his women would meet with instant death. Another ultra-feminine character is Tristessa, a gay icon, who is condemned by Zero as ‘you dyke of dykes’ (p. 127). Gay and lesbian activism was clearly on the radar at the time of the Carters’ visit to the United States, where it was becoming increasingly politicised in the maelstrom of counter-cultural upheavals. In July 1969, 3  With Tristessa, Carter seems to be articulating in literary forms some key figures of her own imaginary. On 22 October 2022 at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, Christopher Frayling told me that she was, for example, fascinated by the figure of Chevalier D’Eon, the eighteenth-century cross-dresser.

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they arrived at a sweltering New  York in the wake of the Stonewall Uprising. A month earlier, on 28 June, the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village. After a lesbian was hit over the head by a policeman, while being forced into a police van, she succeeded in inciting a crowd to hurl missiles at the police. This led to six days of protest and violent clashes with law enforcement which galvanised the gay liberation movement across the United States. According to The New York Daily News: ‘Last weekend the queens had turned commandos and stood bra strap to bra strap against an invasion of the helmeted Tactical Patrol Force’ (rpt. in Gamble 2006, p. 153). In the late 1960s, it was still illegal to cross-dress or engage in kissing, holding hands, or dancing with someone of the same sex. Owing to mafia protection, which involved bribing New York’s Sixth Police Precinct, the Stonewall club was a haven of gay freedom. So, the raid taking place in the early hours of 28 June came as a complete surprise; there had been no tip-off. Around a dozen arrests were made which included rounding up individuals for violating the state’s regulation on gender-appropriate clothing. Those suspected of cross-dressing had been taken into a bathroom for closer inspection. This inspection procedure runs parallel to the humiliating exposure of Tristessa’s male genitalia by Zero’s disciples, which causes Eve to see Tristessa as ‘an anti-being that existed only by means of a massive effort of will and a huge suppression of fact’ (Carter 1987, p. 129). Eve’s perception of Tristessa as a ‘female impersonator’ (p. 144) in the novel corresponds to Carter’s gender allegory, which presents femininity as a performance, masquerade, or artifice. An extension of this can be found in the illusionary nature of Tristessa as a screen goddess, who at the start of the novel is dismissed by Eve as ‘Enigma. Illusion, Woman? Ah! And all you signified was false! Your existence only notional; you were a piece of pure mystification, Tristessa’ (p. 6). In the most literal sense, her screen image is a fabrication fashioned from the shadow and light of cinema, which literally projects femininity as a masculine-created mirage master-­ minded by studio moguls. This was a formula for the creation of the screen goddess, whom the American actress Candy Darling aspired to emulate.

Candy Darling Along with Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling was one of the superstar drag queens in Andy Warhol’s circle. Their glamorous presence lit up Max’s fabled back room of his Kansas City nightclub. According

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to Carter’s biographer, this is where the author met a model for Tristessa, though no further detail is provided (Gordon 2016, p.  134). Without doubt, the closest fit would have been the pin-up Candy Darling (formerly known as Jimmie), whose beauty was so legendary that it drew visitors to the club. Her fame has been immortalised in the lyrics of Lou Reed’s song, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ (1972),4 and ‘Candy Says’, the opening track of the 1969 album by the Velvet Underground, Max’s house band (Gleiberman 2011). It is likely that Carter’s mention in her journal of ‘the most beautiful transvestite in the whole of Greenwich Village’ (1997a, p. 203), New York’s Bohemian capital for artists and queers, was an allusion to Candy Darling. Born James Lawrence Slattery, Jimmie had spent much of his boyhood watching old Hollywood movies on television and imitating certain actresses.5 He started wearing drag and in 1967 became a member of Warhol’s Factory, a mecca for the queer, outrageous, artistic, and avant-­ garde. Jimmie adopted his new identity as Candy in the 1960s. Afterwards, she appeared in two films, produced by Warhol: Flesh (1969) and Women in Revolt (1971), a satire of the feminist movement. Not content with being a minor starlet, Candy yearned for the real-life role of an old-style movie star contracted to the Hollywood studio system rather than having to rely on the fickleness of Warhol, who dropped her once he came to dismiss ‘chicks with dicks’ (Tindle 2017) as passé. What had once been regarded as chic was now considered old-fashioned, not least because of its association with the idea of Hollywood embodied by Candy Darling, whom Warhol must have had in mind when he wrote: ‘Drags are ambulatory archives of ideal movie star womanhood. They perform a documentary service, usually consecrating their lives to keeping the glittering alternative alive and available for (not-too-close) inspection’ (Dedichen 2013, p. 114). Given the opportunity to become a traditional screen goddess, Candy would surely have surrendered herself willingly to the close inspection of the cinematic male gaze which Carter subverts in The Passion of New Eve through Zero’s delusion that the eyes of Tristessa had penetrated through 4  Candy is mentioned in the song lyrics along with the other two well-known drag queens often accompanying Warhol, Jackie Curtis, and Holly Woodlawn. 5  I am using the male pronoun to denote the time prior to when James identified as Candy Darling. It is important to note that she did not regard herself as a drag queen but as a woman, at a time when the term ‘transgender’ was not current.

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the cinema screen and ‘consumed him in a ghastly epiphany’ (Carter 1987, p.  104). Here Carter is parodying Laura Mulvey’s theory of the Male Gaze which privileges the male viewer or voyeur over the spectacle of the female as sexual object, or femme fatale, for the purposes of scopophilia (Mulvey 1975). By reversing this gendered relationality, Carter depicts the female gaze as emasculating and the source of Zero’s hostility towards Tristessa, as he is convinced that she has psychically sterilised him in a ‘spiritual vasectomy’ (Carter 1987, p. 92). Appropriately, the name Zero signifies the blanks that he fires on ejaculation. Tristessa’s surname also has sexual connotations, having been derived from Madame de Saint-­ Ange, the libertine woman in Marquis de Sade’s La Philosophie dans le boudoir (1795). Her first name is shared by a Madonna-like Mexican prostitute, addicted to morphine, who inspired the 1960 novella, Tristessa, by Jack Kerouac. The author had appeared in Warhol’s film, Couch (1964), along with Beat poets, Allan Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso. Warhol’s films are characterised by spontaneity and improvisation, a process discussed in a 1973 documentary made by the British fashion and portrait photographer David Bailey. While lying in bed with Warhol, Bailey asked the artist about the drag queens he used in his films. Warhol explained that they did not really use drag queens but actors who thought that they were girls. He was undoubtedly thinking of Candy Darling who, in living out her life as a woman, should certainly be considered transgender. In the film, she wistfully expresses her longing for Hollywood stardom while wearing a waist-length white wig, which resembles Carter’s description of Tristessa’s long white hair. As Warhol pointed out, ‘On a good day, you couldn’t believe she was a man’ (Dedichen 2013, p. 95). Eve makes a similar point about Tristessa, significantly after her male birth sex has been exposed by Zero, when she says, ‘I could not think of him as a man’ despite ‘the implicit maleness it had never been able to assimilate into itself’ (Carter 1987, p.  128). Because of this ‘implicit maleness’, Mother, while working as a cosmetic surgeon in Los Angeles, had refused to carry out the male to female transsexual surgery which Tristessa requested. Judging from the results of early tests that it was impossible to eradicate her maleness, she paradoxically concluded that Tristessa ‘was too much of a woman, already, for the good of the sex’ (p. 173). Yet, the reality behind Tristessa’s sorrowful cinema persona was the ‘shame’ (p. 128) she felt towards her male member. This resonates with the representation of Candy Darling in the lyrics of Lou Reed’s song ‘Candy Says’, which indicate that she hated her body. Like Tristessa, she too never had surgical

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gender-reassignment, even though she was one of the first transgendered individuals in the United States to take female hormones which, it has been suggested, might have triggered the cancer which killed her as they were unregulated pills purchased from the black market (Gleiberman 2011).6 A year after Darling’s death, Carter published an article called ‘The wound in the face’ (1975) in which she explores how the face of Candy Darling, or rather that of those who aspired to the same look, haunted glossy magazines. Carter identifies Candy’s glazed and lacquered look as the face of American Vogue, in which Candy had appeared in 1972, as opposed to the more natural look of Honey, a British teenage monthly. Carter compared the Vogue look to the androgynous, chiselled features of 1930s icons of the silver screen, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. Even though Candy Darling identified with Marilyn Monroe and Kim Novak, it is revealing that Carter links her to film stars who have more in common with Tristessa, whose films contain obvious references, for instance, to roles played by Garbo. Both screen idols, Tristessa and Garbo, have the same oval face, pale complexion, and shaved eyebrows, and eventually retreat from the public gaze. While Tristessa finds seclusion in the desert, Garbo sought refuge in a New  York apartment. According to Robert Gottlieb’s biography, Garbo: Her Life, Her Films (2022), the actress is hailed as the world’s first gender-fluid celebrity, who liked to cross-dress. Along with Garbo, Carter holds Warhol’s transvestite superstars partly responsible for fashioning the contemporary 1970s look so that ‘fashionable women now tend to look like women imitating men imitating women, an interesting reversal’ (1997b, p.  110). She was bemused to find that after the short skirts and flat shoes of the 1960s, the following decade had revived the glamour of the transvestite’s sequined gowns, high-heeled shoes, and lipstick, and she comments on this new trend by quoting Theodor Adorno: ‘The feminine character, and the idea of femininity on which it is modelled, are products of masculine society’ (Carter 1997b, p. 110). In her article, Carter declared that the female impersonator is the real authority on femininity because the impersonator is the one who invented it. Eve expresses a similar view on witnessing the startling revelation of Tristessa’s manhood: ‘That was why he had been the perfect man’s woman. He had made himself the shrine of his own desires, had made of himself the only woman he could have loved!’ (p. 128, original emphasis).

6

 She referred to her malignant stomach tumour as a pregnancy. See Polletti (2021).

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Scott Dimovitz has traced one of the models for Tristessa to a drag performer called Geoffrey Bow, whose show Carter watched in New York’s Greenwich Village. After his performance, he pulled off his beehive wig in what Carter described as ‘a display of male chauvinism’ to prove that ‘I can be a better woman than you because I am a man’ (Dimovitz 2016, p. 76).7 In The Passion of New Eve, Eve addresses the following rhetorical question to Tristessa, ‘How could a real woman ever have been so much a woman as you?’ (Carter 1987, p. 129). A similar sentiment appears across the film poster for Gilda (1946), starring sex goddess Rita Hayworth, ‘There NEVER was a woman like Gilda’.8 Carter’s explanation for the allure of the screen siren in her novel is, ‘If a woman is indeed beautiful only in so far as she incarnates most completely the secret aspirations of man, no wonder Tristessa had been able to become the most beautiful woman in the world, an unbegotten woman who made no concessions to humanity’ (p. 129). Correspondingly, the perfection of Eve’s beauty causes Zero to suspect that she might be male and so he scrutinises her vulva for a penis, an action that might be interpreted as a parody of Freud’s castration anxiety and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970).

Crossing Gender and Double Drag Gender confusion explodes in The Passion of New Eve and is graphically demonstrated in the scene set at Tristessa’s Hall of the Immortals in her desert glass house, which contains waxworks of iconic male and female film actors, including the glamorous blonde film stars, Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow,9 with whom Candy Darling identified. Zero’s followers violently dismember the figures and, in putting the body parts back haphazardly, jumble up what is male and what is female. For example, the head of gay matinée idol Ramon Navarro is perched on top of Jean Harlow’s torso. But the apotheosis of gendered misalignment is the wedding of Tristessa and Eve, forced on them by Zero and his followers. In a parody of theatrical drag, Tristessa’s wardrobe is ransacked for their 7  As this act of self-revelation indicates, he did not identify as a woman and will be therefore referred to as he in the chapter. 8  The Advertising Archives, https://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/search/?searchQuery =There+never+was+a+woman+like+gilda. Accessed 12 May 2023. 9  Candy Darling said, ‘My spirit was once that of a movie star’s. I believe it was once Jean Harlow’s.’ See Bell (1972, p. 75).

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wedding clothes. This leads to what Carter terms ‘double drag’ (Carter 1987, p. 132), whereupon the bridegroom, Eve, is forcibly attired in the suit of an actor who had played the role of Chopin, replete with top hat, and Tristessa is decked out in a bridal veil in mockery of her female identity. The pseudo marriage ceremony parallels the fake weddings between drag queens, which used to take place in Warhol’s Factory. Candy Darling even teased Warhol about marrying him in a red velvet dress.10 The confetti provided by Zero’s women for the ceremony are torn-up scripts from Tristessa’s acting days, symbolising the tearing up of gender roles. When Eve sees the reflection of herself in a mirror as a transvestite, in a reminder of her old male self, she sagely observes: But this masquerade was more than skin deep. Under the mask of maleness I wore another mask of femaleness but a mask that now I never would be able to remove, no matter how hard I tried, although I was a boy disguised as a girl and now disguised as a boy again. (p. 132)

Here Carter brings together de Beauvoir and Butler, whose differing gender theories are hinted at, respectively, in Eve’s follow-up statements, ‘I only mimicked what I had been; I did not become it’ (p. 132). The mock ceremony is followed by the consummation of the marriage, sadistically inflicted upon the couple by Zero and his wives. This consummation was foreshadowed by ‘Beulah’, the Hebrew word for ‘married or espoused’, and is, of course, the underground town with its womb-like spaces where Eve was surgically re-designed for reproductive purposes effectively becoming his/her own bride and groom, destined for self-insemination. Carter took the name of the subterranean town from Blake’s poem, Milton (1810), which is the ‘place where Contraries are equally True’ (Blake 1988, p.  129). This paradox matches Eve’s experience of being in two minds, ‘her own fleshly ones and his mental ones’ (Carter 1987, p. 78). While Evelyn eventually transitions to Eve, this was never really the case for Tristessa who had always regarded herself as a woman. However, in her timely revisionist book, Transgender and the Literary Imagination (2018), Rachel Carroll’s chapter on Carter’s novel, headed ‘She had never been a woman’, challenges what she identifies to be one of

10  See ‘Andy Warhol and Candy Darling interview’ on YouTube. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=0BhZ4d-y6KM. Accessed 12 May 2023.

