Perceptions on the Passage of Time

Perceptions on the

Passage of Time LCT Journal 2021

Edited by Rion Levy and

Ellen Grace Parsons

LCT Journal 2021

Perceptions on the Passage of Time

Literature and Critical Theory Students Union Journal 2021

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LCT Journal 2021

Letter from the Editor

Instead of starting this journal off with a note about the unprecedented times in which we are living, I instead want to comment on the unprecedented times that captivate us. The 2021 LCTSU Academic Conference brought together strong undergraduate scholars who shared an interest in how time shapes our worlds, how we fight against it, and how it mysteriously shapes us all. For both the conference and the journal, we asked students to consider “Perceptions on the Passage of Time.”

Without a doubt, this year’s contributors’ perceptions varied greatly.

The 2021 journal features six academic articles on time, two stories, one creative article, one poem, and one comic. Bushra Boblai, the winner of the 2021 Conference Award, discusses temporality in Northanger Abbey. Ishtar Warda presents their phenomenological research on the pandemic and the self. Khadija Alam demonstrates the role of flashbacks in the novel Monkey Beach. Seavey van Walsum retells the story of Ishmael from Moby Dick in their comic. Every contribution takes a different approach to time, making this journal a true mosaic of perceptions.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this journal this fall and see these works to their publication. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank Ellen Grace who started this journal in the spring of 2021 and who passed it on to me this fall. I would also like to acknowledge all members of the Literature and Critical Theory program, whose resilience over the past year has been truly inspiring.

Sincerely, Rion Levy Editor-in-Chief

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LCT Journal 2021

Journal Team Editor-in-Chief Rion Levy 2021-2022 Ellen Grace Parsons 2020-2021 Design Editor Rion Levy Associate Editor Mikayla Oliver Cover Illustration Emma Wan

Contributors Freya Abbas, Khadija Alam, Bushra Boblai, William Hunt, Rion Levy, Seavey van Walsum, Ishtar Warda, Morgan Zeina, Meg Jianing Zhang

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Table of Contents

Conference Papers The Nahua Perception of Death and its Influence on the Mexican Phoenix

Freya Abbas

Resistance and Reality: How Flashbacks in Monkey Beach Disrupt Bildungsroman

7 11

Khadija Alam

The Different Worlds of Northanger Abbey

14

On Urgency, Culture Jamming, and the Words of Lawrence Ferlinghetti

18

Bushra Boblai Rion Levy

Phenomenology, the Pandemic, and I

Ishtar Warda

23

Temporal Fluidity in Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey

28

Meg Jianing Zhang

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Creative and Other Works Time-ing William Hunt

34

Subject Line: Special Consideration for Time Difference Seavey van Walsum

37

Long May You Run Morgan Zeina

45

Today, 2020 Seavey van Walsum

50

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You Call Me Queequeg Seavey van Walsum

53

Acknowledgements

71

Conference Papers

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The Nahua Perception of Death and its Influence on the Mexican Phoenix Freya Abbas

C

ertain forms of art are privileged in society in the sense that they may be able to express feelings that would otherwise be considered shocking and inappropriate by the elite. Art that can easily be dismissed as pure emotion or fantasy is in a unique position which allows it to object readily accepted beliefs in society. The place of troubadour poetry in New Spain is one example, as the genre puts a distance between the speaker and the subject that permits the speaker to show exaggerated displays of emotion. The lyrical tradition of the exaltation of the beloved even protects female writers like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, allowing her to express romantic desire for another woman in a strictly Catholic society (Powell 9).

This can be observed in her elegy for the vicereine Leonor Carreto, which the traditional scholarly interpretation aims to situate in the larger history of lyric poetry that began with Sappho. Critics have noticed lyric conventions in the elegy, such as the unrestrained passion for the object of the mourner’s adoration and the anguish felt by Carreto’s passing. Yet the status of the lyric genre in New Spain provided Sor Juana the freedom to not only write about romantic desire, but also speak of controversial theological perspectives, such as presenting the very different Indigenous Nahua and Catholic views on death as complementary, rather than opposing forces.

Even in a genre associated with passion and unbridled emotion, Sor Juana still engages with logic and reason to entertain complex philosophical and theological points about death.

The scholarly focus on the themes of grief and love in the elegy for Leonor Carreto may overlook the poem’s theological arguments. The elegy contains an attempt to reconcile two different ideas on death, the Nahua and the Catholic belief system. In Nahua metaphysics, death deals with everyone fairly and equally. It is inevitable, natural, and viewed as a part of life rather than as the binary opposite of life. This is made most obvious by the Aztec beliefs of the afterlife, as “They believed that a man’s final destiny was determined, not on the basis of his moral conduct in life, but on the nature of his death,” (Portilla 127). Those who died of old age went to a place called Mictlan to live as skeletons, while those who died of drowning went to Tlalocan to live with the rain god, and so on. One can see how this contrasts with the Catholic view of death, which is seen as the opposite of life, can be reversed by a miracle, and does not treat everyone equally, as God must judge everyone to determine if they are deserving of heaven or hell. In the elegy, imagery representing the Catholic view of life and death as binary opposites is used as is an allusion to the Nahua goddess of death and her impartial treatment of those who die. These views are united and presented as two halves of one whole later on in the poem. Sor Juana’s passionate elegy for the vicereine represents the speaker reconciling two different belief systems surrounding death; the Catholic view that death is the opposite of life and affects people differently based on their deeds, and the Nahua view that death is a part

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of life and has an equal effect on everyone regardless of the life they had. This representation of Nahua and Catholic views on death as complementing, rather than opposing each other, is accomplished by alluding to both Nahua and Catholic worldviews on the nature of mortality.

Early on in the poem, the speaker uses imagery from a Catholic worldview to express her grief. This involves using life and death as binary opposites with the imagery of light and darkness.

The Catholic idea of mortality presents life and death as contrasting, opposing forces that can never be reconciled. The association of life with light can be seen in the line “Lovely light than in the past you gave” (de la Cruz, line 4). The vicereine is said to have given light with her presence when she was living –– a light described as being “lovely.” This links the concepts of life, light, and goodness, which would all be considered the binary opposites of death, darkness, and evil. The imagery of death conjures these opposing forces in line 8, “Black tears shed by my grief-stricken pen.” The tears of grief and mourning for the dead are described as “black,” highlighting the association of death with darkness. Furthermore, the pen is personified as being “grief-stricken” which characterizes death as evil because it inflicts suffering on those who mourn the losses of their loved ones.

The speaker introduces Catholic beliefs about death using imagery in the form of binary opposites traditionally used in Christianity to symbolize the difference between life and death. Catholic beliefs are integrated in the poem using imagery that represents the evil and despair caused by death and contrasts death with the opposite force of life. Yet, the poem later goes on to represent death as being essential to life, as inspired by Nahua philosophy, and seeks to connect this to the Catholic tradition to present a new, unified Mexican worldview on death. The tendency to present metaphysical concepts as tensions between two opposing forces is not limited to Catholicism, but also appears elsewhere in the Western philosophical tradition, which can be decentered for a fuller understanding of this elegy.

In addition to the imagery of binary opposites used in the beginning of the poem, the speaker of the poem uses personification to introduce the Nahua perspective on death. In the continental European tradition of lyric poetry, allusions are often made to Greco-Roman paganism.

Being a New World poet, Sor Juana draws on the pantheon of the Nahua and not only personifies death, but deifies it in a method similar to how older lyric traditions would deify love. Line 9 makes a mention of “Stern Death herself.” This evokes the image of Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, a saint in Mexican folk Catholicism depicted as a skeletal woman whose roots were in the Aztec goddess Mictecacihuatl, the goddess of death. The veneration of death as a goddess is already unacceptable as per the Catholic worldview, which can only view death as evil and unworthy of worship. The description of death as “stern” is also seemingly at odds with the Catholic worldview, as it suggests that death has strict rules about treating everyone equally rather than assessing their deeds.

It makes no difference to the Nahua goddess of death whether a person is wicked or pious. Death is further personified in line 10 as one “who (strictly accurate) brooked no excuse.” This represents that there is no negotiating with death as the goddess will not listen to any “excuse.” Death is final in the Nahua worldview and there is no chance of a miracle that will resurrect the dead like Lazarus was in the case of Christianity. A further characteristic of death in Nahua spirituality is its inevitability, which is conjured in line 11 with the use of the word “fate.” Fate is a powerful concept in many polytheistic religions that do not believe in free will but have a more deterministic philosophy. The use of this word stresses that death is unavoidable. By deifying death, personifying it as an entity that “brooked no excuse,” and evoking the power of the word “fate,” the speaker presents a view of death as fair, final and inevitable. These views correspond with the Nahua belief that death is a

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part of life rather than the binary opposite of it. This appears to create tension in the poem with the Catholic worldview, but it is later reconciled with it.

The unification of these metaphysical systems and the presentation of Nahua spirituality and Catholicism as complements rather than opposites, is accomplished through an emotional appeal. The griever attempts to reconcile both worldviews using a lyrical, exaggerated display of emotion. She recognizes the futility of protesting death, as according to the Nahua worldview it is impossible to reverse it. Yet, she still wants to defy death, and longs for the miracles of Christianity.

This internal conflict in the psyche of the mourner begins in line 2, “To feelings that still long for you in vain.” This line indicates that grievers are in denial about the true nature of death as they struggle with different worldviews. They long for their beloved, but do not realize how hopeless and “in vain” this longing is. The mourner then gets desperate to reverse what happened as she cannot accept that death is final. This desperation is most obviously represented in line 9, “Let compassion move stern Death herself.” This line appears to be an emotional climax in the speaker’s desperation. She believes that emotion rather than reason should be used to oppose death while being aware of the futility of emotional pleas. She uses personification to represent these emotional pleas and further deifies them as love, just as she deifies death. Love is deified as Cupid or Eros from Greco-Roman mythology, as is made clear by the description of love as “blind” in line 11. This blind love is said to have “wanted his sight restored that he might see you” (referring to the vicereine) in line 13. This shows love as making an emotional plea for an impossible miracle –– the restoration of his sight. Yet, love is aware that death is stern and does not listen to any excuses, so he “finds his eyes are useless save to mourn you” (de la Cruz, line 14). Christians fear death, rather than viewing it as a part of life, while the Nahua consider it a definite fact. These beliefs do not have to contradict each other as they are simultaneously present in the mourner’s thoughts. The mourner understands that her beloved is gone, but is also aware that the inevitable and natural characteristics of death do not make it less painful for those who mourn. Nahua and Catholic beliefs are reconciled by saying that death is inevitable, irreversible, and affects everyone in the same way, but is also tragic and evil for the pain it inflicts.

