BLACK FEMINISM AND THEORIZING DIFFERENCE

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The idea of difference has become a prominent topic of recent discussion. However, Black feminists have been theorizing difference for decades. There are many ways where difference can be used: difference of experience, difference in identity, and even different ways of knowing. This last notion of difference refers to how, depending on one’s standpoint or social location, different “truths” can appear. This paper explores these different uses of difference within Black feminist thought to show Black Feminists’ important contributions to creating new ontologies that rupture dominant ways of knowing, i.e. dominant “truths.” Specifically, this paper argues that understanding difference matters. There is a hope that complicating the nuance of what is “true” or “factual” can help further our pursuit for material and lived social justice.

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PANTA RHEI AND THE PERSISTENCE OF OLD PREMISES: A METALOGUE BETWEEN HERACLITUS AND MARCUS AURELIUS[1]

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A ‘metalogue,’ a literary exercise first used by Gregory Bateson in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, is an imagined dialogue on “some problematic subject.”[2] This metalogue is a fictional conversation between Greek philosopher Heraclitus and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. This exercise understands Aurelius’ Meditations as proposing a theory of universal flux (contradictorily) through an Aristotelian epistemology of the mind/body split. The problem in question is that Aurelius has made claim to eternal knowledge or supernatural proximity with God at the price of severing the body from the mind. Because of this split built into his whole philosophy of life, the cryptic flow of Heraclitus’ reasoning is unacceptably incomplete and hazy to him. Heraclitus confronts Aurelius to make apparent the irony of applying words of epistemological and ontological fluidity to, ultimately, produce a body of imperial strategy. This metalogue attempts to implicate both Aurelius and Heraclitus in the process of learning about the nature of the world of which their own assumptions are a part, as they orient themselves through the oddities of this context.

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TRUISMES: QUÊTE IDENTITAIRE ET TENTATIVE DE REDÉFINITION DE LA NORME HUMAINE AU PROFIT D’UNE VISION POSTHUMAINE

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In her novel Truismes, French author Marie Darrieussecq introduces a character alienated by a patriarchal society. Imprisoned in a posthuman body shaped by constant surveillance and visualisation under a dominating masculine norm, her progressive metamorphosis into a sow reflects her attempt to free herself. It also reflects an attempt to redefine the narrative truth towards a more inclusive vision, embracing all the living.

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“WHERE WILD WOMEN GROW”: NATURE, WILDNESS, AND THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN TONI MORRISON’S JAZZ

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This paper presents wildness as an agent that can free African-American characters from the toxic, controlling ‘tracks’ (e.g., rail, subway, exploitative record labels) of the City (Harlem). Although critics have explored the ways in which the City in Toni Morrison’s Jazz is oppressive, I discuss the oppression of citified tracking as a contradiction of the natural, spontaneous, and wild form that mimics jazz music. Although the characters face exploitation in the City, their deterioration is not a result of the City itself (sometimes a site of possibility and hope for African-Americans migrating North) but of the toxic ways in which they interact with the City. Ultimately, Morrison demonstrates the importance of maintaining one’s African-American Southern rural roots and of creating one’s own tracks. By examining the exploitation and subsequent healing the characters experience in the City, this paper suggests that African-Americans in present-day cities can overcome some of the oppression of capitalist urban centres by avoiding the toxic, urban ‘tracks’ that seek to control them. By discussing African-American issues of identity and individuality, especially in terms of their connection with nature, this paper contributes to narrative inclusivity and the merging of disciplines.

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CITIES OF SALT: SLOW VIOLENCE AND THE EMERGENCE OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM IN ABDEL RAHMAN MUNIF’S PETROFICTION

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Abdul Rahman Munif’s quintet Cities of Salt sketches an image of the ecological destruction triggered by America’s oil-driven interference in the gulf region, which consequently became a triggering factor for the emergence of Islamic authoritarianism and political conflicts. The events of Cities of Salt start around the 1930s in the undisturbed environment of the oasis of Wadi al-Uyoun, destined to be devastated by the emergent oil industry, where Munif creates a parallel image of homogenous society which is also to be divided by a chasm that separates the beneficiaries from the uprooted masses. This article focuses on Munif’s depiction of the built environment which brings the two images of environment and society together. The vernacular architecture of Wadi al-Uyoun homes, built from its natural materials and by the collective efforts of its people, is also destroyed and replaced by constructions that neither belong to Wadi al-Uyoun’s natural environment nor reflect the identity of its people. Munif connects creatively two parallel shifts: the shift from an almost egalitarian community into a capitalist one and the shift from a spiritual Islamic society into a radically authoritarian Islamic state. This article aims at illustrating the enforced degradation of the inherited architectural identity and the demolition of the original urban fabric that reflected the ecological harmony for the sake of distorted architectural identity and imposed urban plans that reflect the new capitalist and authoritarian nature of the Gulf States.

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AFFIRMING DECAY: TOWARDS THE POSSIBILITY OF A FUTURE-ORIENTED DIAGONAL LEFT FOR DETROIT’S ABANDONED POPULATION

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This paper introduces the concept of ‘selective acceleration’ in light of the economic and social history of Detroit. To begin, Detroit is treated as a case study used to diagram the relative deterritorialization of the economic system by neoliberalism. Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphor of addiction is used in order to understand unregulated neoliberal capital as an addiction of the metropole. This addiction enables the acceleration of neoliberalism in the city, which aligns with Virilio’s concept of the suicidal State. This ‘addict’ ignores and abandons those it determines it has no use for: the precariat. Drawing upon Deleuze’s ‘Dionysian yes’ or a ‘yes with a no’, this article presents a potential movement on the diagonal to allow the precariat a means of re-appropriating the technologies and developments used against them through the process of affirming the very structures they have already been developing outside of the capitalist machine. By selecting what elements of the process to accelerate, this abandoned population could be granted the keys to its own future.

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“WE ARE ALL IN OUR PRIVATE TRAPS”: TRANSPHOBIA IN HITCHCOCK’S PSYCHO

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One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most well-known movies, Psycho (1960) continues to instigate debate and academic scholarship. While this movie was the precursor of many trends, such as the slasher horror genre, it has not escaped controversy. According to John Phillips, Psycho “[provided] the original model of the mentally disturbed cross-dressed murderer” (87) by equating cross-dressing with a form of mental illness so severe that its only logical manifestation is violence. Norman’s gender bending, expressed by dressing and living as his mother, threatens gender binaries, and thus creates a veritable monster. In this article, I will argue that Psycho promotes a transphobic rendering of its main villain, Norman Bates, in order to understand how the movie tries to contain Norman’s transgender identity. Using film studies and queer studies, I will examine Norman as a transgender character, Lila as an embodiment of the Law, and the psychiatrist at the end as a repressing force. Mainly, I will argue that Lila and the psychiatrist function to normalize Norman and to contain his non-normativity.

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