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the novel’s messages, endorsed by several  second-wave  feminist critics, such as Merja Makinen and Roberta Rubenstein, that Tristessa was never really female. Instead, Carroll argues that Tristessa should be regarded as a transgender woman and the marital rape as punishment for her gender transgression, as it constitutes an act of transphobic violence by forcing her to perform as a sexual male. To identify Tristessa as transgender certainly ties into my argument that she was partially modelled on Candy Darling, who was a trans woman, but it does not concur with Carroll’s troubling suggestion that ‘Uneasily, this text also seems to offer this “rape” as a corrective and one which reveals the “truth” of sex: namely, that Tristessa cannot be permitted to be a woman’ (2018, p. 79). Carroll even links the direction of Carter’s fiction to that of her delusional villain, by suggesting that ‘Carter’s narrative trajectory and Zero’s homophobic mania seem to be fellow travellers’ (p. 79). As the following counter argument will indicate, the novel contains evidence to the contrary, culminating in Tristessa’s tragic but heroic death, which also challenges Carroll’s claim that her transgendered status is deemed less privileged than Eve’s transsexuality. Concerning the assertion that the rape exposes the ‘truth of sex’, the fact that Tristessa is sexually aroused to ejaculate is regarded by Carroll as evidence that her male heterosexual self has been restored. But this reading, in my opinion, does not sufficiently recognise that Tristessa is experiencing an involuntary male bodily reaction against which she utters mantras of female passivity as a prophylactic against her male genitalia, insisting, ‘I thought […] I was immune to rape’ (Carter 1987, p. 137). It is in fact Eve, the female transsexual, who takes the initiative, resulting in Tristessa’s purely mechanistic orgasm. A more meaningful climax, however, takes place after Tristessa and Eve make their escape in a helicopter and engage in a consensual sexual act that transcends the sexed categories of gender, showing how flesh ‘uncreates’ (p. 148) the binaries of the world and enables them to experience, ‘all we had been, or might be, or had dreamed of being, or had thought we were—every modulation of the selves we now projected upon each other’s flesh, selves—aspects of being, ideas—that seemed, during our embraces, to be the very essence of our selves’ (p. 148). The couple figuratively reproduces the unifying trope of the hermaphrodite, crossing the boundaries of traditional gender binarism. Indeed, Carter’s original title for the novel, which is awash with alchemical imagery (Johnson 1997, pp. 168–170), was The Great Hermaphrodite (Gordon

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2016, p.  228). The triumph of both Eve and Tristessa is to realise the oneness of ‘interpenetrating, undifferentiated sex’ to form the ‘whole and perfect being’ (Carter 1987, p.  148) in an amalgamation of opposites. Indeed, Carroll does acknowledge that Eve and Tristessa’s act of consensual marital consummation appears ‘to dispense with sexed identity as a determinant of sexual identity’ (2018, p. 79). This is in line with Butler’s theory of how the sexed identity of male and female, like the gendered categories of masculine and feminine, is constructed. Nevertheless, Carroll goes on to give undue emphasis to how Tristessa’s maleness resurfaces in Eve’s account of their mutual passion: ‘I beat down upon you mercilessly, with atavistic relish, but the glass woman I saw beneath me smashed under my passion and the splinters scattered and recomposed themselves into a man who overwhelmed me’ (Carter 1987, p. 149). Instead of interpreting these binaries as defaulting to traditional sexual and gendered categories, which is how Carroll sees them, they can be viewed alternatively as a play on gender fluidity and biological sexual difference. Eve is a first-person narrator and, as Carroll rightly points out, it is her narrative perspective which denounces Tristessa as a female impersonator, asserting, ‘she had never been a woman’ (2018, p. 152). It is important to emphasise that this denial is in opposition to Tristessa’s own Butlerian identification of herself as a woman as fully naturalised and performative for, as she reveals, ‘she’s lived in me so long I can’t remember a time when she was not there’ (Carter 1987, p. 151), though the use of the third person suggests that this is overlaid by a Beauvoirian sense of the feminine as man-made other. Ironically, the truth of Tristessa’s sex had always been revealed through the mask of her cinematic performances. Carroll argues that, since Tristessa seems to have involuntarily impregnated Eve,11 the apparent affirmation of her maleness ‘invalidates her transgender identity’ (2018, p. 80). This assertion is made in the face of Tristessa’s feminine subjectivity and how her life had been lived as a woman. Crucially, Carroll neglects to consider the significance of the character’s dying as a woman. For Tristessa’s swan song, Carter switches pronouns by describing how ‘he’ has been stripped of the last vestiges of femininity by members of a transphobic Christian militant boys’ brigade, who shave ‘his’ long white tresses and scrub the white make-up from ‘his’ face. It is at the point when Tristessa is perceived to be physically male and 11  Eve reveals that ‘our child was conceived on the star-spangled banner’ (Carter 1987, p. 148).

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at her most vulnerable that ‘he reverted entirely to the sinuous principle of his notion of femininity’ (Carter 1987, p. 156) and, by kissing the transphobic Colonel on the mouth, performs an act of heroic defiance for which she is fatally shot. This martyrdom, in the cause of asserting what she experiences as her true female self, surely problematises Carroll’s claim that the novel presents Eve’s involuntary transsexual body as more authentic than Tristessa’s elective transgendered female identity (2018, p. 77). It would appear that Tristessa, as ‘the sensuous fabrication of the mythology of the flea-pits’ (Carter 1987, p. 129), functions largely for the author as a critique of the Hollywood system that created melodramatic and masochistic constructions of women. Tristessa’s tragic demise is a consequence of the suffering enshrined within these representations of womanhood that have served to perpetuate mythologies of gender, which Carter attacks in this novel and elsewhere.12 In The Passion of New Eve, Carter’s irony, satire, black humour, and ambiguity make it difficult to pin her down to a particular position in what she described as ‘a deeply serious piece of fiction about gender identity’ (Gamble 2006, p. 145). Throughout the novel, Carter explores the varieties of sexual difference and the instability of the sexed and gendered subject, alongside the reactionary forces of homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia within the context of an inverted, fantastical, and dystopic world. Her Tiresias-like central character, Eve, reveals her bemusement over the complexities of sex and gender when she admits: Masculine and feminine are correlatives which involve one another. I am sure of that—the quality and its negation are locked in necessity. But what the nature of masculine and the nature of feminine might be, whether they involve male and female, if they have anything to do with Tristessa’s so long neglected apparatus or my own factory flesh incision and engine-turned breasts, that I do not know. Though I have been both man and woman, still I do not know the answer to these questions. Still they bewilder me. (Carter 1987, pp. 149–150)

Carter’s feminist classic travesties both the radical feminists of the 1960s and 1970s and the turbulent times of second-wave feminism, which were instrumental in disrupting traditional gender roles. Much of her inspiration was triggered by her visit to the United States though her interest in 12  See The Sadeian Woman (1978) and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972).

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drag dates back earlier, at least to the time when she was living in Bristol in the United Kingdom.13 According to Sarah Gamble, national and gender identities converge in the novel whereby Englishness via Evelyn/Eve is gendered feminine and Americanness is masculinised primarily through Zero (2006, pp. 153–154) in a crossing of both conceptual and country borders. This corresponds to how Jay Prosser sees transsexual transition as a journey from one place to another (1998, p.  5). The novel not only encompasses the crossing of gender and national boundaries but also of genres whereby biographical material merges into fiction. The complex universe of sexuality deserves careful navigation and as Mother, Carter’s gender-assigning surgeon and self-designated ‘Castratrix of the Phallocentric Universe’, predicts: ‘Well … one day, you’ll discover that sexuality is a unity manifested in different structures’, even though for now, as she shrewdly admits, ‘it’s a hard thing, in these alienated times, to tell what is and what is not’ (Carter 1987, pp. 67, 66). Acknowledgements  My thanks go to Cathy Butler, Caleb Sivyer, Stephen E.  Hunt, David Greenham, Scott Dimovitz, Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère, the anonymous readers, and the editors of this volume for their helpful advice.

References Beauvoir, Simone de. 1953 (1949). The second sex. Trans. H.M. Parshley. London: Jonathan Cape. Bell, Arthur. 1972. Candy Darling, where were you the night Jean Harlow died? The Village Voice, May 18, p. 75. Blake, William. 1988. The complete poetry and prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman. New York: Anchor. Bristow, Joseph, and Trev Lynn Broughton, eds. 1997. The infernal desires of Angela Carter: Fiction, femininity, feminism. London and New York: Longman. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. ———. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New  York: Routledge. Carroll, Rachel. 2018. Transgender and the literary imagination: Changing gender in twentieth-century writing. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 13  I am grateful to Stephen E. Hunt for reminding me of Carter’s description of customers dressing in drag at the Lansdown pub in Bristol on New Year’s Eve in 1967 (Carter 1967).

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Carter, Angela. 1967. Drag at the Lansdown. British Library Archive, Angela Carter Papers: Journal Add MS 88899/1/91: 1966–1968. ———. 1979a. The Sadeian woman: An exercise in cultural history. London: Virago Press. ———. 1979b. Why not men too? Angela Carter on the history of drag. The Guardian, October 4. ———. 1987. The passion of new Eve. London: Virago Press. ———. 1992. Interviewed by Kim Evans, BBC 2 Omnibus documentary. Angela Carter’s curious room, directed by Kim Evans. ———. 1997a. My Maugham award. In Shaking a leg: Collected writings, ed. Jenny Uglow, 203–204. London: Penguin Books. ———. 1997b. The wound in the face. In Shaking a leg: Collected writings, ed. Jenny Uglow, 109–112. London: Penguin Books. Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth. 2007. The Warhol economy: How fashion, art and music drive New York. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Daly, Mary. 1978. Gyn/Ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism. Boston: Beacon Press. Dedichen, Henrietta, ed. 2013. Warhol’s queens. Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag. Dimovitz, Scott. 2016. Angela Carter: Surrealist, psychologist, moral pornographer. London: Routledge. Gamble, Sarah. 2006. Angela Carter: A literary life. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Garber, Marjorie. 1992. Vested interests: Cross dressing and cultural anxiety. New York: Routledge. Gleiberman, Owen. 2011. Candy Darling: A haunting documentary reveals the most beautiful, and tragic, of Andy Warhol’s superstars. Entertainment. Accessed 15 January 2023. https://ew.com/article/2011/05/07/ candy-­darling-­in-­a-­haunting-­documentary/. Gordon, Edmund. 2016. The invention of Angela Carter: A biography. London: Chatto and Windus. Gottlieb, Robert. 2022. Garbo: Her life, her films. New  York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Greer, Germaine. 1971. The female eunuch. London: MacGibbon and Kee. Hamilton, Marybeth. 2018. Remembering 1968: The S.C.U.M. manifesto for the society for cutting up men. The History Workshop, July 18. Accessed 8 May 2022. https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/remembering-­1968-­the-­scum­manifesto-­for-­the-­society-­for-­cutting-­up-­men/. Johnson, Heather L. 1997. Unexpected geometries: Transgressive symbolism and the transssexual subject in Angela Carter’s The passion of new Eve. In The infernal desires of Angela Carter: Fiction, femininity, feminism, ed. Joseph Bristow and Trev Lynn Broughton, 166–183. London and New York: Longman. Mulvey, Laura. 1975. Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen 16 (3): 6–18.

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Mulvey-Roberts, Marie. 2019. Angela Carter’s ‘rigorous system of disbelief’: Religion, misogyny, myth and the cult. In The arts of Angela Carter: A cabinet of curiosities, ed. Marie Mulvey-Roberts, 145–165. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Polletti, Jonathan. 2021. The gospel of Candy Darling: A transgender story is a spiritual story. June 17. Accessed 12 May 2023. https://medium.com/ belover/the-­gospel-­of-­candy-­darling-­61c8847d429. Prosser, Jay. 1998. Second skins: The body narratives of transsexuality. New York: Columbia University Press. Shopland, Norina. 2021. A history of women in men’s clothes: From cross-dressing to empowerment. Barnsley: Pen and Sword History. Sivyer, Caleb. 2019. ‘I resented it, it fascinated me’: Carter’s ambivalent cinematic fiction and the problem of proximity. In The arts of Angela Carter: A cabinet of curiosities, ed. Marie Mulvey-Roberts, 223–245. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Solanas, Valerie. 1983. The SCUM manifesto. Matriarchy Study Group. Accessed 8 May 2022. https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/shivers/rants/scum.html. Tindle, Hannah. 2017. Andy Warhol’s polaroids of pop culture icons. August 25. Accessed 8 May 2022. https://www.anothermag.com/art-­photography/ 10098/andy-­warhols-­polaroids-­of-­pop-­culture-­icons. Trevenna, Joanne. 2002. Gender and performance: Questioning the ‘Butlerification’ of Angela Carter’s fiction. Journal of Gender Studies 11 (3): 267–276.

CHAPTER 14

Genders, GYnealogies, GYne(co)alogies of Decolonial Geo-thalasso-corpographies: A Theoretical Reflection on Interconnectedness in Gender Configurations Paola Zaccaria

Introduction Inspired by the theories and creative works about identity, gender, decoloniality, and (no)borderization conceived in the last decades, most activist feminist scholars refuse the fixed perimeters usually established among literary, visual, artistic, and cultural genres. These perimeters are seen, in fact, as flawed constructions that often take the shape of, and function as, boundaries hindering the intermedial and transmedial possibilities of expression offered by the multifarious imaginary configurations of thinking. At the same time, non-heteronormative types of sexuality, gender fluidity, queerness, and non-conventional gender identities prove the

P. Zaccaria (*) University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_14

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untenability of the boundaries erected by traditional notions of sexual difference, which are polarized into the male/female opposition. Cross-dressing and cross-bridging sexual roles are, after all, corpo-­ graphic inscriptions of border trespassing: performances that bear physical traces of un-effaceable identifications. There are always leftovers in identity: the bridging of sexual divides entails exchanges, transpositions, (con) junctures, and crossings. In the same way, it is impossible to completely erase the intersections among different gender identifications, genres of cultural production, and categorizations (genera) of critical thinking. For instance, artistic genre fluidity does not simply entail transmediality, intermediality, crossmediality, or transcodification techniques. It also subsumes the performative ability to cross beyond the generic ruptures, partitions, splits, demarcations, and divides; and it valorizes the juncture-suture-­ coalescence-seaming of different genera of art creation. In acting out this fusion, the living matter (i.e., the body of the crosser) gets entangled with impalpable and yet sensed feelings. Drawing upon a variety of recent theorizations of borderlands and anti-­border resistance, this chapter intends to offer an innovative framework to think about borderless consciousness and la convivencia (living together), especially looking at the intersections among genders, genres, and genera of borders. The 1980–2010 reconceptualization of the border by various decolonial feminist thinkers, such as bell hooks (1981, 1984), María Lugones (1987, 2003, 2008), Trinh T.  Minh-ha (1989), Paula Gunn Allen (1998), Dionne Brand (2001), and Chandra Mohanty (2003), is at the core of my study. Following these thinkers’ ideas, the chapter aims to promote a decentering of Western epistemologies in favor of African, Afro-­descendant, and decolonial theories of gnosis (Mbembe 2018; Mignolo 2019) interlaced with the Chicana feminist theory of conocimiento (Anzaldúa 2002). The latter informs my comparative reflection on the transformative visions of the Chicana theoretician, activist, writer, and poet Gloria E. Anzaldúa (GEA) and the Israeli international psychoanalyst, philosopher, and artist Bracha L. Ettinger. Although GEA and Ettinger come from two very different geographical and cultural areas, they can be fruitfully compared with each other for what pertains to their respective notions of nepantla stage (GEA) and matrixial borderspace (Ettinger). As will be demonstrated, the aforementioned notions articulate two crucial and mutually illuminating feminist reframings of the borderscape, which is thus proved to be a dimension of productive instability and creative and emotional knowledge about life. Given the

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intrinsically female gendering of both notions, the chapter also proposes a revision of the feminist notions of genealogy and gyn/ecology, offering the polysemic neologism ‘gYne(co)alogies’ as a way to overcome the boundaries of traditional feminist categorizations. The chapter closes with some final considerations on the borderless and liquid nature of a Southern peninsular perspective that I identify as ‘gyno-corpo-graphical’ and ‘transMediterranean’. For such an exploration, I deem necessary to embrace the radicality of the first and second waves of Anglophone and Latino-American feminisms. In fact, the foregrounding works on borders, diaspora, migrancy, and cultural or identitarian shift(ing)s by GEA, hooks, Lugones, Min-ha, and others often preceded the revised notions of border and decolonial delinking that became the subject of renowned geopolitical, sociological, and post/ decolonial studies mostly written by men.1 Starting from the 1970s, these women’s corpus famously denounced the overlooking of class and race issues in works by mainstream white feminist theorists. This denunciation became both the founding basis for a complex analysis of gender and geopolitical oppressions, and the nucleus around which the encounter of differences could be better articulated. The results of this articulation included new geographies of co-existence, different ways of inhabiting sexuality and identity beyond normative gender boundaries, and alternative modalities for overcoming the Western tradition of separating artistic languages from theoretical ventures. Women activists and scholars of color have thus developed a generative critical thinking about the potentialities offered by the border(lands) and the margin as geopolitical spaces for both cultural encounters and what I propose to term, in line with GEA, ‘gynealogical crossover-impastamiento’2 of genders and genera matrixes. In these thinkers’ works, borders are reframed as intersections: lands without check points, to be crossed and re-crossed; and open spaces where subjects on the way to denationalization can encounter and confront different bodies, cultures, languages, and imaginaries so as to germinate revolutionary, borderless thinking spaces, and intermingled art(ivistic) genres.