It may come as a surprise that the lyrical genre gave Sor Juana, a nun, such freedom to represent ideas about religion that would likely be considered heretical in her time. In addition to the “unchaste” romantic nature of the poem, she extensively alluded to a Nahua goddess. This does not seem as shocking when put into the context of 17th century New Spain, where there were a number of folk saints inspired by Aztec mythology. For example, the virgin of Guadalupe was similar to the earth goddess Coatlicue. The mixing of Indigenous and European religion, especially in rural areas, was not uncommon. Past scholarly interpretations have focused on biographical information about Sor Juana, such as her relationship to the vicereine, in order to analyze the poem. Even though they have not been able to uncover many of the specific details about her love life, “No one denies that Sor Juana displayed in her writing depths of emotion and erotic desire associated for us with erotic relationships” (Powell 9). As a result, the current interpretations of the poem focus on the relationship between the speaker and the beloved in the poem and note that “This elegiac sonnet gives rein to Sor Juana’s grief, implying a literary as well as affectionate relationship” (Powell 10). This interpretation could be enriched with some analysis of the role of Nahua spirituality in Sor Juana’s life and how she personally maintained her interest in it while still being a member of the church. There is evidence this played a significant role in her life, as she was known to have studied Indigenous knowledge of medicinal herbs. It is also clear that she was a well-educatedwoman who enjoyed participating in philosophical and theological debates. Many of her poems, though filled with the passionate

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emotions of the lyric genre, often contained reasoning such as the points about aesthetics made in Poem 145. Much of the analysis of the elegy for Leonor Carreto that was approached from a biographical lens was incomplete as it did not consider Sor Juana’s interaction with Nahua culture nor her tendency to embed philosophical arguments in many of her poems, and as a result the complementary nature of Catholic and Nahua beliefs that were explored in this poem may have gone largely unnoticed.

The unification of two different metaphysical views in the elegy also reveals a truth about the nature of conquest. Physical destruction of a group cannot eliminate the influence of their spirituality. Attempts to subvert Indigenous religions often leads to them continuing in a more discrete fashion or even mixing with the prevailing religion so that they become inseparable in the hearts of many of the people. This admixture is what led to a distinct Mexican identity and is also the reason why thousands continue to pray to Santa Muerte. The Catholic church does not approve of her cult following, but despite their power they cannot stop it. The moments in which religion matters most to people are when they are confronted by something they do not fully understand, such as death.

These are the moments in which there can be complicated inner conflicts in people’s lives where they consider different religious ideas on death. Mexican elegies can provide an insight into these internal conflicts. Many views can exist simultaneously in one mourner. This gives a fuller understanding of representations of religion in colonial states. The situation of colonization as it impacts religion cannot be explained in terms of binary opposites, but rather by understanding how a society seeks to unify elements of both beliefs into a single, coherent system of thought.

Works Cited de la Cruz, Sor Juana Ines. Elegy for Leonor Carreto. Mexico City, 1674.

Portilla, Miguel L. Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind. University

of Oklahoma Press, 1963, https://books.google.ca/books?id=OI9J7RR1awC&printsec

frontcover#v=onepage&q=mictlan&f=false. Accessed 1 December 2020.

Powell, Amanda. La Respuesta. 2nd critical ed., The Feminist Press, 2011, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14516#info_wrap. Accessed 1 December 2020.

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Resistance and Reality: How Flashbacks in Monkey Beach Disrupt Bildungsroman Khadija Alam

B

ildungsroman is a traditionally German form of storytelling, but Eden Robinson uses it to tell an Indigenous story in a way that pushes back against the European nature of the genre. Bildungsroman is a novel of formation; it chronicles the protagonist’s growth from childhood to maturity as they embark on a journey that culminates in the recognition of their place in the world once they become cultivated (Edens). In Monkey Beach, Robinson uses flashbacks as a tool to disrupt these three key elements of traditional bildungsroman, and this allows readers to confront important aspects of Indigenous youth’s contemporary experiences that exist outside of the world of the novel. Firstly, the flashbacks disrupt the notion of chronicling the protagonist’s growth in a linear manner. This results in the story being presented out of chronological order through the depiction of Lisa piecing together fragments of her childhood.

Secondly, the notion of finding one’s place in the world is disrupted. The flashbacks result in Lisa being situated between the past and the present throughout the novel, and this culminates in her identity being split between two worlds at the end. Finally, the flashbacks disrupt the notion that Indigenous characters cannot become cultivated.

According to traditional bildungsroman, Lisa would not be able to become cultivated because much of Haisla culture has been lost, but the flashbacks depict how she remembers and passes on the aspects of her culture she did learn. By using a form that the Western audience is familiar with, Robinson effectively presents an Indigenous story to that audience—but disrupting key elements of bildungsroman gives her the agency to tell the story without compromising the contemporary Indigenous experience.

The first key element of bildungsroman is that the protagonist’s growth is chronicled in a linear manner; from childhood to maturity. Lisa’s flashbacks disrupt this notion because they result in the story being presented out of chronological order which implies that Lisa cannot grow up in a linear manner. One flashback depicts Lisa not knowing the detrimental impacts of the residential school system. When her older cousin tells her that their grandmother sent their aunt and uncle to residential school, Lisa replies, “And?” (Robinson 59). The next time present-day Lisa’s voice is depicted seems to be in response to this particular flashback: “Realize that the plumpest berries are over the graves” (82). This sentiment, through its alignment of something good (plump berries) with something bad (graves), seems to be present-day Lisa’s realization that she was only able to live a relatively sheltered childhood because the horrors of residential schools were buried, so to speak. In traditional bildungsroman, the learning experiences of the protagonist’s childhood would result in their maturity, allowing the story to be presented chronologically. However, in Monkey Beach, Lisa is only able to understand certain childhood experiences after and because she had matured.

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Resistance and Reality: How Flashbacks in Monkey Beach Disrupt Bildungsroman

Another convention of bildungsroman is that the character’s journey ends with them finding their place in the world. The flashbacks in Monkey Beach disrupt this notion because they situate Lisa between two worlds throughout the novel, which directly foreshadows the end. On the last page of the novel, Lisa says, “[W]hen I close my eyes I can still see the pale after-image of Jimmy… In the distance, I hear the sound of a speedboat” (374). The sound of the speedboat is a motif that Lisa hears when she is in the land of the living, whereas Jimmy is in the land of the dead.

Therefore, Lisa is unable to find her place in the world at the end of the novel because she ends up in a liminal space between two worlds. Robinson prepares the audience for this ending by structuring the novel through flashbacks. Because Monkey Beach is told through constant switches between the past and the present, Lisa is situated between these two worlds throughout the entirety of the novel. This indicates that she was destined to end up between two worlds, making her different from traditional bildungsroman protagonists.

The final element in the definition of bildungsroman is that the protagonist must become cultivated. However, Lisa would not be able to become fully cultivated according to traditional bildungsroman due to the colonial erasure of Haisla culture. This notion is disrupted because many of her flashbacks result in her remembering and passing on the few aspects of her culture that she did learn. For example, a flashback to a lesson given by her grandmother leads Lisa to think about the etymology of her mother tongue; “The actual word for the Haisla language is Xa’islak’ala, to talk in the manner of Xa’isla. To say Xa’isla, touch your throat. Say the German ‘ach’” (193). In this case, the flashback is used as an especially important tool because it creates an opportunity for the audience to be directly affected by the text. The flashback consists of Lisa’s grandmother educating her, and it results in Lisa educating the audience. It is important to note the switch to the imperative mood in the quotation; this indicates that Lisa is addressing the audience. She is not just remembering her culture, but she is passing it on to more people—and not just Indigenous peoples. Lisa specifically makes the language accessible to Europeans by equating Haisla sounds with ones that are more familiar to them. And in specifically equating a Haisla sound with a German one, Lisa does at the narrative level what Robinson does at the structural level—taking German conventions and making them Indigenous.

A latent function of disrupting conventions of bildungsroman to tell an Indigenous story is that it leaves room for the non-Indigenous reader to confront aspects of Indigenous youth’s experiences that exist outside of the world of the novel.

The non-linear storytelling, made possible by the flashbacks, depicts Lisa’s task of uncovering her history, which mirrors the contemporary Indigenous experience of understanding the past by piecing it together. Due to genocidal systems like the residential school system—which were sites of physical, psychological, and epistemological violence against Indigenous peoples—the histories of many Indigenous nations were buried as a result of forced assimilation into Euro-Canadian society.

Indigenous youth cannot simply open up a history textbook to learn about their peoples’ past. Monkey Beach’s erratic shifts in time allow the readers to get a glimpse of the hardships associated with having to uncover one’s history.

Lisa’s position of switching between the past and present throughout the novel also points to a stereotype about Indigenous peoples that occurs in Canadian literature. Margery Fee, an English professor at the University of British Columbia, writes about how Indigenous characters have often been reduced to mystical figures in Canadian literature, citing examples from the fiction of Margaret Atwood to Leonard Cohen (16). They’re often a figure that allows the white, urban protagonist to

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nostalgically experience nature, and then when they’re ready, to return to the present-day world of Western civilization: Indigenous peoples “come to represent what is past, lost, almost forgotten” (25). As such, there seems to be this dynamic between the settler-colonial impulse to “civilize” and “Westernize” Indigenous populations, but at the same time, to think of them as forever stuck in time.

Robison, as an author living in the nation-state of Canada, might be aware of these stereotypes and how artistic representation can affect actual lives. Thus, Lisa’s liminal identity at the end of the novel might indicate that the worlds of the past and the present are not mutually exclusive, as the aforementioned stereotype suggests.

Teaching the audience about Haisla culture is a reflection of the contemporary Indigenous experience of trying to keep one’s culture alive. Indigenous youth must work against years of colonial erasure of their heritage and against forces of assimilation in modern society as well. Robinson’s novel depicts one possible to fight against erasure: by educating people who are unfamiliar with Indigenous cultures through media that can reach them.

In conclusion, the flashbacks in Monkey Beach serve the important purpose of disrupting traditional bildungsroman and depicting key aspects of the contemporary Indigenous experience.

Firstly, the story is presented out of chronological order. This disrupts the notion of chronicling the protagonist’s growth step-by-step because Lisa is only able to understand her childhood experiences once she has already matured, so she cannot grow up like traditional bildungsroman characters.

Secondly, Lisa is situated between two worlds throughout the novel (past and present or living and dead). This disrupts the notion of finding one’s place in the world because it indicates that Lisa was destined to end up somewhere between the land of the living and the land of the dead since the flashbacks kept her in a liminal space throughout the novel. Finally, Lisa is depicted remembering and passing on aspects of Haisla culture. This disrupts the notion that Indigenous characters cannot become cultivated because Lisa remembers the etymology of the Haisla language and even teaches it to the Western audience in an accessible way. By changing these elements of bildungsroman, Robinson depicts Indigenous youth’s experiences of piecing together the past through fragments, reconciling two different cultures, and trying to keep one’s culture alive.

The most famous bildungsroman stories centre around Western protagonists, but Robinson is able to help readers understand what living in the modern world is like for many Indigenous youth by inserting Indigenous characters into a genre that the Western audience is well-acquainted with. Robinson has taken something European and has made it Indigenous. She has undermined the historical and colonial power structure that has haunted Indigenous peoples for centuries, and she has paved a path towards a future where Indigenous stories can be understood and enjoyed by everyone.

Works Cited Edens, Kathy. “Bildungsroman: What the Heck is That?” ProWritingAid, 29 January 2019, https://prowritingaid.com/art/833/bildungsroman%3A-what-the-heck-is-that.aspx. Ac cessed 10 March 2020.

Fee, Margery. “Romantic Nationalism and the Image of Native People in Contemporary EnglishCanadian Literature.” B. ECW, 1987. Faculty Research and Publications, DOI:10.14288/1.0074530. Accessed 13 March 2021.

Robinson, Eden. Monkey Beach. Vintage Canada, 2001.

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The Different Worlds of Northanger Abbey Bushra Boblai

J

ane Austen’s Northanger Abbey occupies a peculiar spot in her bibliography. It is not one of Austen’s most popular works like Pride and Prejudice. It is neither very despised nor very beloved but its impact on the perception of the gothic novel during the Gothic Revival Period of the 18th and 19th centuries cannot be denied. The novel, at its core, is a satirical take on the tropes employed by the typical Gothic novels of the time and

Austen uses the voice of her young heroine to make several scathing social commentaries about the society that she inhabited. However, due to the thirteen-year-long gap between the wriing of the book and its publication prevented it from making the social impact it could have had if it had been published into the society it had been written for.

Northanger Abbey was one of two novels published posthumously along with Persuasion in 1817. However, Northanger Abbey was the first full-length novel that Austen had finished in her writing career in 1803. Therefore, a close examination of both of the works will reveal a very noticeable shift in the maturity of Austen’s voice. Persuasion, which she had finished writing only a little while before her death has the voice of the established adult Austen. Northanger Abbey, however, was published in 1817, a whole 13 years after it had been finished. The story goes that Austen had sold the manuscript to Crosby & Co., a London bookseller who then refused to publish it or even allow Austen to have it published with another bookseller. The rights to the book were eventually sold back to Austen’s brother Henry in 1816 and with some revisions on Austen’s end, it was finally published in the following year.

There are several differences in English society in the two timelines that contributed to the measly reception that Northanger Abbey received. For this article, I will be covering three major themes regarding this timeline: fashion, Austen’s youth and the political aspect of childbirth, and the changing cultural perceptions of Udolpho in English society in the span of thirteen years.

I would like to begin by examining an aspect of genteel English society that played a huge if, at times, finicky role: fashion. The French essayist, Roland Barthes has described the “fashion system” as “the sense that fashion is an unspoken omnipotent actor in the language of dress, and thus is made natural in a discourse that otherwise does not make clear links between signifier and signified.”1 In other words, there is a lot of subtext in a community’s fashion rules that influence bigger roles in societal convention than we might imagine.

Now if we talk about fashion and Northanger Abbey, we have to mention Mrs. Allen, who is Catherine’s guardian and companion on their trip to Bath. She is a woman who is very enthusiastic about the latest styles. In Chapter Two, Austen tells us in plain words, “Dress was her passion.”

1

See, “Catherine Morland’s ‘Plain Black Shoes’: Practical Fashions and Buried Convents in Northanger Abbey” by Alicia Kerfoot.

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So, we know that despite Catherine’s poverty, she would be well versed in the latest styles and be dressed accordingly, if only for the fact that she is travelling with Mrs. Allen. Austen also uses several scenes in the novel to indicate that Catherine was following the guidelines for the fashion styles of 1800-09. I want to focus on one particular fashion scene: the evening where Catherine first encounters her love interest, Henry Tilney in Chapter Three. She is described as wearing a “...sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings.” Muslins were the staple for evening dresses during the decade of 1800-1809 according to the Fashion History Timeline constructed by the Fashion Institute of Technology. White was a staple colour. However, things were very different in the decade of 1810-1819.

“Textiles became more diverse during the 1810s; firmer cottons and silks supplanted the draping fine muslins of the previous years. Additionally, while white remained a colour very much in vogue throughout the decade, it gave way to increasingly brighter colours and patterns such as stripes” .

This clearly indicates that the fashion conventions displayed in the book would not have been perceived as recent or current by the time the book had been published. Differences that may not signify much to the modern reader would have stood out starkly to the audience of 1817. This is because of the role that muslin played in the system of British colonialism. The East India Company would exploit workers in India and have the raw materials for muslin imported to British factories and have the end product sold around the world as a British good. This made it a very commonly accessible material that diminished its appeal to the genteel British society. They started to perceive the item as cheap and this led to the move towards cotton and silks. The book ultimately fails to portray the current fashions to its audience and in the process distinctly establishes that subconsciously the content of the book is not perceptive of the modern-day society. This diminishes the social commentaries that the book was trying to make.

Speaking on changes in societal perception over thirteen years leads us the next topic I would like to examine: Austen’s youth and the political aspect of childbirth during the two timelines of Northanger Abbey. This novel was written when Austen was 28 years old. The details for this book were brought on by the trips she took to Bath with her family in her twenties. Several letters describe a trip taken in 1799, where she fully partook in the social customs described in Northanger Abbey like frequenting the Pump Room and attending a ball in the Assembly Rooms. It was in fact during this trip, according to her letters to her sister, Cassandra Austen in 1799 that she witnessed her sisterin-law Elizabeth, get violently sick from a new pregnancy even though she had only given birth a mere nine-months earlier. The danger of childbirth and the extreme risk it posed on women were extremely evident to Austen and the rest of her society. It is estimated that during the Regency period, two women would die for every hundred babies that were born. One of Jane’s own grandmothers, Rebecca Austen herself, had died from giving birth. This reality maybe the reason why she had such a negative outlook on childbirth. She wrote to her niece Fanny warning against young motherhood by declaring, “by not beginning the business of Mothering quite so early in life, you will be young in Constitution, spirits, figure & countenance, while Mrs. Wm Hammond is growing old by confinements and nursing.”

The dangers of pregnancy for women and Jane’s experience with them is reflected in the novel. In Northanger Abbey, there is a wry observation that Mrs. Moreland had been expected to die in the process of giving birth to her fourth child Catherine, but unusually went on to give birth to six more children. It is remarked upon surprisingly, that despite the misfortune of so many pregnancies, Mrs. Moreland happened to be in a good constitution of health. The expectation was for Mrs. Moreland to have been wasted away by the birth of her brood. This is very reflective of the attidude

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of her society at the time towards pregnancy and childbirth. Women were expected to be ruined by the act of reproduction, and it was therefore morally acceptable for them to terminate their pregnancies if they wished to do so. In fact, until the passing of the Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act of 1803, it was perfectly legal, and normal for women to terminate their pregnancies until even the late-term. At the time of publication, however, abortion had been criminalized and subject to the death penalty. So, Austen’s subtle indications of her view on the subject of childbirth would be lost on most of the audience of 1817. The moral penalizing of women having control over their reproduction in the decade in which the book was published meant that Austen’s satirical yet scathing critique of the cruel expectation for women to waste their physical health for the sake of bearing children would not have had the affect that they may have had on the society of 1803 that was more open, both legally and morally, to women using abortion and birth control as a health measure.

Another glaring aspect of the novel that was subjected to a significant shift in 1817, is the case of Udolpho and how the different time periods of the book’s publication and writing had different cultural perceptions towards the famous gothic novel. Ann Radcliffe’s novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho is described as the only new book that Catherine reads in the duration of Northanger Abbey.

Radcliffe was the most famous gothic novelist in the 1790s and Udolpho had been published in 1794.

It was such a household work, that several characters are described to have read it, and Henry Tilney seems to have some sections of the book even memorized.

Furthermore, there are some very obvious homages to the novel. One of the protagonist’s uncle had murdered his wife, and Catherine, as we know, suspects General Tilney as having done the same with his wife. Then there is the case of the Tilneys’ ancient housekeeper who is named Dorothy, which is very similar to Dorothee, the housekeeper at Chateau le Blanc the castle in Udolpho. Henry jokes that Dorothy is supposed to take her guests along many gloomy passages en route to her room which was where a cousin may have died. In Udolpho, Emily has to navigate similar passages and is assigned the room where the wife of the Count had died. These references would have been easily caught on by the audience of 1803 and be a clear indication of Austen poking fun at the tropes of the gothic novel.

However, Udolpho was not as popular in the decade of 1810-19 and these references and puns would have been lost on the majority of the 1817 audience. Radcliffe’s popularity had faded in favour of other novelists. Northanger Abbey’s satirical function is distinctly modelled on highlighting the very camp-like nature of Udolpho while presenting its audience with a different way to interpret the gothic novel. Due to the delay in its publication, Northanger Abbey was robbed of the opportunity of displaying these nuances and influencing an entire generation with these comparisons and ideas.

It is a sad reality that the gap between the writing and the publication of Northanger Abbey prevented its potential for active social commentary and the impact it may have had on society had it been published in 1803. The change in fashion trends and customs, and the change in the political attitudes surrounding childbirth and abortion, along with the outdating of Udolpho in the Popular culture all contributed to preventing Northanger Abbey from becoming a prominent piece of literature with a greater impact on the society it was published in. The book, as a result, occupies a strange vacuum in Austen’s bibliography and has been prevented from the acclaim it deserves.

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Works Cited Brook, Paulette. “Regency Fashion: The Muslin Round Gown.” Order No. 27546822 University

of Idaho, 2019. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 11 Mar. 2021.

Edwards, Stassa. “The History of Abortifacients.” Jezebel. 18 Nov. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2021.

Franklin, Harper. “1800-1809.” Fashion History Timeline. Fashion Institute of Technology, 25

June 2020. Web. 12 Mar. 2021.

Franklin, Harper. “1810-1819.” Fashion History Timeline. Fashion Institute of Technology, 01

June 2020. Web. 12 Mar. 2021.

Kelly, Helena. “The Anxieties of Common Life - Northanger Abbey.” Jane Austen, the Secret Radical. New York: Vintage, 2018. 35-68. Print.

Kerfoot, Alicia. “Catherine Morland’s ‘Plain Black Shoes’: Practical Fashions and Buried

Convents in Northanger Abbey.” Fashion Theory, vol. 24, no. 1, Routledge, 2020, pp.

59–83, doi:10.1080/1362704X.2018.1454746.

Lau, Beth. “Sexual Selection and Female Choice in Austen’s Northanger Abbey.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 50, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, pp. 465–82, doi:10.1353/

sdn.2018.0038.

Lauren Miskin. “‘True Indian Muslin’ and the Politics of Consumption in Jane Austen’s

Northanger Abbey.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2015, pp. 5–26, doi:10.1353/jem.2015.0011.