1  These were typically scholars of Latin American origins, such as Aníbal Quijano, who coined the term ‘colonialidad del poder’ (1999), Walter Mignolo, and the members of the Grupo Colonialidad/Modernidad/Racionalidad: Santiago Castro-Gómez, Ramón Grosfoguel, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and Catherine Walsh. 2  Both terms are used by Anzaldúa in separate instances and across various texts.

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The conceptual premise of such corpus is that the present waves of diasporas and mobilities, or global dislocations and re-collocations of bodies and genders in unknown spaces, raise linguistic, bio- and geopolitical questions similar to those posed by the forced dislocations of bodies in colonial times, that is, psychological, cultural, and genealogical re-­ adjustments of the self and identity in response to one’s different predicament. A crucial consequence of this situation is the re-articulation of the concepts of birth, belonging, and co-living in a non-native space—a re-­ articulation similar in nature and implications to the one first envisaged thirty-six years ago in GEA’s radical feminist masterpiece Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Anzaldúa 1987).

From Epistemology to Gnoseology and Feminist conocimiento In ‘Reconstitución epistémica/estética’, Walter Mignolo writes that Achille Mbembe, in his 1988 The Invention of Africa, recovered ‘del olvido el concepto de gnosis y le dio un nuevo significado, gnoseo-logía en el vocabulario decolonial’ (Mignolo 2019, p.  18).3 Gnoseology is a word/process close to the pre-Columbian teoria del conocimiento, which partly corresponds to the idea of scientific knowledge but also includes the embodied dimension of experience, or el sentir. I personally find inspiration in, and feel communion with, works that widen the unstable Latino-­American ‘geo-gyno-decolonial’ perspectives to include African and Afro-descendant theories and narrations delinked from the Western concept of knowledge. While the latter is traditionally framed as an entirely rational process, the African modalities of being-thinking deeply question this tradition: gnosis has not only to do with knowledge but also with something that includes what Mbembe sees as the process of seeking to know and hence the desire to get in touch with someone or something different. It follows that gnosis and aesthesis are not simply mental processes (el saber); they are rather imbricated in feeling (el sentir), memories, past histories, and non-official archives (Zaccaria 2019). In other words, conocimiento and gnoseology have certainly to do with general knowledge, but they are also close to el sentir, whereas epistemology is

3  ‘[Recovered] from oblivion the concept of “gnosis” and gave it a new meaning: “gnoseology” in the decolonial vocabulary’ (my translation into English).

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arguably framed by the conventions of scientific, male-shaped knowledge only. Conocimiento, GEA explains, is con-division, relationality, change, and threshold crossing (Anzaldúa 2002). Decolonial feminist conocimiento comes from the passion for researching delinked ways of consciousness and experiencing awareness as a vehicle for self-determination and freedom of choice, whereas desconocimiento entraps the subject into frustration, powerlessness, self-destruction, betrayal, and lack of spirit and imagination. In the conception-image of conocimiento depicted by GEA, subjectivity takes shape in the encounter; it co-emerges in differentiating and co-existing. In this new geo-corpo-graphy of the self and of selves, the subject-formation is a process in which knowledge as both saber and consciousness is conceived outside time boundaries, outside notions of splitness, castration, separation, opposition, duality, supremacy, and hegemony. Conocimiento is shaped in the I-you-we conversation through which GEA, in her last published work, opens the way to her conceptualization of awareness and ‘nos/otras’, and shares it with the readers, including both the nepantleras (in her own definition ‘boundary-crossers, thresholders who initiate others in rites of passage, activistas’) and the gabachas (Chicano slang word for ‘Anglo women’) (Anzaldúa 2002). Conocimiento finds its roots in co-thinking, co-poiesis, and co-temporality (Anzaldúa 2002). In her decolonial, counter-hegemonic textualities that mixed poetical, theoretical, and epistemological genres, GEA worked out a spectrified, complex semantic densification which was often achieved through the transcodification and transmediation she acted out by translating diverse media/languages into a word, concept, or (poly-)semantic nucleus. This transitional and translational process contributes to delinking the concept of the creative work from the mimetic framework and the disciplinary genre discourse required by Western narrative canons. In GEA’s work, we can indeed often retrieve techniques of transmediation (the convergence of visual codes, poetical or shamanic language, songs, popular slang, genealogical Nahua vision-narration of the world, etc.), as well as of cultural and gender border-linking (of native, colonial, and mestiza perspectives). These strategies bring about a shifting of the borders between sex and gender or among different racialized definitions of subjects, and hence promote a delinking from the tenets of heteronormativity and race/class/ gender and sexuality borders.

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If we adopt the concept and processes of conocimiento, the following core question needs to be tackled: is it possible to apply the productively unstable, geo-gyno-critical dimension of conocimiento (knowledge plus consciousness plus el sentir) to sexual, gender, disciplinary, poetical, political, social, racial, and class borders? In my view, doing it requires widening the spirals of the pensamiento, in order to envisage new directions of research, artivism, and activism around different types of border issues. When it comes to gender and genre, such new directions should lead us beyond the postcolonial as well as beyond decolonial, delinking epistemologies and poetics in order to open up new spaces of thought, feeling, and awareness. Two interesting examples in this sense are provided by the work of GEA, on the one hand, and Ettinger, on the other hand, which are examined comparatively in the next section.

Matrixial Borderspace, nepantla, and gYne(co)alogies An internationally renowned visual artist, writer, psychologist, philosopher, and feminist theorist, Bracha Ettinger discusses, in her works, notions of trauma, trans-subjectivity, and co-poiesis, as well as the theories of the ‘matrixial gaze’ and ‘borderspace’ she developed. In her book The Matrixial Gaze (1994), she describes the relation between her artistic and psychoanalytic practices, and the explorations across the thresholds of identity and affective memory that both practices entail. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan’s late works, the anti-Oedipal perspectives of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and the feminist critique of phallocentrism, Ettinger rethinks the masculine-feminine opposition and dismantles the phallic structure by focusing on images, archaic structures, and meaningful myths. One such element is the myth of Eurydice, glimpsed through a veil of matrixial memories concerning the beginning of life in what she terms the ‘matrixial space’, that is, the undifferentiated time-space existing between the mother and the other, or rather the I who inhabits the mother’s womb-matrix (Ettinger 1994). The shared matrixial space between mother and fetus is made of flesh, water, blood, emotions, and breath, but it is also a psychic dimension that Ettinger names ‘matrixial trans-subjectivity’ (1994) and ‘matrixial borderspace’ (2005), which is the foundation for later transformations. In her opinion, any human being needs to go back to the matrix to enact transformative passages.

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Ettinger’s writings and oil paintings have had a great impact on contemporary European and American art theories, as well as on feminist thinking which developed from the French theory of difference, and particularly from Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. Like her writing, her drawings and paintings are imbued with traces of exile, trauma, disruption, and effacement. They are often presented as series, such as the Eurydice series or the family album series. In them, Ettinger goes back again and again to what originates the need to retrieve memories and emotions: the matrixial gaze. This gaze is needed to re-analyze the matrixial space, which is also a fleshly/psychic borderspace. The colors of her sensitive artworks range from all white to grey-black tones or sepia, as in old photos, to all shades of purple. They look like traces that suggest indistinct memories of the past, the origin, and the matrix. Confronted by them, viewers can feel, almost experience, permutation: nothing is fixed, no irreversible identities or fixed allocations are given. And yet, Ettinger’s theoretical and creative works outline shared feelings, a shared unconscious: what she suggests is that anyone, everywhere, has to go back to the matrixial borderspace in different stages of their life in order to undergo transformations (Ettinger 2005). Ettinger’s elaborations on the matrixial borderspace are particularly useful when rethinking borderscapes and their gender, genre, and genera implications. In fact, if the first generation of diasporic and migrant subjects directly experience traumatic feelings of loss (of maternal land, tongue, and ancestry), the members of the second generation, born in their migrant parents’ arrival country, usually add further shades of understanding to the first-generation violently black-and-white experience of border geography. Living through a more complex sense of belonging, second-generation diasporic subjects often wish to create borderless spaces of co-habitation and new forms of identities that do not simply have to do with the maternal, or the origin (homeland), or genealogy, but rather claim a non-nationalistic, non-binary lineage. Such a lineage has nevertheless to do with the feminine M/Other space of relation that Ettinger names the matrix and resonates in turn with a key element of GEA’s meditations known as the nepantla space-stage. Almost in the same period of Ettinger’s creative and theoretical works on the concept of matrix, GEA draws and writes about a birthing space-­ stage that comes soon after the womb-state that she identifies as the Coatlicue state, that is, the dark cave where one is gestating and generating him/herself. The biological, symbolic, psychic, and spiritual coming out

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of the womb through the birth canal is named, after the ancient Mexican Nahua language, nepantla:4 it is a birthing space/stage ‘where you feel like you’re reconfiguring your identity and don’t know where you are’ (Anzaldúa and Keating 2000, p.  225). The nepantla passageway brings forth identity-gender-genre transformations. As GEA stated in her 1991 interview ‘Making choices. Writing, spirituality, sexuality, and the political’, nepantla is an expansion of the concepts of mestizaje and of transformation that she articulated in Borderlands/La Frontera (1987): There’s more of a … spiritual, psychic, supernatural and indigenous connection to Borderlands by using the word nepantla. […] I use nepantla to talk about the creative act, I use it to talk about the construction of identity, I use it to describe a function of the mind. Borderlands with a small b is the actual southwest borderlands or any borderlands between two cultures, but when I use the capital B it’s a metaphor for processes of many things: psychological, physical, mental […] I find people using metaphors such as ‘Borderlands’ in a more limited sense than I had meant it, so to expand on the psychic and emotional borderlands I’m now using ‘nepantla’. […] It has a more spiritual, psychic, supernatural, and indigenous resonance. (Anzaldúa and Keating 2000, p. 176)

The political, emotional, spiritual, queer, non-written, and live ‘awakened dreams’ that GEA describes in Borderlands are about ‘thought shifts, reality shifts, gender shifts: one person metamorphoses into another … I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world’s soul … I change my self, I change the world’ (Anzaldúa 1987, p. 70). In her artivist, decolonial aesthesis views, the anti-patriarchal philosophy of conocimiento, based on decolonial, queer, Alter/Native border thinking, is part of her polymorphic textualities. When reading GEA’s corpus, we have to take into account also her unwritten words, or what is recorded, transcribed, collected in the papers catalogued in the Gloria Anzaldúa Archive at Benson Library, University of Texas, Austin. If we pay attention to what is reported by the community she called ‘nos/otras’ (friends, artists, writers, students, members of groups that were in conversation, in correspondence, in co-working with her), two crucial aspects should be taken into consideration to understand her work. The first is the fact that her polysemantic words often originated from, or were simultaneous to, an image she was visited by before they 4

 On Nahua philosophy, see Abraham (2014).

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were transcribed, in forms that might also take the shape of a drawing. The second is that the metaphorical mind, the mind visualizing-thinking-­ working out images, precedes the process of analytical consciousness she goes through in order to write. This pre-elaboration is a necessary stage to attain what she names conocimiento. In other words, in light of this composite and not-always-verbal mode of thinking, GEA argues that whenever you are in the Coatlicue state of gestating yourself, of giving birth to yourself, you are in a womb-state. Later, when you come out of the dark and pass through the birth canal, you are in the nepantla state, reconfiguring your self and your writing (Anzaldúa and Keating 2000, p. 226). Nepantla is one of GEA’s most complex, intriguing decolonial concept-­ figures, gynealogically descending from pre-colonial times/cosmographies/philosophies. As she explains in the above-quoted 1991 interview, nepantla is a process and a space one enters when one comes out of one’s own dark, gestating womb. At the same time, it is a process of temporal and spatial trespassing, transformation, and transcultur(aliz)ation. In the nepantla state/stage, the mestiza activates denationalization performances. As a result, GEA’s border critical thinking opens up to what nowadays is known as intersectional or decolonial, delinking feminism, and thus contributes to disrupting the still colonial, categorial epistemology of the modern systems that has variously fragmented social reality in monadic, impermeable categories. In my view, these Anzaldúnian reflections on the nepantla stage strongly resonate with the artistic, psychoanalytical, and philosophical process described by Ettinger, who dealt with concepts of ‘borderspacing’ and ‘borderlinking’. More precisely, the nepantla experience seems to echo Ettinger’s ‘matrixial borderspace’. Although they belonged to completely different cultures, both theorists went through psychological, identitarian, and philosophical transformations of the self and their worlds, as they were born at the borders between different identities and cultures: those of Mexico and the US for GEA; those of Poland, Israel, Britain, and France for Ettinger. I see this embodied diasporic or, in Homi Bhabha’s word, ‘unhomely’ (1994, p. 9) condition as central in their respective elaborations of the concepts of ‘borderspacing’ and ‘borderlinking’ (Ettinger), and of Coatlicue and nepantla states (GEA). In my experience as a transfeminist reader, researcher, and activist, I view GEA’s opus as an act of poli-poetical artivism: she herself is an artivist, acting as a midwife in the birth of creativity of many other women. This attitude appears in line with the political, intellectual, and poetical approach to relationality that

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Ettinger would call, in her sophisticated language, ‘trans-subjective and trans-active encounter-events, co-acting out border spacing’ (2004). I thus propose to build an intersectional bridge between the two thinkers, which aims to add to the conversation around borders, gender, genera, identity, and creativity. In particular, applying Ettinger’s notion of borderspacing to the domains of art, bodies, cultures, psyches, and conocimientos paves the way to an advanced rethinking of life at—and beyond— the border. If we consider the acts of making and discussing art, more parallels between the two theorists can be found. Despite her sophisticated style, Ettinger uses terms such as ‘transportation’, ‘station’, ‘passage’, ‘border’, and ‘encounter’, which are also central in GEA’s writings. For example, in GEA’s work, ‘nepantla stations’ stand for the various phases and spaces visited in the consciousness stage. A similar idea is conveyed by Ettinger in the following quotation, which confirms the existence of parallels between their visions and semiologies: The place of art is a co-poietic time-space-event of passage, a transport-­ station of trauma and an occasion for joy. A transport-station that more than being a dwelling place or time is rather a timespace offered for coemerging and cofading, borderlinking and borderspacing, over different times and different places, where the same place is stretched between different times and the same time connects different time-spaces, the here with the there, the now with the then, a space-time encounter, a space-time of Encounter-­ Event, which allows the opening-up of a spiral time-place of encounter. Not inter-subjective but trans-subjective and transjective encounter-events take place by way of subjectivizing experiencing with an art-object or art-process, an other or an event, others, alive or not, met and unmet, that continue to induce and transmit. (Ettinger 2009, p. 9, my italics)