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On Urgency, Culture Jamming, and the Words of Lawrence Ferlinghetti Rion Levy

P

oet Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a culture jammer who documented his trajectory along the Will to Playful Creation and urged his readers to do the same. Although a member of the Beat Movement, the methods with which he confronted the world did not align closely with some of the more illicit, and dangerous tactics used by his compatriots. He illustrates that everyone has their own, unique ways to deconstruct the world and culture jam and therefore must rely upon one’s own critical responses to, and interpretations of the world. Culture jamming is a modern word for an ancient process. Although today it often manifests as pushback against advertiser and corporate culture, the term can broadly apply to any non-compliant response to “the anti-pleasure ethos of mainstream capitalist society” (Klein, “Culture Jamming,” 283). In other words, to culture jam is to apply the act of détournment, the subversion and perversion of meaning, in the attempt to uncover and present a true or hidden message (Lasn 417). It is a strong rejection of the normal which frequently leads culture jammers to attract attention as they turn themselves into a spectacle. This attention is not necessarily drawn from a desire for recognition, rather, when someone acts as a dériviste and follows along the Will to Playful Creation, the free exploration of the world in the pursuit of that which one loves (242), they act in such stark defiance of the status-quo, that they are magnets for eyes. These individuals “approach life full-on, without undue fear or crippling self-censorship, pursuing joy and novelty as if tomorrow you’ll be in the ground” (424). It is their open sense of the world that offers so much hope in the face of the disparaging uncertainty of the modern-day. A close reading of Ferlinghetti’s poetry demonstrates that it is possible to feel deeply for something and to use that passion to shape it into our reality.

After he served in the Second World War and received his Ph.D. from l’Université de Paris, Ferlinghetti settled in San Francisco and opened City Lights Bookstore (Charters “Beat Down”).

In the 1950s, literature was rarely sold in paperback, as the culture deemed that high literature was only worthy when bound in hardcover (Charters, Constantly Risking Absurdity, 230). In his first public act of defiance, he decided his store would only sell paperback books. Two years later, the bookstore expanded, adding a publishing house where he published the first poetry anthology in The Pocket Poets Series (Charters 230). Pictures of the Gone World is Ferlinghetti’s heads-up to the world where he debuts his unique and noncompliant perspectives. In the 60th Anniversary Edition, he acknowledges that “Looking back on these poems sixty years later … there is a freshness of perception that only young eyes have, in the dandelion bloom of youth” (Ferlinghetti, “Gone World,” i). He exclaims that the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t much mind

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a few dead minds ……………………… or such other impropriates as our Name Brand society is prey to (“Gone World,” “#25,” lines 20-30), and although he is critical in this anthology, he developed his famously strong vocal tone after forced to answer for it.

The next year, Ferlinghetti was charged with obscenity for the publication of Number Four in the series, Allen Ginsberg’s classic, Howl and Other Poems (Charters, Constantly Risking Absurdity, 231). He ultimately won the case and claimed a major victory for the literary and vocal freedoms of the new America that sprung from the post-war generation. An advertisement in Circle Magazine describes the general problem that led to the trial in the first place,

There is a struggle going on for the minds of the American people. Every form of

expression is subject to the attack of reaction. This attack comes in the shape of silence,

persecution, and censorship: three names for fear. In the face of this fear, the writer can

speak (Constantly Risking Absurdity 228).

The voices of the Beat Generation did go on to write, backed predominately by City Lights which continues to serve this community of nonconformists today. Ferlinghetti describes the hub as “generally in an anarchistic, civil libertarian, antiauthoritarian tradition … with none [of its published books] federally financed by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. (Its editors, in the Anarchist/Surrealist tradition, like it that way)” (Constantly Risking Absurdity 230). The bookstore is an act of blunt culture jamming as it refuses to follow traditions other bookstores do: it publishes works fuelled by profound feelings that transcends societal laws of decency, only from the support of like-minded authors and readers.

Toward the end of the decade, Ferlinghetti published the poetry anthology A Coney Island of the Mind, a work that continues to see phenomenal success with over one million copies in print (“Lawrence Ferlinghetti”). The anthology opens with the poem that reads

We are the same people

only further from home

on freeways fifty lanes wide

on a concrete continent

spaced with bland billboards

illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness (Ferlinghetti, “Coney Island,” “#1,” lines 26-31).

Ferlinghetti senses an endless dread in Postmodern America. Nevertheless, in the bleak moment, he also offers his discovery as to the role of the poet in that, “Constantly risking absurdity … the poet like an acrobat / climbs on rime / to a highwire of his own making” (“#15,” lines 1, 6-8) and that the “poet’s eye obscenely seeing / sees the surface of the round world … and its surrealist landscape” (“#3,” lines 1-2, 12). Ferlinghetti presents that the poet is an outsider who routinely sees an alternative, distant, and somewhat timeless view of life who, through this altered perception, can provide unique insight. His proposal aligns well with Northrop Frye’s philosophy when he writes that “literature not only leads us toward the regaining of identity, but it also separates this state from its opposite, the world we don’t like and want to get away from ” (Frye, The Educated Imagination, 31).

In other words, the production of poetry, at least as far as Ferlinghetti is concerned, is a pure act of détournment. How the poet demonstrates this act is through the profound risk that is a pure act of

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On Urgency, Culture Jamming, and the Words of Lawrence Ferlinghetti

détournment. How the poet demonstrates this act is through the profound risk that accompanies expression, but without explorations of what could be, there is no to subvert and reverse what is.

Poetry is a delicate act that must be blunt but careful to insight a timely awareness in its readers of the ills of the present.

In Poetry as Insurgent Art, Ferlinghetti continues to think about what poetry is, what its use is in our society, how we watch as society crumbles, and how we individuals can make an impact. He argues that “Poetry holds death at bay” (Ferlinghetti, “Insurgent Art,” “What is Poetry?,” line 34) and that “Poetry in handcuffs handcuffs the human race. / Poetry can still save the world by transforming consciousness” (“Insurgent Art,” “What is Poetry?,” lines 158-159), but also that “Civilization self-destructs” (“Insurgent Art,” “Poetry as Insurgent Art,” line 4). Today the world faces a grand number of existential threats, environmental, political, economic, and social. Nevertheless, society is worth fighting for even if hopeless; and it is apparent through his writing that the beautiful words the poet presents are one of the reasons why.

He offers some hope with the plead for us to diverge from societal expectations. He decrees,

Poets, descend

to the

street of the world once more

And open your minds & eyes

with the old visual delight,

Clear your throat and speak up,

Poetry is dead, long live poetry

with terrible eyes and buffalo strength.

Don’t wait for the Revolution or it’ll happen without you (“Insurgent Art,” “Populist Mani

festo #1 (1976),” lines 90-98) and later, he urges that “The subjective must take back the world / from the objective gorillas & guerillas of the world / We must rejoin somehow” (“Insurgent Art,” “Populist Manifesto #2 (1978),” lines 29-31). His cry is desperate yet cautiously optimistic as he knows there are others out there like him who want to defy the status-quo for the sake of tomorrow. In this work, Ferlinghetti exemplifies Debord’s vision of culture jamming (Lasn 415-417) as though he writes an accompanying textbook.

Everyone is a creator in their own life, and if an individual chooses to seize back their experience of the world, and refrain from acting complicitly, then they become active participants. He teaches that it is better to be on the side of the vocal, those aware of their surroundings who have considered it critically than to fall into ever-evolving tides that they would therefore be unable to influence.

According to Ferlinghetti, we ought to “Challenge capitalism masquerading as democracy. / Challenge all political creeds, including radical populism and hooligan socialism” (“Insurgent Art,” “Poetry as Insurgent Art,” lines 116-117) and must “Speak up. Act out. Silence is complicity. … Wake up, the world’s on fire!” (“Insurgent Art,” “Poetry as Insurgent Art,” lines 184, 187). He warns of the urgency that lies behind our failed attempts for a reasonable society while he also acknowledges that we must consider any alternative solution critically before we assume that it will answer every problem. To jump to a binary opposite of a failed political system would not work. Instead, society must look to Derrida and Freeze the Play of Opposites (Urbancic) that exists between creeds to build a new, holistic world that works. To Ferlinghetti, capitalism and democracy are incompatible, but he does not try to argue that his favoured, progressive ideologies are what society should immediately

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shift to. He simply argues that it is time to consider the world as it is, how it could be if we were to demarket and uncool capitalism, which revokes its power (Lasn 421-428), how individuals would personally fit within this uncooled world, and how society should reconstruct the social order. Although he invites his readers to his leftist perspective, he ultimately prompts them to make up their own minds so long as they no longer numb themseleves to today’s fractured normal.

Most recently, Ferlinghetti’s 2019 autobiographic memoir Little Boy serves as a resolution to his restless woes as it is his final work before his passing. Although he still wishes for his readers to consider “capitalism the very enemy of democracy” (Ferlinghetti, Little Boy, 56) and asks “why be normal when you can be happy?” (91), his optimism that radiates through his manifesto that indicates poets will save the world withers slightly here. He warns that “the past is receding faster and faster” (133) as “the world is coming to an end for the millionth time but this time it’s for real” (161).

Most of Ferlinghetti’s political commentary focuses on the situation within the United States, but the world is interconnected; the socio-political climates of Canada’s neighbour to the South reflect and impact elements of our own. He proclaims that “a civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a moribund civilization a civilization that lives by cunning and fraud is a gone civilization” (32). Yet, despite his loss of hope, Ferlinghetti still asks his readers to try. Unlike in Poetry as Insurgent Art, Ferlinghetti uses Little Boy to push across his political beliefs and does not censor his support of Kropotkin’s Anarchism. At the conclusion of the novel, he writes “Be lazy Go crazy Join the movement Don’t take medicine Eat the garden Ignore government Disband the military Join the pacifist Discover anarchism Resist and Disobey!” (170). This passage is one of his ultimate displays of the Will to Playful Creation. Here, he is blunt in his expression of his sentiments and he truly does not stifle his beliefs in the subtle ways he has in his earlier works. He is climatically authentic and his voice crescendos into a final roar. He rejects sympathy and he merely wants everyone to get up and make their own meanings, lives, and to fight for the world with the novelty that comes with individuality. He does not tell everyone to disobey authority unreasonably, but he urges everyone to refuse to submit as Emulators. We need to stop our perpetual existence of survival and to live to thrive.

A final idea from his novel that argues a glimmer of optimism, is one that pleads against the fall into Boredom. He assures that, if one follows the path of creative resistance, they will be okay when he pronounces that “we are the great dreamers” (Little Boy 107). When someone acts as an Emulator (Lasn 416), those who seek out material goods and experiences as forms of escapism from monotony, rather than those who develop lives they are comfortable in during the everyday, they are likely to discover Boredom (Lasn 418), one of the Big Enemies. Lasn argues that Boredom signifies a silenced sense of wonder as a result of the capitalism’s overwhelming expectations; Emulators always look forward, rather than experience the present (418). Ferlinghetti urges that so long as individuals continue to engage with their potential to dream, the world’s novelty and their appreciation of it will survive.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti tracked his journey through life with his poetry, prose, and movement that used his independent bookstore in an unsuspecting enclave of San Francisco as its headquarters. Ferlinghetti recently passed away on the 22nd of February 2021 (City Lights Booksellers & Publishers). During his life, he was consistent in his belief that poets are visionaries and therefore experience “the further reality” (Ferlinghetti, “Insurgent Art,” line 76) as “life goes on, and us with it” (Ferlinghetti, Little Boy, 178). His legacy will remind generations to come of the urgency of the present moment. The ultimate rejection of the essence of humanity is to submit to Boredom, and

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On Urgency, Culture Jamming, and the Words of Lawrence Ferlinghetti

live life mindlessly. If we seek out the Will to Playful Creation and play in the comfort that we are alive, conscious, and real, as he impels us to live a life that is worthwhile, then that will make all the difference the poet could dream of.

Works Cited Charters, Ann. “‘Constantly Risking Absurdity,’ Some San Francisco Renaissance Poets.” The

Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, New York, Penguin Books, 1927, pp. 227–

330.

Charters, Ann. “Lawrence Ferlinghetti.” Beat Down to Your Soul, edited by Ann Charters, New

York, Penguin Books, 2001, p. 168.

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Passing of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Facebook, 23 February

2021, 2:02 p.m., https://www.facebook.com/CityLightsBooks/posts/10159089536496878.

Accessed 23 February 2021.

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. A Coney Island of the Mind. New York, New Directions Books, 1958.

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. Little Boy. New York, New York, Doubleday, 2019.

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. Pictures of the Gone World, 60th Anniversary Edition. San Francisco, City

Lights Bookstore, 2015.

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. Poetry as Insurgent Art. New York, New Directions Books, 2007.

Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Toronto, House of Anansi Press, 1991.

Klein, N. “Culture Jamming.” Culture Jamming. Toronto, Vintage Canada, 2000.

Lasn, Kalle. “Culture Jamming.” The Consumer Society Reader, edited by J.B. Schor and D. B. Holt,

New York, NewPress, 2000, pp. 414–432.

“Lawrence Ferlinghetti.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lawrence-ferlinghetti.

Accessed 2 November 2020.

Urbancic, Anne. “Introduction – What’s the Big Idea?” University of Toronto, Toronto. 14 Sept.

2020. Lecture.

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Phenomenology, the Pandemic, and I Ishtar Warda I) Introduction: The Pandemic and I I have always considered myself an “introvert” and this pandemic has made me realise, or solidified, how self-reliant I am when it comes to emotional stability and mental stimulation. I do not require others to “pass the time.” So, limited human interaction from people outside of my immediate family has not been an extremely pressing issue. I guess I subscribe to the Aristotelean conception of happiness being contemplation (i.e., activity of the rational part of the soul). I play piano, I read books, I think about and try to write personal philosophical works. I used to feel guilty when I would just sit around and watch senseless shows or YouTube videos, I felt as if I was not making the most of my time. It was not until recently when I questioned why I felt obligated to do so at all. I did not ask for this time. Some would say that this time is a “gift.” But who gifted it to me? I do not believe in a higher power, and even if there were one who bestowed this time upon me, I owe her nothing.

Why is there an informal ought when it comes to productivity and time? If it brings me happiness and is not immoral—simply according to the ethics of common decency—to sit on my bed and watch nature documentaries or play The Last of Us Part II, then this is what I will do. I do not believe in having to justify the passing or use of my time because it is precisely that—mine.

I cannot speak to the experience of others, but I am sure it is not too different from mine in terms of memory, or lack thereof. I consider myself navigationally challenged; I am terrible at reading maps and I can get lost/disoriented pretty easily; my saving grace is usually landmarks. I orient myself physically according to things that stand out in an empirical/physical way. If I am walking down Queen St. West from Osgoode station and hit the McDonalds at the large intersection, then that is when I know to turn right to get to Sonic Boom. My memory works the same way, if there are no “landmarks” (i.e., important/significant events) then I cannot really recall a period of time. I guess this brings memory down to an “empirical” form; it is not simply the record of our experience of time as one endlessly flowing stream towards the next present moment. Memory is the tool our minds use to flag something relatively important. You probably do not remember what you ate for breakfast, but you might remember the name of your third grade teacher. Perhaps this is reminiscent of how Nietzsche’s concept of (moral) consciousness depends on our faculty of memory which is strengthened through violent punishment which bonds mind and body. He says that to create an enduring memory in the mind, “one burns in so that it remains in one’s memory: only what does not cease to give pain remains in one’s memory” (p.38). Psychological (and physical) markers of memories serve as these mental “landmarks.” Perhaps we can think of any event or agent which acted upon us at one point in time that had managed to evoke some kind of above-average emotion as having aided in the crafting of memory.

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This was all to say, simply, that I had not experienced many moments which evoked a considerable emotion within me so as to facilitate the creation of a memory within the past couple of months. I have been in a vegetative state which has provoked the thought: “what is the point?”

But it is precisely this beautiful thought which has allowed me to achieve some form of tranquility within myself. Life is meaningless and that is a positive thing. It would be ill-fitting to call life a “gift” because this would imply that we are better off by it. It is absurd to believe that we are better off existing than not existing. In non-existence you do not have the capacity to be better or worse off; all you are is simply that you are not — a capacity only for incapacity. Existence and every action within it is a random event, everything just happens to be; not necessarily, but just because.

We experience all things singularly — coming into existence, experiencing existence, and ceasing to exist — because we have singular minds. Loneliness is within ourselves, it is our companion, it is our insurance of independence—we alone have the power to make what we want of ourselves, to act on our own singular will. It is not a pessimistic or nihilistic view, it is optimistic. We are alone with ourselves. We are our own masters, we are our own means, we are our own end. Quarantine has catalyzed my existential tendencies and has inspired me to document them. Boredom and meaninglessness are facilitators of creativity—what some would call “a productive use of time.”

II) Martin Heidegger: Basic Problems of Phenomenology Heidegger’s discussion of the ontological difference, namely the distinction between existence (being qua being) and existents (entities) (p.256) reminds me of the Socratic method of discovery of any unknown thing where he rejects mere examples of the thing and instead forges onwards towards the thing itself. This distinction between existence (being itself) and existents (entities) is actually discussed within Plato’s dialogue The Sophist where the answer to the question ‘what is it to exist?’ must be explanatory rather than exemplary (i.e ‘what makes X an X’, rather than ‘Y is an X’). So, it is not that the entire traditional account of being has presupposed the knowledge of what being or ‘to exist’ means because Plato surely had not. Anyhow, I think Heidegger’s treatment of the dasein—‘there being’: human existence as the kind of being that can be ‘there’/in the world—as always being beyond itself by being carried away by the future in an ‘ecstatic’ sense—stepping outside itself—(p.266-7) is quite interesting in relation to our experience of COVID-19. The dasein is not a thing, it is a process; it is not, it is always becoming. This is quite a Heraclitean notion; everything is always becoming, nothing ever ‘is’ because flux/indeterminacy/motion/change is the truth of the phenomenological world. Temporality is the ecstatic unity of past, present, and future (p.267); this is original time (p.257).

It is interesting to relate this to the experience of the pandemic because my experience has been simultaneously rather stagnant on a surface level but quite ‘unfinished’ in a deeper sense.

By ‘unfinished’ I mean unsettled; it is always becoming, it never is. I feel restless not simply in the claustrophobic sense of quarantine but in my experience of time. I am aware of this process of becoming, it is not just that I do not want to settle in this ‘now’ of quarantine but that I am unable. Just as Heidegger’s dasein is always stepping beyond itself I feel as though I am unwillingly falling within the next moment like I am not perpendicular to the floor but always at an angle falling towards it.

Successive moments of ‘now’ where we have a unity of expecting the future, retaining the past and making present (‘enpresenting’) the present (p.259-60) is what gives us our everyday time. My time has become distorted, this unity has come undone because my future is not ‘expected’ in the same sense as before, I am restless because I do not know; I have no true understanding of my future, my

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past within quarantine has become muddled, and my present is restless.

Perhaps this is how I can step beyond myself as the dasein and leave this common sense of time. This common experience of time is inauthentic because it understands being qua being in relation to beings/entities; we have derived our concept of being from the entities instead of being in itself (p.268). Temporality in an authentic sense is finite (p.273), the dasein’s authentic perspective is brought about by the anxiety of death, by acknowledging our mortality. My qualm with Heidegger’s presentation of authentic time as starting with the recognition of morality or our finitude which is initiated by anxiety or dread of death is that this seems inauthentic itself. Why should we dread the truth? We are mortal beings and recognizing this fact surely is a catalyst for achieving authenticity— being true to one’s own self—but this anxiety needs to then be transformed into tranquility in order to truly acknowledge finitude in a meaningful sense, otherwise it will become a barrier to achieving true authenticity. Should we not feel liberated by acknowledging our mortality and live authentically by accepting this truth in spite of death? Anxiety of death must evolve into tranquility, a peaceful acceptance of the inevitable, in order to truly be authentic. This is because anxiety and dread oriented towards that which cannot be changed is useless and an inauthentic understanding of the object of our angst. If we truly accept death and finitude within ourselves then our understanding will be more authentic if we accepted it peacefully by recognizing that there is nothing to be done. Anxiety and dread of death seem to be an intermediate phase before we are truly authentic in tranquility towards death.

In my restless experience of COVID-19 my common time has become disoriented because the unity of past, present, and future has been disrupted. My future is more uncertain than it has ever been but recognizing this and accepting it has given me peace. I am authentically recognizing my mortality as a subject of the pandemic experience and transforming my angst in relation to the uncertain future into tranquility in relation to an inevitably and unavoidably uncertain future.

My experience of time is not filled with dread or anxiety, it is restless in the sense of a deepened unforeseen-ness but interestingly tranquil because I recognize and understand I have no meaningful control over this truth right now. COVID-19 has also sped up my journey to an authentic experience of time because it has proved to me without question how small we are. People are mortal, there is death all around me which is hard to ignore. I could face death, people I know could face death.

While there are cautionary measures one could (and should) take such as wearing a mask in public areas and excessive handwashing, there is nothing to be done about our inherent finitude. Our image of the invincible, rational creatures we are, has been shattered. Humans have tended to remove themselves from the natural: we create ‘artificial’ things, we are removed from instinctive reaction by rational deliberation. But we are natural, organic beings like all other animals. Our comfortable façade of immortality has been swept away by the tide of COVID-19. Is this a good thing? Why is authentic temporality intrinsically good? Was it ‘better’ to live in an inauthentic experience of temporality where death was removed from our understanding of time?

III) Emmanuel Levinas: Totality and Infinity Levinas’ concept of time is constructed around an ethics which is highly dependent on the Other and our relationship to them (p.220). We are always in social relations and have always been affected by the face of the other. He moves from the interior where the individual separates themselves and creates an interior space where life can be enjoyed and where they can be at home. We are removed from this interiority by the face of the other person. It is a relationship of mutual recognition and seen-ness where I become responsible and have a duty to respond to their call. Time is inherently

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inherently social, it depends on one’s relation to another, it is not the mere perpetuity of ‘now’ but one’s interaction and relation with the face of another (p.220). We are, in a way, simultaneously within and without the relationship with the other; being a part of it but not being consumed by it.

Independence is not about being self-caused because you are born by another. Freedom for Levinas is about anarchy, about a world without an origin (p.223). The temporal being is both independent and exposed to another being (p.224). The temporal being postpones the inevitable violence of death; to be temporal is to defer death. Thus, it is not from freedom which our understanding of time and temporality emerges, but out of time that our concept of freedom is created.