In Nahua philosophy, the nepantla state is the condition of living/thinking in a dimension of incertitude and instability, or of experiencing the uncertain state between the no more (the past, your old self) and the not yet (the unborn self). The nepantla state-stage-space is thus similar to the various ways of reshaping the symbolic order that Ettinger calls the ‘feminine dimension of the symbolic order’ which also implies ‘plural, fragmented subjects’ (2009, p. 9). A shared feature that clearly emerges from this comparison is how both nepantla and matrixial borderspace complicate the discourse on the gendering of borders and borderscape transformations, apparently referring

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to the sphere of women and the maternal, but in reality extracting the matrixial and the womb-like time-space from traditional sex/gender binary oppositions. Consequently, if we aim to include these critical and creative elaborations in our intellectual and emotional genealogies, we need to question the very boundaries built by the traditional white feminist conceptualization of one’s critical and spiritual lineage. As an activist and researcher experiencing ‘emotional thinking’ when musing over corporeal and artistic birth giving (i.e., the development and various transformations of one’s identity, or rather the coalescence of one’s own complexities), I feel the need for a word that includes GEA’s and Ettinger’s revisions of the borderscape. This word should convey my critical conviction that identity has to do with sexual and gender difference in deep, even trans-temporal ways. I therefore propose to use my coinage ‘gYne(co) alogies’ as a bridging term that includes gynecology (from gyné, female, woman, and logia, logos, science, discourse) and genealogy (female lineage), with the capital Y chosen to complexify the interlacing of the discourse on women/gender with the one on birth, lineage, ancestry, the transterritorial, transgendered, geo-anthropological, and transborder perspectives shared by any newborn human creature. My neologism complicates the spelling of the term ‘gyn-ecology’ as coined by the American radical feminist philosopher and theologist Mary Daly in her book Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978).5 Daly slashed the word ‘gynecology’ and used capital letters for both ‘Gyn’ and ‘Ecology’ because she meant to rename and reclaim ancient women-centered realities that were stolen and/or eradicated by patriarchy. While appreciating her effort, I need to move a step further from her theological radicality since, notwithstanding her breakthrough insights, she did not take into consideration class, culture, color, and race intersections in her lesbian feminist analysis.6 The agglomeration of meanings in my coinage of ‘gYne(co)alogies’, in fact, brings forth and emphasizes its many implications without slashes hinting at conceptual conflicts. 5  Daly described herself as a ‘radical lesbian feminist’ and a radical pioneer of feminist theology with a passion for challenging patriarchy and religion. She succeeded in deconstructing patriarchal language and exposing the Roman Catholic Church’s misogyny. To redefine women’s realities, she used language in new ways and recovered or reclaimed words such as ‘goddess’, ‘witch’, ‘crone’, and ‘hag’ (Daly 1978). 6  Daly’s disregard of these complexities aligns her with the discourse of other white American feminists of the 1970s and 1980s, who would be later criticized by feminists of color and intersectional feminists.

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In particular, the choice of having a capital Y in the word is a way to refer to the ‘discourse on women or femininity’ while challenging, at the same time, the issue of gender identity based on the scientific distinctions between the X chromosome (female) and Y chromosome (male). From a radical, intersectional, borderless feminist perspective that contemplates the various stances and forms of gender identity/fluidity, the words gYnealogies and gYnecologies, spelled with a capital Y, introduce scientific and symbolic impurity and crossings. In particular, they pluriversalize the meanings of the original words involved, since the gynè, the female logos and sex, is here indented by the symbol of the male chromosome as a way to disclaim any alleged categorical boundary among sexes. My neologism thus implies that what makes the difference in feminist perspectives about identities is not simply the sex assigned us at birth, but rather the ways, processes, and methodologies each human being activates in the relationships with the other(s): that is to say, how one works out one’s own tools ‘to dismantle the master house’ (Lorde 1984, p. 112). From my feminist perspective and consciousness, I am convinced that these processes are key to the ways in which gender subjectivities circulate in past and present diasporic, colonial, and neo-colonial mobility. Moreover, as both GEA’s and Ettinger’s works demonstrate and as will further emerge from the following section, this mobility and productive instability of gender subjectivities also entail the circulation/dissemination/impollination of different human, artistic, and literary genealogies and genres. The newly coined ‘gYne(co)alogies’ could prove useful in this context insofar as it further combines the ideas of women’s lineage and women’s discourse with a notion of ‘queer ecology’—an ecology of mixing chromosomes and gender identifications, in which binary oppositions lose their relevance and normativity. In this way, it also suggests that a truly innovative understanding of ecology has much to do with gender border-crossing and is far away from the violent implications of more traditional views, especially the medical control on women’s bodies enforced through traditional gynecology, that is, the science of female diseases and hospitalized birth.

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For a Decolonial Thalasso-corpo-graphy or a Marine Epistemology of the South One way in which GEA and Ettinger have contributed to the reconceptualization—both spatial and temporal, intellectual and creative—of women’s ecologies is their respective problematization of the colonial notion of race or of the divide between mind and body. GEA’s examination of the entanglements of gendering and racialization in such a ­(post-/neo-)colonial space as the US-Mexico border has been further articulated by several decolonial feminist thinkers. The Argentinian, US-based philosopher María Lugones, for example, describes the gender and coloniality nexus with these words: [In order to] unmask that (for colonial power) the ‘woman’ is ‘the white woman’, we must introduce the logic of ‘intersectionality […] central to the feminism of women of color, and to European subaltern feminism. […] Woman is not interchangeable with ‘woman of color’ because in this expression […] the woman is racialized as being not white […] the relationship among race, gender, sexuality is a de-constitution. We need a passage from colonialization to coloniality […] cultures cannot be traversed without focusing on the power of race, otherwise we are accomplices with the colonization of gender.7

By problematizing the assumedly neutral expression ‘the women’, feminist scholars of color such as Lugones and GEA move in the direction of delinking from a universally shared classification of gender based on US/ Euro-centric assumptions. Theirs is a crucial mark in a decolonial gYne(co) alogical constellation. As stated in their manifesto by those who adopted the name ‘Abya Yala’ (a name that underlines the connection with the struggle and resistance of Latino-American indigenous populations), the move toward delinking is in fact performed in order to decolonize feminism(s) by ‘opening la mirada’ (Espinosa Miñoso et al. 2014). In so doing, thinkers such as Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso, Diana Gómez Correal, Karina Ochoa Muñoz, and María Lugones aimed to develop a decolonial feminist epistemology of the South:8 a counter-hegemonic theory of  (Lugones 2008, p. 89). The translation into English is mine.  This expression was used in decolonial studies by Boaventura de Sousa in his book Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide, published in 2014. In the same year, Espinosa Miñoso and other Latin American decolonial feminists published Tejiendo de otro modo. Since its publication, De Sousa’s influential work has been in dialogue with different conceptualizations of the South and has been variously resignified in the context of Latin American feminisms. 7 8

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knowledge able to talk back to US/Euro-centrism and expose the perduring Western hegemony of white feminism, thus uncovering the fact that the concept of gender is still influenced by racist paradigms (Espinosa Miñoso et al. 2022). Such gYne(co)logical re-arrangements are intentionally disorienting movements and spaces articulating the crossing and suturing of borders and entanglements across generations, matrixial borderspaces, genders, genres, and genera of knowledge on the line of what GEA and Ettinger worked at from, respectively, the Atlantic dimension of the US-Mexico border and the Mediterranean space of the Israel-France mobility. Informed by their and others’ example, new turns in academic theories, as well as in activism/artivism, are operated through jamming strategies that encourage intersections among different disciplines, cultures, and languages. Their lead shows that scientific disciplines  such as geography, physics, cartography, and biology can be contaminated by the literary/artistic languages and genres, and, in turn, literature and art can be inspired by scientific narratives and forms. The search for new terms to define this miscegenation and transmutation is fascinating. This is particularly true for those of us who are Mediterranean, whose history includes experiences of colonization of others, but who also suffered from internal European colonization and various forms of racialization, even though in more nuanced, less violent ways than natives from other continents. We consequently have a keen interest in Latino-American theories of delinking, as well as in critical and creative works dealing with living in the borderlands, in migrancy, and in deterritorialization. The jamming strategies used in these theories and works evoke the idea of composing new music rhythmed on such words as trans-­ terrad*; alter/nativ*; exiliad*; meteque/mestiz*, displazamiento, encrucijada, desapropiación, historiografía poética, autoethnography, and many more. This is a theoretical and creative experimental gesture happening across linguistic borders and thus embodying the idea of border-crossing at the very level of ‘voicing’ the world. However, such gesture also challenges us to cope in new ways with the following two theoretical issues: how does the question ‘what is a genre’ relate with ‘what is gender’? And how do we make sure that we use gender

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identifications and Gender Studies in ways that do not risk erasing race and other types of oppression or going back to a restricted focus on female/male differences? The relevance of these issues explains why the testimonio genre is nowadays very appreciated. Auto-graphy, autohistoria, autoethnography are new forms of narration that, although concerned also with the self, usually portray the self in relation to the others, to history, to cultural ties or ruptures. According to the authors of Autobiography: An Overview, it was by observing such strategies that ‘scholars across a wide spectrum of disciplines began to consider what social sciences would become if they were closer to literature than to physics, if they proffered stories rather than theories; and if they were self-consciously value-­centered rather than pretending to be value free’ (Ellis et al. 2011, p. 274). One example of theoretical autohistorical narrative comes from the collective work titled ‘Transterradas: lugares de memoria y memoria de los lugares en tres infancias exiliadas’ (2017). Here, Carolina Meloni González, Carola Saiegh Dorín, and Marisa González de Oleaga write about their condition of transfugees and exiles in the years of the Argentinian dictatorship. The authors’ point of view is that of the young girls who experienced the condition of transterradas, a condition that the authors associate with the constitution of transfronteriza. This term defines hybridated, erratic identities that require the crossing of multiple caminos (paths) in order to face the dis-appropriation and deterritorialization imposed by exile and transterritoriality. If GEA and Ettinger propose a reframing of the borderscape that has to do with the (gendered) self and the creative and emotional knowledge one  gains by living across boundaries, Meloni González, Saiegh Dorín, and González de Oleaga articulate a gendered border-crossing experience that has to do explicitly with geographical and identitarian mobility. It is a ‘gyno-corpo-graphy’ that resonates with different spaces and geopolitical dimensions. The latter authors, as well as GEA and Lugones, move from the transAtlantic space that the Americas share with Europe and Africa through the history of the slave trade, whereas Ettinger articulates her reflections from the post-Holocaust diasporic dislocation. In both cases, the sea space seems to be both the space of separation and violent dislocation and the arena of communication allowing contact and suturing. The Mediterranean, in particular, can be said to be a space where continuous circulation across the shores ensures an unstable but productive proximity among cultures that face each other in complicated, multilayered ways. The territories bordering on this sea are all, in some forms,

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living as peninsulas connected among each other as if in an archipelago of sorts. In light of this discussion, the methodology I am proposing in this chapter can be conceived as a (pen)insular/archipelagic approach or better as a ‘transMediterranean gyno-corpo-graphy’. This unstable cultural and disciplinary positionality, inspired by the poetical and geo-/gyno-political transfeminist perspectives examined above, has translated into a critical stance that I have defined elsewhere an ‘other than transAtlantic’ archaeology of coloniality (Zaccaria 2016, 2019) and gender. In other words, moving past the so far predominantly transAtlantic reading of coloniality and gender, I propose to adopt a Southern archae(anthrop)ology that applies a transMediterranean lens to both the Atlantic narratives and the (post/de)colonial studies, for the most part still oblivious to the centrality of gender and ‘thalassographic’—or sea-centered—interactions. This shift from a transAtlantic to a transMediterrAtlantic perspective is key to the encounters with non-nationalistic thinkers, no-border activists, border crossers, as well as diasporic creative talents expressing transgressive/trespassing visions of the state of things both in their gnoseologies (Mignolo 2019; Zaccaria and Cazzato 2020) and in their gender and sexual politics of artistic representation. These artistic endeavors are interwoven with the body politics expressed by women artists and theoreticians such as the above-mentioned Afro-descendants and Afro-diasporic ones working from insular/archipelagic perspectives. A border journey along the routes unaccounted for by canonical literary and aesthetic narratives sheds light upon the crisis of traditional normative genders and disciplinary genres, and on the unaccountability and gaps of Western theories of performativity, gender, and genre. The complexities of a world on the move can only be explored and expressed through new tools, neo-entanglements (Timeto 2008), Black trans-­ poetics, Black and Chican* non-binary ‘trans-borderization’, as far as gender(s) are concerned. Diasporic, decolonial, Caribbean, Africanist, Black, and Chican* forms of thinking and performing—which include creolization, mestizaje, transculturality, delinking, metramorphosis,  and nepantla processes—unearth forms of non-colonial knowledge and cartographies that offer a different narration of the world. This entails, for example, la convivencia, as in the case of the cartographies that map the effects of slave trade on the triangulation Europe-Africa-Americas, when

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the departure points of cargos were not Northern European but rather harbors located in the Mediterranean colonialist empires.9 Of course, an un-disciplinary, dis-affiliated, decolonial, not-only-white feminist point of observation is not interested in traditional geographical or nationalist maps. It is rather interested in creating gYne(co)alogically interconnected drawings/narrations that dismantle the politics of locking one’s own land as well as one’s own disciplinary territories with walls and lockers to mark the mastery of space, vision, and knowledge. As an activist transfeminist scholar, I wish to join those who bring onto the scene territories and aquatic surfaces that tell a different story from the one imposed by Western cartographic tradition, which conceived the world as delimited by imperialistic lines cutting through both earth and sea, unmindful of multicultural, mestizo, and matrixial heritages. As opposed to this tradition, there exists also a world of subversive maps that, following the example of GEA’s and Ettinger’s alternative borderscapes, tell stories of unexpected (re)conjunction, wound suturing, creative overlapping, and emotional proximities. The sea space is crucial in such a reconceived embodied geography for two reasons: it allows the circulation of physical, intellectual, and cultural currents, and it connects apparently fragmented realities through the operations of cultural ‘navettes’ (MacDonald 2019). For Megan MacDonald, for instance, rethinking epistemology from a marine perspective entails identifying ‘thalassographic constellations’ (2019), which let unexpected new spaces emerge from the connection of places and objects sitting on different coastlines and only apparently separated by water. An example is the ‘Third Space’ (Bhabha 1994, p.  38) created by French colonization among Paris (the empire), Algeria (the colony), and New Caledonia, where Algerians were sent as prisoners after participating in the uprisings of 1870–1871 in French Algeria (MacDonald 2019). In articulating the gender- and genre-crossing concepts of nepantla states and matrixial borderscapes, it is useful to reflect on the effects of circulation and currents of racial violence and oppression, in the form of the Spanish colonization of Mexico and of  the nineteenth-century US conquest of Northern Mexican territories (in the case of GEA’s autohistoria) and of  the post-Holocaust Jewish nomadism in the US as well as in Mediterranean countries (in the case of Ettinger’s experience). 9  The reference here is to sixteenth-century and eighteenth-century slave trade managed by Spain and France, whose ships sailed from Mediterranean harbors.