To death we say ‘not yet’ we know it will come one day but we push it away until tomorrow, and tomorrow we will push it yet again. I am resisting death. War and violence are what make death imminent now because, of course, we will all eventually die. But one wields a blade to cut down one’s remaining time in corporeality (p.225). My freedom consists in adjournment, in putting off death.

War and murder would be useless if the other were not postponing death, the aggressor intends to aid death in its pursuit of its resister. War and violence are necessarily aimed at the kind of entities which have this postponing relationship with death.

This view of one’s relationship with death and the postponement of the inevitable is quite interestingly applied to the case of COVID-19. In a sense, one cannot hold a shield against the blade of corona in the same way that one may defend themselves on a battlefield. Although masks and enhanced hygiene practices will help, it is not as though there is a face to this aggressor. COVID-19 is a faceless other which is attacking one’s postponement of death. To what end does it do this? Wars, although the bloodshed is unjustifiable, are often fought for obvious ‘reasons’ whether it be territory, power, resources, etc. but this virus is waging a war with no end. Although researchers are scrambling to find a vaccine, the virus is not some one face which we can all direct our anger towards in a meaningful sense. It is a cowardly killer. My freedom which consists in my ability to push death away from my soul is transformed in the context of a faceless killer. My delaying of the inevitable is carried out in a different fashion; there is no amount of training and mastery of a weapons which will help defend oneself from this foe, but it is our trust in one another’s mutual recognition of mortality. Because we each know one another to be mortal, we mutually respect our finitude and vulnerability and (in an ideal world) we go to lengths to protect one another by shielding our own faces.

So, our relationship to the other as the face is modified. We all become the same masked face. A face which removes one another from our comforting interiority out into the reality of our exterior vulnerability. We meld into one recognizable face consisting in a covered nose and mouth, with anxious eyes. We see ourselves in the faces of others. Our mutual vulnerability and mortality has been recognized and we depend on the other. Time is tracked not by our watches but by the duration for this particularized relationship to one another. How long will I see my masked face in the faces of others? How long will I have to maintain a distance from those others whom I see myself in so clearly? How long will this silent killer strike us down and keep us from one another? Time is measured by how we interact with one another. Our present consists in a distance of six feet, masked faces, and the smell of hand sanitizer. How long will this present last?

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Works Cited Heidegger, M. (1982). Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans by Albert Hofstadter. Indiana

University Press.

Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and Infinity, trans by Lingis. Duquesne University Press.

Nietzsche, F. (1998). On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic. Translated by Maudemarie Clark & Alan

J. Swensen. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company (Original work

published 1887).

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Temporal Fluidity and Disease-Time in Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey Meg Jianing Zhang

G

iven this paper’s interest in temporal fluidity, it only makes sense to begin at the end.

In the last episode of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, Parson Yorick finds himself in a matter of great delicacy. En route to Lyons, the peripatetic philosopher stops at a “little decent kind of an inn by the road side” (ASJ OUP 101). Eager to tuck in to his “supper,” a “good fire,” and his “bed-chamber,” Yorick is dismayed to learn he will have to share his lodgings with a prudish Lady from Piedmont and her servant girl (101). The room itself consists of “two good beds…and a closet within the room which held another” (101).

Tension arises when Yorick and the Lady must decide who is sleeping where, and of course, how they will uphold their good manners. During their meal, they draft up the following treaty: the right side of the bed-chamber, its cot closest to the fire, is naturally entrusted to the Madame. The canopy of her bed, transparent and flimsy, will be doctored with corking pins to preserve her modesty through the night. Monsieur Yorick is delegated to the other side of the room. He must sleep in his clothes, and not say a word besides his prayers after the candles are blown out. The lady’s fille de chambre is stuck with the “damp cold closet” (102).

As soon as they are enacted, these well-intentioned settlements promptly fall by the wayside. First, the sonic barrier is ruined by Yorick’s loud “ejaculation,” “O my God!” (104) after hours of tossing and turning, unable to sleep in his uncomfortable outerwear. Then the curtains, the physical boundary between the Madame and Monsieur, are torn asunder by the Lady, who is reasonably disrupted by Yorick’s verbal eruption. The twenty-year-old fille de chambre, in what can only be described as a Hail Mary effort at preserving decorum, creeps between Yorick and her mistress, and inserts her body as a partition. As the maid positions herself accordingly, Yorick reaches out, stretching his hand forward to reassure the Lady of his decency, when: “I caught hold of the Fille de Chambre’s” (104).

This is how Sterne’s final novel ends – not with a bang, or even a whimper. Unlike his nine-volume Tristram Shandy, whose plot seemingly goes on and on, and whose protagonist tells and re-tells the farcical trials and tribulations of his family, A Sentimental Journey ends after two volumes in medias res. Readers are not even privy to one of Sterne’s celebrated long dashes. The text’s conclusion, if such a word can be used in this case, seems empty, absent, and definitively indeterminate.

That is, until one considers the actual final words of A Sentimental Journey. Sterne’s unfinished novel ends not with the words, “Fille de Chambre’s,” but rather with the proclamation: “END OF VOL. II” (104).

Stitching these phrases together presents readers with a radically different ending, one

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whose ribald undertones are far more fitting for the Shandean scribe. Yorick, in his swift gesture of reassurance, catches “hold of the Fille de Chambre’s END.” In other words, in his attempt to affirm his gentle countenance, he instead fondles the young maid’s bottom.

How are readers to interpret this multi-faceted ending? On the one hand, Yorick’s journey across Continental Europe underwhelmingly ends here, the protagonist suspended with his hand stuck out in protest. On the other hand, Yorick lands his target perfectly, giving in once again to his temptations, reproducing ad infinitum the bawdy misadventures he inadvertently undertakes on his sentimental journey. Why does Sterne’s text end this way? And does the unfinished nature of the novel definitively terminate or forever prolong Yorick’s perambulatory encounters? To address these questions, this paper reads A Sentimental Journey with Sterne’s biography in mind, not to craft an analysis overwrought by historical circumstance, but to elucidate and incorporate Clark Lawlor’s notion of “disease-time.” Sterne’s life-long experiences with consumption and syphilis influenced not only the direction of his writing process, but that of his creations. A Sentimental Journey, with its unpredictable stops and starts, its bumpy carriage rides, and its ambiguously abrupt ending, embodies the principles of disease-time: irregularity, chronicity, interruption, and innovation.

One vector through which to explore the text’s ending is the author’s own ending. For the majority of his life, Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) was celebrated more for his sermons than for his creative fiction. Sterne held a long and relatively successful clerical position in a small parish in Yorkshire. It was only towards the end of his life that he slowly but surely produced what would become his magnum opus: the highly experimental, Rabelaisian, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Tristram Shandy was critically acclaimed during Sterne’s life, earning the author literary fame that transcended his reputation of vicar. Blatantly adopting the persona of one of the characters, Parson Yorick, Sterne published a collection of his sermons under the title, The Sermons of Mr. Yorick while he was still in London’s limelight. The fictional Yorick, who dies in Volume I of Tristram Shandy, not only reappears as a consequence of the novel’s non-linear storytelling but is wholly revived in the final years of Sterne’s life. Upon returning from his own travels in Southern France and the Mediterranean, Sterne planned to write four volumes of Yorick’s adventures: A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.

What was eventually published, however, was not only two of the four volumes, but merely Yorick’s experiences in Northern and Central France. What of Italy? What of the latter two volumes? Indeed, what inspired Sterne to write A Sentimental Journey is what ultimately prevented him from realizing his entire project.

The Advertisement in the first edition of A Sentimental Journey reads as follows: The Author begs leave to acknowledge to his Subscribers, that they have a further claim upon him for Two Volumes more than these delivered to them now, and which nothing but ill health could have prevented him, from having ready along with these The Work will be completed and delivered to the Subscribers early the next Winter (ASJ 1768; emphases added). 1 Sterne was unable to realize his intended four volumes because of his chronic illnesses.

After his two volumes were published in late February 1768, Sterne died three weeks later, bedridden in his flat on Bond Street, on the 18th of March. Sterne lived with tuberculosis, what was contemporarily known as consumption, for almost his entire adult life. And towards the end of his life, 1 I was surprised to discover that Ian Jack and Tim Parnell do not include this Advertisement at the beginning of their Oxford World’s Classics version. I would be interested to learn why the editors did not find it necessary to preface one of the most well-known unfinished works with Sterne’s own acknowledgement of its incompletion.

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he also suffered severely from what was likely the venereal disease, syphilis.

Like most well-to-do and ailing Englishmen of his time, Sterne retreated to Southern France and Italy for extended durations, believing that the good air and balmy climes would do his illness good.1 In his correspondences to his dearest friends, Sterne communicates the traumatic ruptures he experienced from consumption, his endless pursuits for treatment, and his eventual wasting away.

To John Hall-Stevenson, whom Sterne casts as “Eugenius” in both Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey, Sterne writes:

About a week or ten days before my wife arrived at Paris I had the same accident I had at

Cambridge, of breaking a vessel in my lungs. It happen’d in the night, and I bled

the bed full, and finding in the morning I was likely to bleed to death, I sent immediately

for a surgeon to bleed me at both arms – this saved me (Florida Sterne 285).

Sterne’s account of his tuberculosis to Hall-Stevenson disrupts modern readers’ conceptions of the disease. Consumption is not merely an illness that prompts its host to cough up a smattering of blood into her handkerchief, but rather a paroxysm-inducing curse that coerces its victim to drown in his blood.

To David Garrick, eighteenth-century London’s much-admired actor, Sterne stipulates:

I laugh ‘till I cry, and in the same tender moments cry ‘till I laugh. I Shandy it more than

ever, and verily do believe, that by mere Shandeism sublimated by a laughter-loving

people, I fence as much against infirmities, as I do by the benefit of air and climate (253).

From this excerpt, it is evident that for Sterne, healthy environments were not the only benefits of travelling. Instead, another means of healing derives from his own creation, “Shandeism,” which is to say, half-crazed, temporally disjunctive, hilarious, and highly suggestive moments of storytelling.

In order to heal, or at least to distract, Sterne laughs until he cries and simultaneously cries until he laughs. Through Yorick’s misadventures, Sterne encourages his readers to do the same.

To Eliza Draper, the wife of a member of the East India Company with whom Sterne was obsessed in the last year of his life, he laments:

…awoke in the most acute pain – Something Eliza is wrong with me – you should be ill

out of Sympathy – and yet you are too ill already (ASJ OUP 110).

Consumption significantly impacted Sterne’s physical ability to sit up and write. In The Journal to Eliza, which Sterne wrote at the same time as A Sentimental Journey, he describes days where he is so beleaguered that he can barely hold his pen and write his journal entries, let alone his creative fiction.

Though Sterne’s biography should never over-determine scholarly readings of A Sentimental Journey, it can be critically generative with the work of Clark Lawlor in mind. Lawlor primarily constrains what he calls, “disease-time” to Tristram Shandy (a work that explicitly outlines every character’s consumptive state). This paper argues that disease-time is equally, if not more, applicable to the production and development of Sterne’s last novel.