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The corporeal, bodily dimension of such experiences of violence and resistance is a key feature of this circulatory dynamics: as such, this dimension can be defined as ‘decolonial thalasso-corpo-graphy’ or as an embodied decolonial epistemology of the sea. The alternative cartographies drawn in such narratives as A Map to the Door of No Return (2001) by Caribbean Canadian author Dionne Brand are a case in point, as are those painted by native American artists, or narrated and painted by Afrofuturistic experiments. The effects produced by such maps are in line with what geographers Edward Soja and Barbara Hooper imply when they write: ‘all real geographies are imagined and all imagined geographies are real’ (1993, p.  196). In other words, the classic binary opposition between reality and imagination is melted into a borderless dimension in which no division is needed. The geo-thalasso-corpo-graphies that are in between Earth and Sea liquefy the politics of belonging. This is time therefore to start unearthing the exchanges produced in both the past and the present by marine mobility. The process of unearthing is crucial to develop new views that open the way to the consciousness/conocimiento of gender and geo-corpo-graphical history of mobility. In this sense, the circulation paradigm symbolically cracks walls, attacking stagnation: by becoming aware of the diasporic circulations and currents in a variety of contexts, one realizes that one’s methodologies can be re-oriented in order to become tools to fight back both the stiffness and inhumanity of the nationalistic, colonial divides, and the partition of genders and sexualities in different cultures.

References Abraham, Stephanie. 2014. A nepantla pedagogy: Comparing Anzaldúa’s and Bakhtin’s ideas for pedagogical and social change. Critical Education 5 (5): 1–20. Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. ———. 2002. Now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public acts. In This bridge we call home: Radical visions for transformation, ed. Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating, 540–578. New York: Routledge. Anzaldúa, Gloria, and AnaLouise Keating, eds. 2000. Interviews/Entrevistas. New York: Routledge. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The location of culture. London and New York: Routledge. Brand, Dionne. 2001. A map to the door of no return: Notes to belonging. Toronto: Random House Canada.

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Daly, Mary. 1978. Gyn/Ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism. Boston: Beacon Press. De Sousa, Boaventura. 2014. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Oxford: Routledge. Ellis, Carolyn, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P. Bochner. 2011. Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research 36 (4): 273–290. https://www.ssoar. info/ssoar/handle/document/36323. Espinosa Miñoso, Yuderkys, Diana Gómez Correal, and Karina Ochoa Muñoz, eds. 2014. Tejiendo de otro modo: feminismo, epistemología y apuestas descoloniales en Abya Yala. Popayán: Editorial Universidad del Cauca. Espinosa Miñoso, Yuderkys, María Lugones, and Nelson Maldonado-Torres, eds. 2022. Decolonial feminism in Abya Yala: Caribbean, Meso, and South American contributions and challenges. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Ettinger, Bracha L. 1994. The matrixial gaze. Leeds: Feminist Arts & Histories Network, Dept. of Fine Art, Leeds University. ———. 2004. Weaving a woman artist with-in the matrixial encounter-event. Theory, Culture & Society 21 (1): 69–94. https://doi. org/10.1177/0263276404040480. ———. 2005. The matrixial borderspace: Essays from 1994 to 1999. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2009. Fragilization and resistance. Studies in the Maternal 1 (2). https:// www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk. Gunn Allen, Paula. 1998. Off the reservation: Reflections on boundary-busting border-­crossing loose canons. Boston: Beacon Press. hooks, bell. 1981. Ain’t I a woman?: Black women and feminism. Boston: South End Press. ———. 1984. Feminist theory: From margin to center. Boston: South End Press. Lorde, Audre. 1984 (1979). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches, by Audre Lorde, 110–113. Trumansburg: The Crossing Press. Lugones, María. 1987. Playfulness, ‘world’-traveling, and loving perception. Hypatia 2 (2): 3–19. ———. 2003. Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing coalition against multiple oppressions. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2008. Colonialidad y género. Tabula Rasa 9: 73–101. MacDonald, Megan C. 2019. Currents and currency: Cultural circulations in the Mediterranean and beyond. Paper at Workshop ‘Guillotines in transit/ Connecting seas: Alger, Marseille, New Caledonia’. Koç University Suna & ̇ Inan Kıraç Center for Mediterranean Civilizations, Antalya, Turkey (June 13–15).

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Mbembe, Achille. 2018. The idea of a borderless world. Chimurenga Chronic. Special issue ‘On circulations and the African imagination of a borderless world’. October: 3–4. Meloni González, Carolina, Carola Saiegh Dorín, and Marisa González de Oleaga. 2017. Transterradas: lugares de memoria y memoria de los lugares en tres infancias exiliadas. Alter/nativas, Latin American Cultural Studies Journal 7. https://alternativas.osu.edu/es/issues/autumn-­7-­2017/essays4/meloni-­ saiegh-­gonzalez.html. Mignolo, Walter. 2019. Reconstitución epistémica/estética: la aesthesis decolonial una década después. Calle 14: Revista de investigación en el campo del arte 14 (25): 14–32. Minh-ha, Trinh T. 1989. Woman, native, other: Writing postcoloniality and feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mohanty, Chandra. 2003. Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Quijano, Aníbal. 1999. Colonialidad del poder, cultura y conocimiento en América Latina. Dispositio 24 (51): 137–148. Soja, Edward, and Barbara Hooper. 1993. The spaces that difference makes: Some notes on the geographical margins of the new cultural politics. London and New York: Routledge. Timeto, Federica, ed. 2008. Culture della differenza. Torino: Utet Università. Zaccaria, Paola. 2016. Mediterraneo liquido: per un pensiero critico decoloniale. In S/Murare il Mediterraneo: pensieri critici e artivismo al tempo delle migrazioni, ed. Luigi Cazzato and Filippo Silvestri, 21–44. Lecce: Pensa. ———. 2019. The TransMediterranAtlantic decolonial turn: Can imagination unwall geo-political and disciplinary boundaries? Anglistica AION 23 (2): 23–36. Zaccaria, Paola, and Luigi Cazzato. 2020. Semiosi della colonialità e dinamiche culturali al tempo della mobilità globale. Echo 2: 1–7.

CHAPTER 15

Spivak and Sontag: Deconstructing Borders Through a Philosophical Appraisal of Literature Chiara Scarlato

Introduction By proposing a disciplinary crossing between philosophy and literature, this chapter aims to show how philosophical research in literature has contributed to deconstructing the concept of border by giving way to a new understanding of the body. The focus will be on works by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Susan Sontag, who have provided some of the most fruitful and original thinking in the field of the philosophy of literature in the twentieth century. More specifically, by examining their works, the chapter discusses the extent to which literary texts offer people chances to come into contact with other human experiences and overcome cultural divides. This argument rests on the premise that the dismissal of the traditional concept of border (and the subsequent newer understanding of the notion of body) was a consequence of the North American critical

C. Scarlato (*) Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_15

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reception of the so-called French deconstruction theory which, in moving from France to the US, became globally crucial in redefining the role of literature in view of the author-reader relationship. Putting literature at the core of their research, French philosophers such as Maurice Blanchot, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida, among others, developed theoretical frameworks within a wider reflection around the nature of language by means of the analysis of literary texts. Through their North American critical reception, then, the aforementioned French theorists influenced the development of a fresh orientation of thought, leading eventually to rethinking how to conceptualise the body in relation to readership and authorship. On these premises, the chapter examines how the author-­ reader relationship—by means of new reflections around bodies and/as texts—comes to play a fundamental role in the dismissal of border as a cultural concept. In order to show this complexity, the chapter provides a comparative reading of some of Spivak’s writings—the translator preface to Derrida’s Grammatology (1976), ‘Love me, love my ombre, elle’ (1984), and Death of a Discipline (2003)—and selected passages from the posthumous collections of Sontag’s private diaries and personal notes, namely Reborn: Journals and Notebooks 1947–1963 (2008) and As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964–1980 (2012).1 Sontag’s private diaries and notes were posthumously edited by her son David Rieff who, in the preface to the first volume, affirms that the texts shape both the autobiography of his mother and the autobiographical novel she never wanted to write.2 These texts, moreover, are tools to examine the ways in which the same theoretical issues and concerns were addressed by Sontag through different genres of writing. With regard to genre, it is worth underlining that Sontag’s private diaries and notes are examples of what we can call an intimate form of writing detached from rigid theoretical

1  For a critical account on Sontag’s life and works, see Schreiber (2014) and Mitrano (2016). Another useful reference is Mitrano (2023), who focuses on the dialogue between Sontag’s private diaries and published works, underlying the significance of the notion of body in Sontag’s thought (pp. 36–37, 92–98). 2  In Rieff’s view, the first volume is a kind of Bildungsroman, analogous in its fictional form to Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901) or Jack London’s Martin Eden (1909), while the second volume may be viewed as a novelistic representation of Sontag’s adult age (Sontag 2008).

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structures. Yet, they are also essential vehicles for conveying the author’s philosophical thought. The chapter analyses excerpts from Spivak’s and Sontag’s works, selected on the basis of the cultural milieu the authors shared—a milieu characterised by the following elements: a specific period of time, running from the 1960s to the 1980s; a specific US cultural context; and the American scholarly reception of French deconstruction theory.3 Particular attention will be given to the analysis of the act of reading which, for both Spivak and Sontag, triggers a potentially infinite process of signification that does not coincide with the mere creation of a literary text on the part of the author or with the mere reception of this same text on the part of the reader. This process rather corresponds to the understanding of literature as a tool through which it is possible to overcome the presence of cultural divides and physical borders among human beings. Furthermore, it is a tool that fosters new forms of communication that go beyond the boundaries of the human body. Therefore, the chapter does not only offer a cross-reading of philosophy and literature, or of different genres of writings—scholarly and autobiographical; it also provides a comparison between Spivak and Sontag calling attention to some of the first theories they elaborated, which have been significant in rethinking the relationship between embodiment and disembodiment. What binds Spivak and Sontag together is the idea that the act of reading contributes to a deeper perception of the human world by enacting a process of personal disembodiment in favour of the embodiment in characters’ experiences. Whilst Spivak’s ideas have been frequently debated and tackled by the author herself on several occasions, such as the 2000 Wellek Library Lectures (Spivak 2003), Sontag’s diaries have received less scholarly attention. As will be shown, however, a comparative analysis of these latter diaries alongside Spivak’s views can provide some compelling insights on the two philosophers’ contribution to the theorisation of boundary-crossing in the humanities field.4 Both of them conceive literature as a vehicle for overcoming the concept of bodily border by supplying fresh insights into the author-reader relationship. 3  Due to this selection, more recent developments of Spivak’s theories will not be considered in this chapter. For a more general treatment of her work, see Morton (2003, 2007) and Sanders (2006). 4  After all, the idea of boundary-crossing is elaborated by Sontag in some of her most famous published writings, such as the essays collection Against Interpretation (1966).

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My purpose here is to focus exclusively on a comparison between Spivak and Sontag rather than to offer a comprehensive account of the act of reading in the most recent critical debates. What the chapter explores is the very first phase of the lively theoretical debate around the processes of embodiment and disembodiment, a debate which has rapidly grown, and mostly with the reception of Derridean deconstruction in the US. In this perspective, the following analysis is also meant to open up new lines of thought and to suggest a potential connection of the aforementioned themes with timely and relevant topics, such as the critical discussion around the forms of dematerialised reading, which involves, for instance, the case of e-books and audiobooks,5 and which will surely continue to be debated for the years to come.

Embodiment and Disembodiment Since the second half of the twentieth century, the growing philosophical interest in literature has posed the question of rethinking the disciplinary boundaries among philosophy, comparative literature, literary theory, sociology, and psychology, by analysing literary texts in relation to timely and timeless concerns regarding questions of language, the relationship between the author and the reader, and the value of communication among human beings.6 An important impulse came from the US reception of Derridean deconstruction, which produced heterogeneous, rich, and diversified theories on the kinship of philosophy and literature.7 As is well-known, Derridean deconstruction had a great impact on the development of literary studies in the US, especially after the international conference ‘The Language of Criticism and the Sciences of Man’ held at John Hopkins University on 18–21 October 1966, which is widely regarded as

5  On the impact of digital technologies over books and book industry, see, among others, Johnson (2021), who analyses these issues through a critical discussion that includes also a focus on some crucial notions, such as gender and genre. 6  Relevant theoretical contributions to the development of the philosophy of literature are, among others, Cascardi (1989), Lamarque (2009), Carroll and Gibson (2016), and Stocker and Mack (2018). On the challenging relationship between philosophy and literature, see also Kuhns (1971) and Lang (1990). Finally, for discussions of the relationship between literary theory and analytic philosophy, see Freadman and Reinhardt (1991). 7  On the American reception of French theory, see, among others, Cusset (2003) and Currie (2013).

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the inaugural event for the circulation of the French deconstruction theory in North American universities.8 During the conference, renowned philosophers like Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, René Girard, Lucien Goldmann, Jean Hyppolite, Jacques Lacan, Georges Poulet, Tzvetan Todorov, and Jean-Pierre Vernant discussed such philosophical theories as structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction, which, before the conference, were only accessible to French speakers.9 As highlighted by Cusset (2003), moreover, many American and French thinkers had the opportunity to meet for the first time, as in the case of Derrida’s encounter with Paul De Man and a young Spivak who, less than ten years later, would write the preface to her English translation to Derrida’s Grammatology.10 As Spivak suggests in the aforementioned preface, in the US context deconstruction has been conventionally recognised as a critical theory, although it does not produce any specific methodology. It rather became an instrument to question all available methodologies at the time. In other words, deconstruction appeared as a counter-methodology whose ambition was to destroy any systematic classification (or categorisation) of dominant cultural paradigms in order to observe cultural production in its totality. This goal constituted the propulsive force of deconstruction itself, which made it possible to ‘locate the promising marginal, to disclose the undecidable moment, to pry it loose with the positive level of the signifier; 8   The proceedings of the conference appeared four years later in Macksey and Donato (1970). 9  As it is well-known, the impact of both the 1966 English translations of Claude LéviStrauss’ The Savage Mind (1962) and the special issue of the Yale French Studies review on Structuralism was minimal. 10  The reason why, in trying to challenge New Criticism, the deconstructive approach ‘found most fertile soil in America’, leading ‘American literary critics’ to build ‘on its basic assumptions the magnificent edifice of a new critical movement’ (Rajnath 1989, p. 1), is to be found in Jonathan Culler’s pioneering volume On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (1982). Here Culler points out the consequences of the transition of deconstruction from Europe to the US and the important role this transition came to play in the development of some cultural phenomena, including the increasing interaction among different cultural discourses and a new orientation towards rethinking some leading notions of Western knowledge, such as male/female, internal/external, essential/accidental. According to Culler, ‘deconstruction is not a theory that defines meaning in order to tell you how to find it. As a critical undoing of the hierarchical oppositions on which theories depend, it demonstrates the difficulties of any theory that would define meaning in a univocal way: as what an author intends, what conventions determine, what a reader experiences’ (1982, p. 131).