Lawlor emphasizes the irregularity and chronic nature of disease-time. For Sterne and his contemporary consumptives, there was no predictable progression for the disease. Sometimes tuberculosis would kill its host almost immediately. (A few decades down the line, the Romantic poet, John Keats, would endure the disease for only a year, before travelling to Rome and dying there at the young age of 25.) Sometimes, however, such as in the case of Sterne, consumption could last for 1

Sterne subscribed to a humoral approach to medicine, rather than to the germ theory paradigm we uphold today.

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a lifetime. Sterne lived with the disease for over three decades. Consumption, in other words, was a beast that could trot and gallop. Its host, more often than not, had little control over the reins.1 Disease-time, Lawlor notes, manifests in Sterne’s literature. Death appears in Tristram Shandy as a mistaken caller, never knowing the right time or place to call. Interactions with Death are not sombre or morbid. Instead, they are construed as awkward and embarrassing accidents (Lawlor, “Fashionable and Unfashionable Consumption” 55). Death may signify the end of narrative time, Lawlor explains (55). Yorick’s death in Tristram Shandy is marked with the novel’s signature black pages (Figures A and B in the Appendix). Scholars have argued tirelessly over the significance of these black pages. One reading is that death and disease command a sudden halt in narrative. Perhaps anticipating Yorick’s “end” in A Sentimental Journey, the black pages gesture toward an absence and termination of meaning. And yet, the narrative continues for eight more volumes after these black pages (with Yorick’s return). As Sterne’s revival of Yorick suggests, notions of death and disease are equally generative – not only in affirming Sterne’s self-narratives, but in crafting his literary production.

For Sterne, the diseases “worked” to construct both himself and his characters as men of sensibility and sentiment, in part, Lawlor explains, through “self-fashioning of his and his characters’ diseases and partly through the long historical discourse of genius and piety associated with consumption and melancholia” (Lawlor, “Fame and Fashionable Disease” 520). Sterne was regarded for wearing his black clerical robes on a regular basis. In a secular context, Sterne’s outfits participated in the culturally-celebrated narrative of the “Renaissance melancholic,” a figure creative, prolific, and pious in his literary pursuits (523). Yorick is likewise notorious of his sartorial singularities. He packs his “dozen shifts and a black pair of silk breeches” and his dark coat at the beginning of the novel as he sets sail for Calais (ASJ OUP 3). This exact wardrobe is reconjured in the novel’s last episode, “The Case of Delicacy.”

To return to the last episode of the novel, one of the reasons Yorick is able to sleep in the main chamber of the bedroom and not the closet is because of his consumptive cough, which he intentionally bolsters: “a damp cold closet, with a half-dismantled window shutter, and with a window which had neither glass or oil paper in it to keep out the tempest of the night. I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the lady gave a peep into it” (102; emphases added). There is some reason to believe that Yorick in A Sentimental Journey is as ill as he was in Tristram Shandy. And yet, Yorick does not waste away from the disease as he does in Tristram Shandy. In fact, he barely makes his condition know, unless of course, it can benefit him. In “The Case of Delicacy,” Yorick uses his terminal illness as a subtle means of getting a half-decent place to rest. Sterne turns a sombre idea, a disease that guarantees termination, into the very catalyst of bawdy mischief to come.

Disease-time is all about interruptions, stops and starts, circular motions, elusive temporalities, and temporal fluidities. Fully aware of the outcome of his consumption, Sterne uses his disease to bolster his reputation as a writer, and to cultivate Shandeism in his literary works, a quality that makes light of serious subjects, that celebrates the ridiculous, the ribald, and the mischievous.

As the inconclusive final episode of A Sentimental Journey demonstrates, endings in disease-time are simultaneously abrupt and unresolved, but also inexhaustibly signified. For both Sterne and Yorick then, disease and death are not temporal endpoints, but perpetual moments of hilarity, sentiment, and temporal potential.

1 In Illness as Metaphor, a work that compares of mythos of tuberculosis and cancer, Susan Sontag calls consumption a disease that “gallops.” Lawlor notes how incredibly fitting this description is in the case of Tristram Shandy, a work that is fixated upon the literal and metaphorical notions of hobby-horses.

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Appendix

Figures A and B: The Black Mourning Pages of Tristram Shandy, Vol. I (1759) Works Cited The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne. Volume VII: The Letters, Part I: 1739-1764.

Edited by Melvyn New and Peter de Voogd, University Press of Florida, 2009.

Lawlor, Clark. “‘Halfe Dead and rotten at the Coare my Lord!’: Fashionable and Unfashionable

Consumption, From Early Modern to Enlightenment,” Disease and Death in Eighteenth-

Century Literature and Culture, edited by A. Ingram and L.W. Dickson, Springer, 2016.

Lawlor, Clark. “Laurence Sterne, Fame and Fashionable Disease,” Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 40, no. 4, 2017, pp. 519-535.

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. 1st ed, Printed for T. Becket

and P.A. De Hondt, in the Strand, 1768. ECCO. Accessed 10 March 2021.

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings. Edited by Ian Jack and Tim

Parnell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Creative and Other Works

Time-ing

William Hunt

T

here is an extremely obvious, immanent wisdom in the common, almost dismissive, saying, “time moves faster when you are having fun.” It plays itself out inversely when the last minutes of an unfulfilling task grind by, or in its full positivity when an ending is repeated “one last time.” There is a sense that each ordinary, colloquial action plays out its own temporality; it is its own time-ing. This could be said in three different ways: (1) The first is as a gerund, where ‘time’ experiences an auto-affection in and as the action/ material in question. This could also be expressed as rhythmic singularity. (2) The second is the sense of the colloquial saying (something like), “timing is everything.” We could call this sense something like “rhythmic coordination” — the necessary involvement of rhythmic singularities. Between these two senses, time immanently times itself, or time is its own time-ing. (3) The third sense of time-ing is a way of immanently referring to both (1) and (2). It is the heat, the glow, the glimmering multiplicity of rhythmic singularity and coordination, yet it is not a set of all sets or a transcendental container of the immanent. It is the third sense of time-ing only sequentially, and in effect flattens the first two senses as the idem-potency (0+0+0+0...=0) of this ordinary time. We could say that this third sense is what Gilles Deleuze calls “aion.” This time is not the present, but runs through all time, soaking or saturating it: “Aion is the eternal truth of time: pure empty form of time, which has freed itself of its present corporeal content and has thereby unwound its own circle, stretching itself out in a straight line.” Listening to two minutes of John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space is different from listening to two minutes of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Two Part Inventions; waiting for the kettle to boil when you are late for an appointment is very different from boiling the kettle for a cup of tea before beginning to type these words. Time-ing (3) runs steadily, abstractly, through each of these scenarios and these words that describe them.

In his book A Philosophy of Sports, Stephen Connor compellingly situates the struggle between two teams in terms of rhythmic coordinations or interferences. He writes: “The struggle against the other team is really a struggle against their time. One side struggles to accelerate time by gaining advantage. If I am 3—0 ahead, I will have wound the clock forward, starving the other team of the time available to them by increasing the work that they must do in it” (76). Given this conceptualization, Connor then places us in a rugby match at a point where one player is attempting to tackle another player, and the latter is attempting to avoid the former. This relation is reciprocal in that the tackling-player is also attempting to avoid this avoidance, etc.; each player is both fully embodying their own rhythm and anticipating their interlocutor’s. There is a differential relation that plays out between them, which could be notated as dx/dy — the change in x determining itself in relation to the change in y. Connor writes that, “the space of play was puckered together in one

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point and stretched out in another [sic].” As infinitesimal singularities (0/0) that determine each other, the two sides of the relation never actually coincide or fall together. As Connor continues his description, he begins to follow a presupposition that betrays the immanence of time-ing: “The field of play winks and shimmers, opening and closing, actual and virtual, with these wrinkles and pockets of opportunity.” What interests me here is the use of the terms “actual” and “virtual.” It seems like Connor is conflating the idea of the “virtual” with what he later describes as the “plentitude of original possibility.” Here, Connor is presupposing the immanent real by means of the possible.

When Gilles Deleuze develops an idea of the actual and the virtual, it is precisely this presupposition which he is trying to escape. In Difference and Repetition he writes that the possible is “understood as an image of the real, while the real is supposed to resemble the possible... Such is the defect of the possible: a defect which serves to condemn it as produced after the fact, as retroactively fabricated in the image of what resembles it.” The possible is thought of as the means by which the real becomes real (a series of possibilities where one passes into actuality), but the defect is that these possibilities are determined retroactively in the real...the possible presupposes the real, constantly displacing the latter and subordinating it to a conceptual identity. The introduction of the virtual and the actual, in place of the possible and the real, eliminates this defect in that the virtual is fully real insofar as it is virtual. If Connor’s description of the field of play as “actual and virtual” is conflating “virtual” with possible or potential (even in whatever colloquial sense), then he is framing the differential relation between the players (dx/dy) as already fully determined, relegating their actions to a retroactive integration or differentiation of the determined function. In Dialogues, Deleuze distinguishes between the actual and the virtual: “This distinction between the virtual and the actual corresponds to the most fundamental split in time, that is to say, the differentiation of its passage into two great jets: the passing of the present and the preservation of the past.” Following Henri Bergson,1 this thought of the actual and the virtual locates the past as immanent to the present . Connor’s invocation of the “plentitude of original possibility” presupposes the real present (time-ing) and determines a future in advance in the form of an image of possibilities, however multiplicitous, when really, and this is the pleasure of playing, the function actualizes itself as rhythmic singularities by means of the virtuality of the past that is immanent to the present (time-ing 1 and 2). In the “wink” and “shimmer” of the relation (dx/dy), the change in the variables reciprocally determine each other, not as a derivation but as the actuality of the function. This is not a matter of mathematical metaphor, but rather a thought of calculus in its etymological sense, from Latin meaning a “small pebble” used for calculation or measurement. In this sense, possibility can be seen in its defects: I could swallow the pebbles, they could disappear or turn into a cup of coffee. The more important idea here is probability. In a calculus (etymologically), rhythmic singularities (1) are always rhythmic coordinations (2) in the sense that the determination of a relation is a para-meter (a measuring beside) where virtual probability allows for an assumption of stability—the rules of a game, creative traditions, my assumption that the pebbles will not spontaneously divide themselves, my assumption that I will wake up tomorrow. We could say that training or practice is a familiarization with these probabilities such that new problematics can be developed and actualized in real, immanent time (time-ing). Improvisation could here be posed as the para- metrical stance or calculus of acting. This stance occurs in and as time-ing (1-3) but is distinguished as a different use or play of the latter: on a plane of immanence everything is everything, and yet at the same time I can find joy in a particular tempo, or sonic/ visual arrangement.

1 Deleuze will describe these as three linked paradoxes: the contemporaneity of the past with the present that it was; the coexistence of the past with the present; the pre-existence of the past with the present.