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to reverse the resident hierarchy, only to displace it; to dismantle in order to reconstitute what is always already inscribed’ (Spivak 1976, p. LXXVII).11 Then, if we consider that Spivak often refers to literature as a pedagogical tool crucial to self-recognition,12 it is not surprising that the starting point of her project is just the deconstructive reflection on literature and, specifically, the critical appraisal of both the notions of literary text and book. By following Derrida, Spivak makes clear that any ‘book’ is ‘always a “text”, constituted by the play of identity and difference’, and that any ‘text’ has ‘no stable identity, no stable origin, no stable end’ (Spivak 1976, p. XII).13 There is a difference, therefore, between the book as the material object that we read and the text which is, instead, the unstable and unpredictable result of the encounter among the book, the author, and the reader. This distinction is largely due to the fact that any act of reading is an act of interpretation: in fact, in order to properly embody the characters’ experiences and to inhabit the worlds depicted in literary texts, readers should try to disembody from their own bodies.14 Accordingly, in her later ‘Love me, love my ombre, elle’ (1984), Spivak maintains that the act of writing is tied to a form of absence, which is the absence of a body, and particularly the body of the author. This happens because, whilst the author is the former absent owner of the written text, readers have to pass through their own bodies in order to truly experience what is told within the literary text. This unbalanced relationship between the disembodiment of the author and the embodiment of the reader is akin to the structuralist debate on the death of the author, but, read in connection with the author-reader relationship, it does indeed raise a 11  Spivak’s personal relations with the main theorists of deconstruction are recalled in her essay ‘Touched by Deconstruction’ (2005). She was Paul De Man’s student at Cornell University from 1961 to 1965 and he later became her PhD supervisor. As previously mentioned, moreover, Spivak first met Derrida at John Hopkins University in 1966. 12  In her essay ‘Feminism and Critical Theory’ (1985), Spivak explains that ‘literature […] displays that the truth of a human situation is the itinerary of not being able to find it. In the general discourse of the humanities there is a sort of search for solutions, whereas in literary discourse there is a playing out of the problem as the solution’ (1996, pp. 54–55). 13  On the relationship between the acts of reading and translating, see the essay ‘The Politics of Translation’ in which Spivak declares that ‘translation is the most intimate act of reading. Unless the translator has earned the right to become the intimate reader, she cannot surrender to the text, cannot respond to the special call of the text’ (1993, p. 205). 14  On the philosophical implications between readers and fictional characters in reading, see Lamarque (2009, pp. 202–209).

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more complex reflection around the kinship between the person who wrote the literary text and the person who reads the book. There are two crucial reasons why the author-reader relationship has been at the core of a debate that still plays a pivotal role in the theoretical reflection on literature.15 Firstly, the act of reading provides a chance to realise a lively human experience that is possible only by leaving the body aside to live inside the text. More precisely, by striving to overcome the material and digital borders of the book and the symbolic borders of the literary text, readers move beyond their own bodies in order to embody the characters’ experiences. This does not mean that the concept of individuality is neutralised; rather, the recognition of this process contributes to preserving the alterity of the literary text and to avoiding that readers may exercise any form of intellectual domination because, as Spivak maintains in her Death of a Discipline (2003),16 the ‘most difficult thing […] is to resist mere appropriation by the dominant’ (Spivak 2003, p.  11). Secondly, only if readers are willing to cross the borders of their own bodies, can the literary text be recognised as such and not only as a mere book. In this regard, it is highly significant that the first chapter of Death of a Discipline is titled ‘Across the borders’—a title that seems to propose the destruction of any kind of borders, including academic, gendered, geo-­ political borders, and, above all, a dismantling of the cultural divides that usually characterise the system of human relationships on the entire planet.17 Thus, in order to reach a theoretical dimension in which there are no borders and/or frontiers among literatures, cultures, and academic disciplines, Spivak proposes to create a new methodological approach to 15  See, for instance, the essays collected in the section ‘Embodiment as Ethics: Literature and Life in the Anthropocene’ in Rudrum et al. (2019, pp. 317–381), which examine the relationship between literary embodiment and disembodiment in reference to ecological responsibility and climate change. 16  As Spivak explains in the introduction, this volume consists of a ‘call’ through which she aims to affirm the need for ‘a new comparative literature’, by pursuing ‘the hope that there may be some in the academy who do not believe that the critical edge of the humanities should be appropriated and determined by the market’ (2003, p. XII). 17  As opposed to the double notion of globe/globalisation, Spivak adopts planet/planetarity. More precisely, Spivak’s critique is directed toward the notion of a dominant and paradigmatic culture proper of capitalistic society in which ‘to keep responsibility alive in the reading and teaching of the textual is at first sight impractical. It is, however, the right of the textual planetarity to be so responsible, responsive, answerable. The “planet” is, here, as perhaps always, a catachresis for inscribing collective responsibility as right’ (2003, pp. 101–102).

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literature—or, to use her own words—‘a new comparative literature’ (2003, p. XIII). Such an objective can be reached by overcoming the three methodological approaches that have mainly influenced the academic study of literature in the twentieth century, namely those of Cultural Studies, which is too ideological and politicised; Area Studies, which is too generalised; and Comparative Literature, which is too dependent on the Western perspective. In Spivak’s account, each of these approaches is viewed as the outcome (or the consequence) of a political condition, and this is the reason why, as she suggests, these perspectives cannot provide a fair and comprehensive methodological framework within which we could encompass all forms of literature.18 Indeed, Spivak wishes to reduce the impact of Cultural Studies and to overcome the separation between Area Studies and Comparative Literature. In other words, her main aim is to deconstruct the supremacy of the Western perspective in favour of a more accurate comprehension of the so-called subaltern literary production. In this light, the significance of crossing the borders seems to be that of relocating any literary text—and, especially, the subaltern literary production— within the context in which these texts were originally thought, written, and circulated. The multi-layered place in which this theoretical revolution may take place is the university, the site where teachers and students can try together to bridge the gap between the planetarian production of literature and the Western canon. Although in the very last decades the establishment of a dominant canon in literature has been subjected to a radical attempt of revision,19 when Spivak published her essay, academic criteria were still largely influenced by the legacy of literary texts and their consequent inclusion in, or exclusion from, the knowledge system. A practical way to consider the plurality of literature in opposition to this canon was, for Spivak, to contextualise subaltern literary texts within the spatial-temporal

18  Moreover, by asserting the need for a deep transformation in Area Studies, she points out that without ‘the support of the humanities, Area Studies can still only transgress frontiers, in the name of crossing borders; and, without a transformed Area Studies, Comparative Literature remains imprisoned within the borders it will not cross’ (Spivak 2003, p. 7). 19  On the recent debate around this issue, see, for instance, Eoyang (2007), Wilson (2014), De Gasperi and Pivato (2018), and Bandopadhyay (2021).

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coordinates in which they firstly appeared and, in the case of translations, to reflect on their original linguistic features.20 So, despite its title, Death of a Discipline does not deal with the end of literary theory or, more generally, with the end of the comparative approach to literature: it is, rather, a manifesto that provides new directions for teaching and reading literature by considering the need to dismantle any kind of borders in both the construction of literary knowledge and its study. Moreover, by focusing on the need to abandon the Western perspective, Spivak seems to suggest that a new methodological approach to literature may help in overcoming the real and symbolic borders that divide cultural systems into opposed binary groups of dominants and subalterns. Finally, in order to emancipate literature from the Western perspective that has played a pivotal role in the definition of literature itself, Spivak suggests focusing on the value of the literary text, that is to say, focusing on its language and meanings. Literature seems to play an effective role in the dissolution of cultural borders in a double sense insofar as it enacts the possibility of exploring the planet in its complexity and, at the same time, of establishing a form of communication among human beings. Nonetheless, this theoretical approach has to face a significant question that has to do with the shape of our body: the subjection to the presence of a border is constantly actualised by the recognition of our own body that constitutes a line of demarcation between me and the other. If, following Spivak, we try to see the body as a symbol of resistance against any kind of border, the point would be to avoid that the affirmation of strict conceptual categories may destroy the strong certainty that our bodies have no borders, with the exception of those that we decide to probe. Or, to use Sontag’s words, we should simply accept that the encounter with others is the only way ‘to prove that I have a body—and that there are bodies in the world’ (Sontag 2012, p. 261). In order to understand how it occurs, it is profitable to compare the aforementioned theoretical framework outlined by Spivak with some of Sontag’s personal notes concerning the concept of body.

20  If read from this perspective, translation underpins a figurative movement from a cultural system to another, although this movement does not coincide with a process of cultural resignification (see Spivak 1993, pp. 179–200).

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Bodies, Literary Texts, and Books The nature of the human body constitutes a relevant question in Sontag’s work and her perspective on this issue is effective in disclosing the main features which characterise the process of embodiment and disembodiment introduced above. The following quotation from Sontag’s 1967 text, which is worth citing in length, cast some light on these aspects: If the outside corresponded to the inner life in people, we couldn’t have ‘bodies’ as we do. The inner life is too complex, too various, too fluid. Our bodies incarnate only a fraction of our inner lives. […] Given that they would still have inner lives of the energy + complexity that they have now, the bodies of people would have to be more like gas—something gaseous yet tangible looking like clouds. Then our bodies could metamorphose rapidly, expand, contract—a part could break off, we could fragment, fuse, collide, accumulate, vanish, rematerialize, swell up, thin out, thicken, etc. etc. As it is, we’re stuck with a soft but still largely determinate (especially determinate with regard to size + dimension + shape) material presence in the world—almost wholly inadequate to these processes which then become ‘inner’ processes (i.e., far from wholly manifested, needing to be discovered, inferred; capable of being hidden, etc.). Our bodies become vessels, then— and masks. Since we can’t expand + contract (our bodies), we stiffen them a lot—inscribe tension on them. Which becomes a habit—becomes installed, to then re-influence the ‘inner life’. The phenomenon of character armor that [n.d.t. the Austrian psychologist Wilhelm] Reich focused on. (Sontag 2012, pp. 233–234)

The concept of the body proves hardly useful to handle the relationship between the internal and the external: by stating that the human external appearance does not coincide with its internal experience, Sontag imagines a possible alternative to the human body, which appears to be a body without any border. From this perspective, the body is very close to the notion of literary text that Spivak evokes in her preface to Derrida’s Grammatology: in the same way in which a body is ‘inadequate’ to represent its ‘“inner” processes’, a book cannot contain the entire content of a literary text. A borderless body, thus, is much more akin to the erratic nature of a literary text that is determined, from time to time, by the encounter among readers and books. By comparing the notions of body/borderless body with the notions of book/literary text, we face a dissymmetrical relationship inasmuch as a borderless body does not correspond to a body, and a

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literary text does not correspond to a book, although they seem to be the same. In other words, the perception of a body—without its borders—is different from a body- ‘vessel/mask’ in the same way in which the extension of a literary text does not correspond to the physical extension of a book. Given this contradiction, we thereby should consider the essential openness of both body and literary text, which are characterised by the refusal of any kind of definition. The impossibility to exhaust the meaning of the body in a single definition clearly emerges, for instance, in a note that Sontag wrote on the 25th December 1948: I must not think of the solar system—of innumerable galaxies spanned by countless light years—of infinities of space—I must not look up at the sky for longer than a moment—I must not think of death, of forever—I must not do all those things so that I will not know these horrible moments when my mind seems a tangible thing—more than my mind—my whole spirit—all that animates me and is the original and responsive desire that constitutes my ‘self’—all this takes on a definite shape and size—far too large to be contained by the structure I call my body—All this pulls and pushes—years and strains (I feel it now) until I must clench my fists—I rise—who can keep still—every muscle is on a rack—striving to build itself into an immensity—I want to scream—my stomach feels compressed—my legs, feet, toes stretching until they hurt. (Sontag 2008, p. 11)

This passage—which validates the parallel between Sontag’s reasoning and Spivak’s further reflection on literature—effectively expresses Sontag’s deep concern in appraising the borderless extension of the space through her bordered body. Also, her attempt to escape from the borders of her body has its complementarity in her attempt to escape from the borders of her mind, and both these efforts are sustained by a desire which lies at the heart of the unity of mind and body.21 By complaining about the tangible realness of her stomach, legs, feet, and toes, Sontag refers to the structural limits of a body that is always oriented towards understanding the contents of an external world that is terribly far. According to Sontag, the 21  Sontag’s approach to the mind-body problem is by no means exhaustive; however, it is still helpful in highlighting the dialectic between embodiment and disembodiment in relation to the act of reading. For an overview of contemporary philosophical perspectives on the mind-body problem, see Chalmers (2022), and the essays collected in Mills (2022) which frame this issue within the field of psychoanalysis. See also Gilbert and Lennon (2005).

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notion of the body appears to have the same complexity of that of a literary text inasmuch both of them are open concepts that present a broad range of possible applications in different fields of experience, such as the encounter with others or the acts of writing and reading. Specifically, during the act of reading, readers should go across the borders of their own bodies by activating a process of interpretation in which they should dismiss their prejudices, feelings, and beliefs in order to sympathise with the characters’ experiences. This passage from a personal disembodiment to a literary embodiment is well described by Sontag in various personal notes published in the second volume of her private diaries, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh. For instance, on the 20th November 1965, she writes: ‘The texts are objects. I want them to affect readers—but in any number of possible ways. There is no one right way to experience what I’ve written. I’m not “saying something”. I’m allowing “something” to have a voice, an independent existence (an existence independent from me)’ (Sontag 2012, p. 145). And then, she adds: ‘I think, truly think, in only two situations: at the typewriter or when writing in these notebooks (monologue); talking to someone else (dialogue). I don’t really think—just have sensations, or broken fragments of ideas, when I am alone without a means to write, or not writing—or not talking. I write—and talk—in order to find out what I think’ (p. 145). By making a comparison between texts and objects, Sontag here suggests that literary texts have the power to ‘affect readers’ only if readers have the ability to recognise the independent voices of the texts. Moreover, the act of writing itself, along with the act of talking, is claimed by Sontag as the only two ways through which she might perform a true experience of thinking. What Sontag states is particularly significant with reference to the relationship between the author and the reader, as it provides some valuable key terms and useful insights to address the concept of the border (or the fine line) that separates their bodies. Bearing in mind the aforementioned perspective adopted by Spivak, the perception of an external object—the book—crosses with the absence of the author and triggers the transformation of the book into a text, thanks to the reader’s reading. While this process happens, the borders of both the bodies and the book are blurred in order to allow the connection between the author’s and the reader’s minds. There is, therefore, a common ground shared by the author, the reader, and the literary text, corresponding to the word and its absence. As Sontag writes in 1964, words ‘have their own firmness. The word on the page may not reveal (may

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conceal) the flabbiness of the mind that conceived it. >All thoughts are upgrades—get more clarity, definition, authority, by being in print—that is, detached from the person who thinks them’ (2012, p. 19). When a word is written within a literary text, thus, it becomes a functional and necessary part of a system in which everything produces meaning, as the literary language renews itself through the crossing of writing and reading. In another passage, Sontag points out the value of literature in opposition to the ‘ordinary language [that] is an accretion of lies. The language of literature must be, therefore, the language of transgression, a rupture of individual systems, a shattering of psychic oppression. The only function of literature lies in the uncovering of the self in history’ (2012, p. 501). On the 11th May 1976, Sontag realises that the ‘function of writing is to explode one’s subject—transform it into something else. (Writing is a series of transformations)’ (2012, p. 408). As said before, such transformations involve readers or, to be precise, the bodies of readers, and they are also symptomatic of the more general process in which human beings try to perceive their own bodies as borderless bodies through the act of reading. For instance, when Sontag, in another note of 26th November 1965, asks herself ‘What is a body (human?)’, she rightly replies that ‘it has a front + a back, an up + a down, a right + a left—is functionally asymmetrical in that it moves forward in space’ (2012, p. 141). Again, she describes a body as a thing in the world. In a similar way, in 1967 Sontag mentions the American literary critic Sallie Sears with reference to some possible ‘body images’ listed as follows: ‘a defended body, full of violence. A body defined by its constant struggle to cope with the pull of gravity. Struggling against the desire to sink down, lie down, fold up. Having to “will” being erect (Spine, neck, etc). Treating the “back” (of you) as if it’s not part of you. Like the back (rear wall) of a bookcase’ (2012, p. 241). By considering that our back is like the back of a bookcase, Sontag also envisions human experience as always tied to the act of telling, thus in its turn tied to both the acts of writing and reading. Through this metaphor involving the body and the literary text, we might also conclude that the process triggered by the act of reading is akin to the cognitive process that allows us to gain an experience of the reality that surrounds us. In short, we constantly read the world, while we write our story in trying to cross the borders of our own bodies.

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Conclusions This chapter has tackled two emblematic cases of the US reception of the French thought in virtue of the important insights that, in the second half of the twentieth century, they provided for rethinking the concept of border through a critical reflection on both the author-reader relationship and the act of reading. After a brief introduction to the emergence of the philosophical reflection on literature in the US triggered by French critical theories, and particularly Derridean deconstruction, the first part of the chapter has focussed on Spivak’s perspective on the difference between book and literary text, while the second has offered a critical account on Sontag’s views of the nature of body and the act of reading. As we have seen by analysing the excerpts from the selected works of Spivak and Sontag, these works examine the value of literary texts from a philosophical perspective in order to discuss crucial issues concerning the human experience. The chapter has also shown that by adopting a philosophical approach to literature, it is possible to deconstruct the notion of border through an understanding of the double process of embodiment and disembodiment which is at stake during the fruition of a literary text. A reflection on these dynamics reveals that literature might be of help in thinking how the body could be appraised in its borderless extension. Rather than providing a conclusive set of definitions, the chapter has shed light on the beginning of a crucial theoretical debate that has evolved in later years and especially over the past two decades. Such a debate has triggered a wide range of discussions that have involved not only specialists in the field of the philosophy of literature but also, and more recently, in the fields of neuroscience and digital humanities. Far from being concluded, these discussions might be viewed as some of the most crucial outcomes of deconstruction or, strictly speaking, of the US reception of a French philosophical legacy that has proved to be fertile and challenging also for coping with crucial contemporary issues regarding bodies and borders. Finally, examined together, Spivak’s and Sontag’s perspectives on both the acts of writing and reading offer a compelling account of the relevance of philosophy in tackling the complexity of human experiences which literature envisions. In other words, a philosophical approach to literary texts helps clarifying the conceptualisation of what is at stake on the author-reader relationship and, thereby, it helps discovering new possibilities of thinking bodies and/as texts.

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Index1

A Academia, 7, 16, 18, 59, 205–207, 212, 215, 283 Achilles, Jochen, 158 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 108n5 Adorno, Theodor, 248 Affect emotions, 5, 15, 44, 49, 75, 169, 203–216, 231–232, 262–264 empathy, 14–15, 146, 157, 161, 170, 195–196, 200 Africa/African, 7, 113, 114, 114n9, 126, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 139–142, 148, 151, 151n6, 155, 156, 258, 260, 271 African American, 112, 151n6, 240 Afropolitanism, 129, 142 Aguilera, Angelica Maria, 50, 50n6, 51, 55, 55n12, 58, 60 Ahmed, Sara, 15, 28, 204–208, 210, 212, 213

Alberti, Leon Battista, 191 Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure, 3, 4, 109, 127, 132 Andermahr, Sonya, 190, 190n5 Anker, Elisabeth S., 188, 193 Anthropomorphism, 14, 167, 169–171 Anzaldúa, Gloria E., 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 17, 48, 49, 49n4, 109, 110, 258–271, 259n2, 273 Borderland/La Frontera, 5, 48, 49n4, 110, 260, 264 Interviews/Entrevistas, 264, 265 mestiza, 5, 11, 47–49, 62, 261, 265 nepantla, 17, 258, 263–266 This Bridge We Call Home, 261 Artivism artivist practice, 47–48, 262, 265 artivist/slam poetry, 8, 9, 11, 49–62 Asante, Molefi K., 47 Asker, D. B. D., 168, 169, 171, 172

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. Capancioni et al. (eds.), Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6

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INDEX

Aughterson, Kate, 167 Aushana, Christina, 44, 47, 62 Author authorship, 69–70, 70n4, 74, 76, 208 act of writing, 282 author-reader relationship, 278, 279, 282, 283, 290 woman author, 158–159, 165 Autobiography, 113, 114, 149n4, 278 See also Genre B Bachelard, Gaston, 133 Balibar, Étienne, 3, 90n7, 109 Banales, Meliza, 49, 50 Banks, Mark, 77, 79, 80 Banks, Miranda, 69, 70 Barrett, Paul, 211, 212 Barthes, Roland, 278, 281 Bastian, Misty L., 114n11, 115 Baudrillard, Jean, 128, 138 Bauman, Zygmunt, 132, 132n2 Bazzoni, Alberica, 155 Beauvoir, Simone de, 17, 238, 250 Bekoff, Marc, 170 Bennett, Andrew, 167 Benstock, Shari, 206 Bergmann, Ina, 158, 167 Bey, Marquis, 32 Bhabha, Homi K., 56, 109, 134, 265, 273 Biana, Hazel Tionloc, 129 Bildungsroman, 13, 113, 113n8, 114, 114n9, 278n2 See also Genre Biography, 190, 242, 248 See also Genre Blackness Black Studies, 203, 207 Blake, William, 250

Blanchot, Maurice, 278 Blas, Zach, 11, 24, 32–34, 37 Face Cages, 33 Facial Weaponization Suite, 32–34 SANCTUM, 32–34 Body able-bodiedness, 22, 29, 30 borders of, 279, 285, 287 corpography, 17, 269–274 embodiment/disembodiment, 17, 32, 37, 279–286, 287n21, 288, 290 human body, 29, 55, 115, 127, 165, 166, 175, 176, 180, 279, 286 mind-body relation, 287n21 non-human/animal body, 166–171, 174, 176 Border-crossing, 2, 6–8, 10–17, 22, 24, 26, 38, 51, 52, 59, 83, 108–114, 117–121, 126, 146–161, 220, 268, 270, 271 Bordering/debordering/rebordering, 1–18, 125–129, 131, 141, 143, 167, 271 Border intimacies, 15, 203–216 Borderland, 2, 5, 7–9, 13, 14, 17, 49, 100, 109, 110, 128, 136, 178, 180, 221n2, 229, 235, 238, 258, 264, 270 Borderlessness, 13, 103, 104, 109, 113, 115, 115n12, 125–129, 258, 259, 286, 289 Borderscape, 2, 4, 7, 16, 18, 89, 92, 150, 205–207, 212–214, 258, 263, 266, 267, 271, 273 Border studies, 1–3, 6, 12, 17, 49, 109 Boty, Pauline, 184, 184n1 Braidotti, Rosi, 15, 166, 186–188, 193 Brand, Dionne, 15, 60, 203–216, 258, 274

 INDEX 

Inventory, 207n2, 208 A Map to the Door of No Return, 208, 211, 274 Theory, 15, 203–216 thirsty, 211 Bristow, Joseph, 238 Britain (England, UK), 32, 75, 146–148, 149n4, 150, 157n8, 185, 188, 240, 254, 265 Brophy, Brigid, 166 Broughton, Trev Lynn, 238 Brown, Ariana, 50, 50n6, 51, 54, 54n10, 57, 60 Burnett, Elizabeth-Jane, 165, 167, 168, 175–177 The Grassling, 165–168, 175 Burns, Lorna, 110, 110n6 Butler, Judith, 17, 28, 238, 243, 250, 252 C Cameroon, 127, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 139–141, 143 Canada, 15, 22, 204, 211, 215, 274 Candy Darling (James Lawrence Slattery), 16, 237–254 Carastathis, Anna, 5 Carlisle, Greg, 221, 223n5, 225, 227n10 Carroll, Rachel, 250–253, 280n6 Carter, Angela, 16, 166, 237–254 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, 166 interview with Kim Evans, 243 The Passion of New Eve, 16, 237–254 The Sadeian Woman, 237, 238, 253n12 ‘Why not men too?’ (review), 242

295

‘The wound in the face’ (article), 248 Casanova, Giacomo, 21 Casey, Edward, 4 Cervantes, Melanie, 44, 44n1, 45 Chang, Fen-ling, 88n2, 89, 90n6 Chapa, Anacristina, 50, 50n6, 51, 57, 61, 62 Cheah, Pheng, 13, 108, 110–112, 110n6, 111n7, 118, 121, 129, 142 Cheang, Shu Lea, 21, 37 Chen, Li, 12, 87–104 The Edge of the Island, 12, 87–104 Cheong, Adel, 194 Chou, Meng-tieh, 88 Chouliaraki, Lilie, 146 Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong, 30 Chwalkowski, Farrin, 206 Class, 8, 11, 30, 58, 68, 129, 137n5, 138, 139, 142, 150, 153, 197, 240, 259, 261, 262, 267 Clingman, Stephen, 184 Colonialism, 5, 12, 44n1, 57–61, 75, 88, 90, 93–98, 101, 103, 108–112, 160, 213, 214n3, 260, 261, 265, 268–270, 272–274 Confine (national border), 1–5, 10, 11, 16, 126, 127, 129, 254 Corso, Gregory, 247 Cossa, Francesco del, 185, 185n4, 186, 189–191, 194–197 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 2 Critical discourse analysis (CDA), 51, 62 Crown, Sarah, 178, 179 Culler, Jonathan, 281n10 Cummings, Ronald, 213, 214 Currah, Paisley, 38 Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth, 238 Curtin, Martin, 68, 77

296 

INDEX

D Daly, Mary, 239, 239n1, 267, 267n5, 267n6 Daston, Lorraine, 171, 180 De Sousa, Boaventura, 259n1, 269n8 Decolonisation, 6n1, 7, 12, 17, 75, 91, 92, 109, 112, 258–262, 264–265, 269, 272–274 Deconstruction, 108, 109, 112, 113, 119, 120, 278–281, 281n10, 282n11, 290 Dedichen, Henrietta, 242, 246, 247 Deleuze, Gilles, 28, 39, 112, 113, 262, 278 Derrida, Jacques, 278, 281, 282, 282n11, 286 Descartes, René, 174, 176 Dewey-Hagborg, Heather, 11, 24, 34–37 Probably Chelsea, 34–36 Radical Love, 34–36 Stranger Visions, 35 Diaspora, 8, 58, 74, 134, 142, 151n6, 160, 211, 259, 260, 263, 265, 268, 271, 272, 274 Dietrich, Marlene, 248 Dimovitz, Scott, 249 Disciplinary boundaries, 2, 6–7, 10, 16, 62, 109, 189, 204, 216, 261, 262, 270–273, 277, 280 Ditter, Julia, 167 Drag queen (drag performer), 17, 238, 240–243, 245–247, 249, 250, 254, 254n13 Dream American Dream, 13, 58, 60, 129, 130, 132–135 waking/dreaming boundary, 16, 221, 224–232 Dunbar, Roxanne, 241

E Edge, 2, 4, 5, 7n2, 9, 12, 49, 87–104, 145, 187, 190, 195, 205, 283n16 Effron, Malcah, 206 Ellis, Carolyn, 271 Emezi, Akwaeke, 12, 13, 107–121 The Death of Vivek Oji, 107n2 Freshwater, 12, 13, 107–121 ‘Transition’ (article), 115 Epistemology, 6, 15, 18, 83, 100, 104, 187, 188, 193, 197, 258, 261, 265 epistemology of the South, 17, 260–262, 269–274 Espinosa Miñoso, Yuderkys, 269, 269n8, 270 Esteban Muñoz, José, 214 Ethnicity, 4, 5, 11–13, 22, 23, 26, 52, 91, 92, 128, 135–138, 137n5, 140, 153, 240 See also Race Ettinger, Bracha, 17, 258, 262–271, 273 ‘Fragilization and Resistance,’ 266 matrixial borderspace, 17, 258, 262, 263, 265, 266, 270 The Matrixial Gaze, 262 ‘Weaving a Woman Artist with-in the Matrixial Encounter-­ event,’ 266 Europe (EU, European), 7, 12, 14, 24, 26, 28, 68, 71, 74, 75, 90n7, 92, 94–97, 108, 114, 127n1, 131, 145–147, 146n1, 146n2, 148n3, 149, 150, 159–161, 168, 234, 263, 269–273, 281n10 Exile, 88, 134, 263, 271 F Feminism, 2, 6, 17, 24, 50n6, 69–71, 69n2, 129, 139, 204, 207, 215, 238, 259, 265, 269, 269n8, 270 black feminism, 205, 212

 INDEX 

radical feminism, 238, 240, 241 S.C.U.M. manifesto, 238, 240–241 second wave, 251, 253, 259 Film, 9, 12, 81, 133, 194, 195, 240, 247, 248 documentary, 11, 68, 69, 72–80, 82, 83, 243, 246 labour, 68, 70, 71, 76–78, 82 migrant women filmmakers, 72, 82 production, 7, 67–76, 82, 83 Foucault, Michel, 2, 21, 125, 278 French, Lisa, 81 Freud, Sigmund, 249 Frontier, 2, 7, 34, 43, 91, 92, 98–103, 108, 109, 283, 284n18 Frontier Taiwan (anthology), 91 G Gamble, Sarah, 239n1, 253, 254 Garbo, Greta, 248 Gender gender-fluid (non-binary), 8, 10, 12, 13, 21–30, 33, 38, 103, 107n2, 108, 109, 115n12, 116, 117, 166, 190n5, 194, 197, 248, 252, 257, 268 transgender, 17, 21, 31, 246n5, 247, 248, 251–253, 267 Genette, Gérard, 152 Genre artistic, 6, 7, 9, 257, 258, 268, 270 genre boundaries, 13, 16, 47, 114, 206, 212, 254 genre-crossing, 11, 47, 62, 108, 114, 119, 166, 187, 240, 273 literary, 13, 108, 109, 141–143, 158, 161, 183, 257, 268, 270 Genus (genera, typology), 1–18, 153, 221, 223, 258, 259, 263, 266, 270 Geopolitics, 2, 7, 9, 10, 108, 135, 156, 259, 260, 271 Germanà, Monica, 184

297

Gikandi, Simon, 142 Ginsberg, Allan, 247 Girard, René, 281 Giraut, Frédéric, 4, 109, 127, 132 Globalisation, 2, 12, 13, 18, 21, 46, 67–69, 71, 76, 90n7, 108, 111, 112, 125, 126, 127n1, 135, 140, 142, 183, 283n17 and capitalism, 82, 125, 128, 140, 142 Global North, 126–128, 130, 141, 143, 160 Global South, 111, 126, 128, 131, 135, 141–143 Goldmann, Lucien, 281 Gómez Correal, Diana, 269 Gonzalez, Paola, 50, 50n6, 51, 53–55, 59 González de Oleaga, Marisa, 271 Gordon, Edmund, 242, 246, 251 Gottlieb, Robert, 248 Green, Susan Marie, 58 Greer, Germaine, 241, 249 Grupo Colonialidad/Modernidad/ Racionalidad, 259n1 Guattari, Pierre-Félix, 112, 113, 262 Gunn Allen, Paula, 258 Gutierrez, Karla, 50, 50n6, 51, 53–55, 59 GYne(co)alogies, 17, 259, 262–274 H Hall, Donald E., 91, 92 Hall, Sarah, 14, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173, 174, 179, 180 ‘Bees,’ 173 ‘M,’ 166, 168, 173, 174, 179 ‘Mrs Fox,’ 166, 167, 170, 171, 173, 174, 179, 180 Hall, Stuart, 134, 147 Haraway, Donna, 169, 172

298 

INDEX

Harlow, Jean, 249 Harney, Stefano, 203 Hassan, Heidi, 74 A Media Voz/In a Whisper, 68n1, 73 Hayes-Brady, Clare, 231, 233 Hayworth, Rita, 249 Heidegger, Martin, 111n7 Hepworth, Barbara, 184, 184n1 Hill, Kashmir, 31 Hockney, David, 184 Holtry, Mercedez, 50, 50n6, 51, 53–56, 58, 59, 62 Holzberg, Billy, 5, 149 Home (homeland, unhomely), 27, 29, 45, 52, 54n10, 55n12, 57, 58, 75, 94, 120, 130, 132–134, 138, 142, 149n4, 170, 179, 198, 213, 263, 265 hooks, bell, 2, 6, 90, 112, 119, 141, 258, 259 Hooper, Barbara, 274 Houtum, Henk van, 4 Hsu, Li-hsin, 88 Huang, Tsung-chieh, 88 Huehls, Mitchum, 206 Hunt, Mina, 30, 31 Hyppolite, Jean, 281 I Ieven, Bram, 215 Immigration/migration, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 30, 44–46, 56, 67–83, 108, 121, 126–135, 136, 139–141, 143, 146–148, 151, 155, 158–161, 184, 200, 263 anti-migration, 13, 130, 131 illegal, 45, 74, 126, 137, 141, 145–146 Imperialism, 9, 92–94, 97, 98, 108–112, 129, 273

Indigenous, 5, 44n1, 56, 91, 93, 95, 107n2, 264, 269 Intersectionality, 13, 30, 129, 138, 139, 141, 143, 265, 267–269 Irigaray, Luce, 140, 263 Israel, 3, 17, 184, 206, 258, 265, 270 Italy, 15, 71, 131, 148, 159, 185, 187–189, 195n7 J jagodzinski, jan, 172, 180 Jakobsen, Janet R., 92 Jansen, Bettina, 147, 153, 153n7, 156 Jayasuriya, Maryse, 134 Johnson, Daisy, 14, 166, 171, 173, 178–180 Fen, 178 ‘Starver,’ 166, 171, 173, 178, 179 K Keating, AnaLouise, 264, 265 Kerouac, Jack, 247 Kristeva, Julia, 263 Kuhn, Annette, 74 Kusek, Robert, 194 L Lacan, Jacques, 262, 281 Lamarque, Paul, 280n6, 282n14 Lanser, Susan S., 147, 153 Lao Tzu, 235 Landertinger Forero, Josephine, 68, 73, 74, 80, 81 Home-The Country of Illusion, 68n1, 73 Latin America/Latin American, 9, 11, 45n2, 67–69, 75, 79, 259, 259n1, 260, 269–270 Latorre, Guisela, 47, 48

 INDEX 

Lea, Daniel, 183 Lebow, Alisa, 11, 69, 72, 73 Lee, Jessica, 167 Leonard, David J., 45n2 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 281n9 Lewis, Cara L., 187, 188 Liebermann, Yvonne, 194 Liminality, 4, 6, 7n2, 15–17, 77, 109, 113, 115, 117, 150, 158, 166, 167, 172, 174, 176, 178, 186–188, 194, 195, 199, 204–206, 210, 212, 213, 227, 235 Lippi-Green, Rosina, 61 Liuming, Ma, 11, 24, 37–38 Visa to the USA, 37–38 London, 14, 15, 73, 75, 115, 146n2, 147, 148, 150n5, 159, 160, 196 Lorde, Audre, 268 Lubrin, Canisia, 206 Lugo-Lugo, Carmen R., 45n2 Lugones, María, 6n1, 90, 109, 258, 259, 269, 271 M Macedo, Donaldo, 59 Macfarlane, Robert, 177 Mack, Ryan, 31, 280n6 Madörin, Anouk, 5, 149 Magnet, Shoshana Amielle, 29, 30, 39 Mann, Thomas, 278n2 Manning, Chelsea, 34, 35 Manson, Charles, 244 March-Russell, Paul, 167, 168 Margin/marginality, 4–6, 7n2, 8–11, 18, 46, 49–51, 62, 70, 77, 81–83, 89–91, 98, 99, 101, 102, 109, 112, 113, 119–121, 126–135, 137, 141, 143, 147, 159, 184, 206, 259, 281 Martin, Dawn Lundy, 203, 204, 210, 215

299

Masterson, John, 130, 136n3 Mbembe, Achille, 9, 103, 126, 127, 127n1, 258, 260 Mbue, Imbolo, 13, 125–143 Behold the Dreamers, 13, 125–143 McCaffery, Larry, 220 McCann, Hannah, 12, 92 McCartney, Mary E., 188, 197 McGregor, Hannah, 215 McHugh, Kathleen, 70 McKittrick, Katherine, 207, 215 Mediterranean, 131, 214, 259, 270–273, 273n9 Meloni González, Carolina, 271 Metamorphosis, 14, 15, 165–181, 187, 239, 264 Mexico/Mexican/Chicanx, 3, 5, 9, 11, 43–62, 45n2, 55n12, 71, 78, 247, 258, 261, 264, 265, 269, 270, 272, 273 US-Mexico border (la frontera), 3, 5, 43–62, 270 Mezzadra, Sandro, 3, 9, 12, 15, 82, 89–91, 109, 126–128, 140, 150, 187 Mignolo, Walter D., 9, 12, 68, 75, 83, 112, 258, 259n1, 260, 272 Minh-ha, Trinh T., 258 Misogyny, 16, 238, 244, 253, 267n5 Missero, Dalila, 68, 70n4 Mitrano, Mena, 278n1 Mohanty, Chandra T., 258 Monaghan, Whitney, 12, 92 Monroe, Marilyn, 248, 249 Moraga, Cherríe, 2 Morrison, Toni, 7 Moseley, Merritt, 184 Moten, Fred, 203 Mullen, Harryette, 204 Mulqueen, Tara, 38 Mulvey, Laura, 247 Mulvey-Roberts, Marie, 244

300 

INDEX

N Naerssen, Ton van, 4 Naficy, Hamid, 74 Nazer, Mende, 149, 149n4 Neilson, Brett, 3, 9, 12, 15, 82, 89–91, 109, 126–128, 140, 150, 187 Neo-colonialism, 111, 150, 268, 269 New York City, 13, 128–129, 133–137, 239–241, 244–246, 248, 249 Ngai, Sianne, 207 Nigeria, 12, 107, 108, 108n5, 115, 118, 121, 151, 168 Igbo, 12, 13, 114, 114n10, 115, 119, 120 ọgbanje, 114–121, 114n11 Nkealah, Naomi, 140, 141 Nomadic subjectivity, 15, 186, 198, 200 See also Braidotti, Rosi Novak, Kim, 248 Nsah, Kenneth Toah, 141 O Obama, Barack, 130, 136, 136n3 O’Brien, Anne, 77 Occam, William of, 206 Ochoa Muñoz, Karina, 269 Okojie, Irenosen, 14, 166, 173, 178, 180 ‘Kookaburra Sweet,’ 166, 173, 178, 180 Okoth, Christine, 208 Onuoha, Mary Linda Vivian, 135 Opondo, Sam Okoth, 149, 153n7 Ovid, 166, 180 Oyeyemi, Helen, 14, 166–168, 170, 175–178, 180 ‘is your blood as red as this,’ 166, 175, 176, 178 Mr Fox, 166–168 ‘some foxes,’ 166, 170, 180

P Palestine (Bethlehem, Gaza, West Bank), 3, 184, 188 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 88, 89, 89n5, 91n8, 94, 95, 98, 101 Pérez, Patricia, 68, 68n1, 74, 77, 80, 80n6 A Media Voz/In a Whisper, 68n1, 73 Pérez Zapata, Beatriz, 148, 149n4, 150, 153n7 Perry, Menakhem, 224n7 Pezzack, Hannah, 22, 34 Pfeifer, Michelle, 5, 149 Phelan, James, 222, 225n8 Philips, Deborah, 167 Philosophy of literature, 277, 280n6, 290 Piedras, Pablo, 69, 72 Pirker, Eva Ulrike, 150n5, 153n7, 160 Plemons, Eric, 23 Poetry, 8, 9, 11, 12, 47, 49–62, 88–104, 117, 167, 168, 203, 204, 207n2, 208, 265 See also Genre Porosity/porousness, 10–12, 14, 16, 47, 50, 62, 63, 109, 127, 152, 166, 184, 187, 193, 222, 223 Postcolonialism, 2, 7–9, 12, 91, 109, 113, 125, 134, 142, 160, 259, 262, 269, 272 postcolonial literature, 13, 111, 113, 114, 129, 147, 157n8 Poulet, Georges, 281 Pratt, Mary Louise, 7, 109, 147, 155 Preciado, Paul B., 21, 33 Prince, Gerald, 224n6 Prisciani, Pellegrino, 191, 192 Prosser, Jay, 254 Psychological novel, 13, 113, 114 See also Genre Pugliese, Joseph, 23, 29–31

 INDEX 

Q Quashie, Kevin, 211 Queer, 5, 12, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 32, 33, 50n6, 91, 92, 96, 97, 100, 103, 205, 212, 213, 246, 257, 264, 268 Quijano, Aníbal, 259n1 Quinan, C.L., 22, 25, 30, 31, 34 R Race, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 16, 22, 23, 26, 29, 30, 47, 48, 54, 68, 71n11, 108, 109, 126, 128, 130, 135–139, 142, 147–150, 153, 156, 159–161, 166, 167, 239, 259, 261, 262, 267, 269–271, 273 See also Ethnicity Rajnath, A., 281n10 Rak, Julie, 215 Reader, 10, 15, 16, 107, 114, 116, 117, 129, 147, 154, 155, 159–161, 166, 170, 171, 180, 185–189, 185n3, 193–197, 199, 204–207, 209, 212–216, 220–225, 227n9, 228–231, 234, 235, 261, 265, 279, 280, 281n10, 282, 282n13, 282n14, 283, 286, 288, 289 act of reading, 17, 36, 37, 184, 185, 193, 220, 221, 224, 231, 234, 279, 280, 282, 282n13, 283, 287n21, 288–290 Reed, Lou, 246, 247 Renna, Dora, 51, 58 Resistance, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11–14, 17, 18, 21–39, 46, 47, 51, 59, 62, 76, 77, 82, 90–92, 97, 102, 108–113, 118–121, 136, 141, 143, 151, 171, 186, 200, 208, 234, 244, 258, 269, 274, 283, 285

301

Rieff, David, 278, 278n2 Rigo, Enrica, 4 Royle, Nicholas, 167 Ryan, Derek, 169, 170, 174 S Sade, Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de, 21, 247 Said, Edward, 134 Said Camargo, Andrea, 68, 73–75, 78 Looking For, 68n1, 73 Saiegh Dorín, Carola, 271 Salgado, Nora, 68, 78, 79, 81 Torero, 68n1, 78 Sandoval, Chela, 47, 48 Schiller, Devon, 33 Schimanski, Johan, 6 Schmid, Wolf, 154 Scholes, Robert, 172 Sears, Sallie, 289 Sexuality gay liberation movement, 238, 245 homosexuality, 241, 244–245 lesbianism, 244–245 sexual abuse, 16, 46, 48, 56, 116, 138, 148, 179, 220, 221, 227, 228, 233, 238, 239, 244, 251 Shamsie, Kamila, 157n8 Shapiro, Michael J., 149, 153n7 Sharpe, Christina, 204, 210 Short fiction novella, 13, 14, 146–148, 148n3, 150n5, 152–154, 153n7, 158–160, 247 short story, 9, 14, 16, 158, 165–169, 172, 177, 178, 180, 220–222, 225, 229, 230, 232–235 See also Genre Slavery, 60, 134, 136, 148–151, 149n4, 160, 271, 272, 273n9

302 

INDEX

Smith, Ali, 15, 183–200 Autumn, 183, 184n1 Companion Piece, 183 How to be both, 15, 183–200 Spring, 183 Summer, 183 Winter, 183, 184n1 Smith, Zadie, 13, 146–161 The Embassy of Cambodia, 13–14, 146–161 ‘The North West London Blues,’ 160n9 NW, 160 Soja, Edward, 274 Solanas, Valerie, 241, 242 Somers-Willett, Susan, 49, 50 Sontag, Susan, 17, 18, 277–290 Against Interpretation, 279n4 As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh, 278, 288 Reborn, 278 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 17, 18, 212, 277–290 Death of a Discipline, 278, 283, 285 ‘Love me, love my ombre, elle,’ 278, 282 ‘The Politics of Translation,’ 282n13 preface to Derrida’s Grammatology, 278, 281, 286 ‘Touched by Deconstruction,’ 282n11 Sriwimon, Lanchukorn, 51 Stableford, Brian, 172 Stanley, Eric A., 24, 33 Stolic, Tijana, 146 Surveillance technology, 21–25, 29, 32, 34, 136n4, 186 Systemic functional linguistics (SFL), 51–53, 62 Szymański, Wojciech, 194

T Tadiar, Neferti, 126 Taiwan, 12, 21, 87–93, 87n1, 89n4, 89n5, 90n6, 93n10, 98, 100, 101n13, 103, 104 cross-strait crisis, 12, 89, 89n5, 91n8, 104 Tally, Robert, 2, 125, 136 Tamil, 12, 13, 107, 114 Tate, Sharon, 244 Terrorism 9/11, 126 Textuality narrative voice, 14, 115–118, 146–161, 168–169, 206–208, 214, 220–235 paratext, 185n4, 206, 214 Thompson, Geoff, 52, 55 Tlostanova, Madina, 112 Todorov, Tzvetan, 281 Toohey, Elizabeth, 130, 136, 141, 142 Tracey, Thomas, 231n12 Tragedy, 14, 157–158 See also Genre Trevenna, Joanne, 238, 243 Trump, Donald, 11, 45, 46, 51, 53–56, 59, 60, 130 Tsilimpounidi, Myrto, 5 U United States (US, America), 5, 7, 13, 16, 17, 22, 26, 32, 37, 43–62, 45n2, 71, 89n5, 91n8, 108, 112, 114, 116, 119, 121, 127–140, 142, 237–254, 259, 263, 265, 267, 267n6, 269, 270, 273, 277–281, 281n10, 289, 290 US-Mexico border (la frontera), 3, 5, 44, 46, 48, 49, 269, 270

 INDEX 

Utopia, 2, 13, 27, 100, 103, 127, 128, 130, 135, 136, 153, 214, 241 V Velvet Underground, 246 Vernant, Jean-Pierre, 281 Vince, Gaia, 3 Viñoles, Mariana, 68, 68n1, 75, 79 El gran viaje al país pequeño/A Great Trip to a Small Country, 68n1, 75 Visual arts art installation, 11, 21, 32–36, 44 painting, 185, 189–192, 194–196, 198, 199, 242, 263, 274 W Wacker, Julian, 134, 142 Wall, 3, 8, 15, 44–46, 49, 51–56, 54n10, 60–62, 108, 150, 150n5, 152, 155, 183–200, 240, 273, 274, 289 Wallace, David Foster, 16, 220–235 Brief Interviews of Hideous Men, 222n3 The Broom of the System, 222n4 ‘Good Old Neon,’ 220, 221n2, 232 ‘Oblivion,’ 16, 220–235

303

‘Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders,’ 222n3 Warburg, Aby, 198 Warhol, Andy, 17, 238, 241, 242, 245–248, 250 Couch (film), 247 Ladies and Gentleman, 242 White, Patricia, 67, 70 Williams, Raymond, 68 Wilson, Rob Sean, 104, 104n15 Wolfe, Stephen F., 6 Wood, Sarah, 186 Woolf, Virginia, 12 World literature, 13, 111, 129, 142 World-making (worlding), 3, 9, 12, 13, 91, 104, 104n15, 107–121, 142, 146 Wunker, Erin, 215 Wyman, Sarah, 138 Y Yeh, Michelle, 91, 97, 98, 100, 101n13 Z Zaccaria, Paola, 260, 272 Zilli, Pattamawan Jimarkon, 51 Žižek, Slavoj, 214