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Time-ing

John Coltrane’s 1964 A Love Supreme is an example of this stance and, I want to claim, constructs a superposition of time and love. The final track “Psalm,” is itself a differential relation that opens a space of resonance and becoming, in which one is alone — together in thought and material, the entire body winks and shimmers. In the liner notes, Coltrane tells us that the track is “a musical narration of the theme, A Love Supreme which is written in the context; it is entitled ‘Psalm.’” In the recording Coltrane plays a melody that rhythmically coordinates with (narrates) the syllabic rhythm of the textual theme, dividing his voice between language, in its inscriptive signification, and the human phonē, in its a-signifying sonic register. To read the text (or to know it) and listen to its narration together is to take up an improvisational stance and join the calculus that Coltrane(’s band) actualizes. The textual theme proposes an idea of immanence, but one that is different that of time-ing, as it is located in God. Coltrane writes: “Words, sounds, speech, men [sic], memory, thoughts, fears and emotions —time— all related...all made from one...all made in one.” He continues, “thought waves-heat waves-all vibration - all paths lead to God. Thank you God.” I cannot help but to read this list of singularities as progressive: (1)the words that we are reading; (2)the sounds through which they are narrated; (3)the speech that is divided between the previous two and superimposed back onto each other non-cumulatively; (4)the singular human being and its experience of memory, thoughts, fears, emotions; (5)a textual line of “—time—…” in our context this could be rewritten as “time-ing.” The space of resonance that Coltrane’s playing/recording and writing opens is not something to be looked at, or even listened to. Rather, it is a radically open extension of the indeterminate calculus, where words, sounds, humans (rhythmic singularities), superpose onto each other, retaining their absolute singularity while simultaneously contemplating the immanence that undermines all difference...love...— time—...time-ing...0+0+0+0+...=0...idem-potency...

Gilles Deleuze attempts to outline a similar space in his final writing, “Pure Immanence: A Life....” He writes, “the Life of the individual gives way to an impersonal and yet singular life that releases a pure event freed from the accidents of internal and external life, from the subjectivity and objectivity of what happens: a ‘Homo Tantum’ [human only or human-as-such] with whom everyone empathizes and who attains a sort of beatitude.” There is no secret to John Coltrane’s time-ing.

It is freed from any concept of internality and externality and as such plays with itself, between composition, improvisation, reading, writing, listening, etc. However, the absolutely singular openness of both time and love that Coltrane expresses is not only found in his playing: even the rhythmic coordination of the sonorous and the visible (in headphones, in screens, in impairment, in work, in the ordinary, everyday, etc.) is undermined in its pure immanence by its own time-ing and by its own love-ing. As Amiri Baraka puts it in Black Music: “but what is the object of John Coltrane’s ‘Love’...

There is none. It is the sake of Loving.”

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Subject Line: Special Consideration for Time Difference Seavey van Walsum Hello Professor, I noticed on Quercus you posted the due date for Essay Number 3 as April 2nd. I was wondering if there is a way to change this to accommodate my time zone?

I look forward to your email!

S he/they __________ Dear S, The University recognises that online schooling in these unprecedented times is exceptionally difficult for students in different time zones, so we are offering extensions for those in foreign countries.

The essay is due April 2nd at 11:59 EST, however, you can find the timetable with a proportionate extension for each time zone on the class website. Please communicate this with your TA. Saheem they/them _________ Hi Professor!

Thank you for the resource, I won’t be able to use it though!

I was actually directed to talk to you by my TA since my case is unusual.

I am an online international student but I’m in the testing program for inter-galactic students.

They are still working out the appropriate coding, but the servers are allowing “instantaneous” online connection between galaxies. Cool, right! (It’s not actually instantaneous though, there’s a delay) I’m doing online school from the M81 group, which is 12 million light years from Earth.

I was also asking about the deadline since I genuinely have no idea what date it would be for me.

All the Best, S he/they _____

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Subject Line: Special Consideration for Time Difference

Dear S, That is an exceptional case. I thought that program was cancelled back in 1989, but it seems whatever delay between 1989 and 4000 P.A. has allowed the Colonies to arrange for it. Of course, the university is willing to adapt for its students.

I will forward your email to the Physics & Space Department head at the University to see if we can work out a solution.

Thanks, Saheem they/them _____ Greetings Saheem and S, I am delighted to be part of this conversation!

S’s case is indeed unusual since most of our inter-space students are from Mars or the Andromeda Galaxy. Universities across Earth are working out a system of uniform multiversal time at the moment, but they’ve been at it for the past few Earth years so I wouldn’t hold my breath. The autonomous planets refuse to use the position of Sol (Earth’s illuminating star) as a baseline, saying they won’t alter themselves for their once-coloniser. Which is a bit annoying, since we know the most about the Milky Way out of any other galaxy.

For the moment there’s nothing concrete in place, so it looks like we’ll work on a case-by-case basis. I presented the issue to my grad students, two of whom are from Mars. One of my Martian students (Is that how the correct term nowadays? I know the past connotations are negative, but my students self-identify with that term) has an auntcle bordering the M81 cluster and says that certain planets are trying to perform mass-altering maneuvers to have an experience of time similar to Earth’s and better stimulate internet-trading. I am not optimistic about this either, given the length of time construction projects usually take. I also know nothing about the tech they have out there.

S, I’m not sure what planet you are on in the M81 group, but have you considered transferring to a university closer to you? As I understand it, the four Earth years it takes to complete undergrad would age you a significant number of body-years to the point where you are geriatric. (Assuming you’re human and your planet has artificial gravity) My best advice at the moment is that you use Sol’s position as a baseline (you can find the specific ‘time’/position linked on this live website), or that S transfers universities.

Sincerely, G. Ryou-Moon, PhD Head of Physics and Space Department no pronouns ____ Hello Dr. Ryou-Moon and Professor Saheem, Sol as a baseline is fine.

I appreciate your concern Dr. Ryou-Moon, however, I am committed to attending this Earth university for private reasons. Your concern about my age is unwarranted, as was your assumption about my race. One of my parents is an E.T.P. (Extra-terrestrial Person) so I age slower and process time at a different rate.

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Please do not press about the biology of my body, even for science. It’s been done enough, and I pay enough international fees to expect basic respect.

Thank you!

S they/him P.S. Professor Saheem, the planets are no longer colonies and don’t really appreciate being called that. There are thousands of preferred terms, so I can’t give you a basic one. _____ Dear S, Thank you for your email, I was not aware. I don’t believe Dr. Ryou-Moon meant anything negative, either. I appreciate your gracious spirit in pointing this out with gentleness.

Perhaps you would like to be a professor one day.

The deadline is in 13 Sol days, please note there will be a difference between the position of Sol’s axis and equator. I have copied your TA, Zahavah, on this.

Saheem Dhanial, PhD they/them ____ Hi Professor Dhanial, S (or Ṣ̶) and Doctor Genk Ryou-Moon!

I’m Zahavah, a PhD candidate working with Professor Dhanial at this time!

I want to add what Ṣ̶ was saying about preferred terms.

Martian is the preferred term! I myself am a Martian-Earther and an active member of the Martian Liberation movement, and Step 1 is destigmatizing terms the colonizers perverted! :) I’m happy we can all be working constructively on this unprecedented project! In related news, Ṣ̶ and I think we have enough ideas for a book the university may be interested in publishing! The topic is on Time-politics and Internet-trading among the student body!

Obviously, we’ll narrow it down as we go, but we’d like to set up a meeting first.

Best!

Zahavah Spivak pronouns: ey/em/eirs __________ Hello all!

I’m happy to see ey got added to the email chain!!

I think a meeting’s a good idea, but the issue of time comes up again. :( If we move forward, I think it would be most beneficial to be at least within the same galaxy!

The University Press has expressed interest in publishing. I think both Zahavah and I would like Professor Saheem Dhanial to oversee the project, does that sound ok?

All the best! Ṣ̶, he/they

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Hello S (S̸? Is that preferred?) and Zahavah, I’d be pleased to oversee the project. Unfortunately, the earliest we can start is next fall. (S̸̱, See link to Sol time) I can’t speak to what the university is willing to endorse in terms of travel, but I advise you to reach out to the Bursar’s office.

Best, Saheem Dhanial, PhD they/them Sent from my iPhone ______ Hi Professor Dhanial and Ṣ, I sent an application for funds already. The decision will be here shortly!

All the best!

Zahavah, PhD Candidate Spivak pronouns: ey/em/eirs P.S. Ṣ̶, is an example of the pidgin language in the autonomous planets. It endures today as a legally unrecognised language. _________ Greetings Saheem, You must be very proud of your students!

Zahavah and S, specifically. I am honoured to be a part of the diverse student body and faculty of this university, as well as the rich intellectual community the institution curates. I am willing to acknowledge that S and Zahavah are a part of that. For the comfort of my students, I consistently accommodate all preferences and orientations with an exhaustive amount of tolerance.

However, sometimes this is still not considered enough for certain individuals. For example, my remarks were misinterpreted into a significantly more “bigoted” way by your students. So I felt that I should remind you that if you collaborate with them your position is vulnerable. I myself am not bothered by their accusations, because I know they are reactive and false, but it is apparent any particular action might feed the victimisation narrative your students have.

At the very least, I suggest you do not research with two people from colonized planets, since their sense of victimhood feeds off one another. Evidently, S and Zahavah already seem to have their own, predetermined, separate goal. I advise you to replace one of them with a native Earther.

Students are free to live their lifestyle, but sometimes that lifestyle comes at the unfair cost of good professors.

Sincerely, G. Ryou-Moon, PhD Head of Physics and Space Department no pronouns _______

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Hi Genk, I appreciate your thoughts.

Whatever relationship of “feeding off each other” they have yields results.

I’ll manage, Saheem Sent from my iPhone ______ Hello Professor Dhanial and Ṣ̶, The University approved Ṣ̶, for enough funds to reach a galaxy 2 million light years away from Earth!!!!!

There’s a printing station closer, but I’m afraid the signal might not reach from the M81 groups.

Studies show that when we try to reprint on a weak signal there are aberrations.

All the best!

Zahavah! ey/em __________ Zahavah, Is it possible to reach the closer station? At the rate you age we may not be able to finish our research by the time I get there.

S ____________ S

You might not be the same on the other side. It’s not a risk I’m comfortable with bearing the responsibility of.

Best, Zahavah ____________ Dear Zahavah, How old will you and the professor be by the time I get printed there, and reprinted closer, then reprinted again on Earth? You might be dead by then. Won’t the many reprints change me enough anyways?

Please rethink the plans, S _____ No. Please think of how I’d feel, writing up the plans Th̸̨̛er̶̩͗e’̴s̶ ̶̨̛n̶̓ǒ ̶̨̂g̖̎ú̴a͂r̵̈́anṱ̸͂ḛ́ͅȅ̵̃ ̱̉̍ỳ̍ő̶ư̴’̶̗̈́d̵ ̴ê̸v̸e̴n̸͂ ̸̦̃̀k̸̓̅ͅn̄o̵̥̲w͂ ̶ẘ̵h̵o Ḭ ̴ấ̵ṃ́ö̶̧n̸c̵̥ẹ̴y̶̨ö̵u̴g̵e̶̴ r̸ep̵ͅř̵í̸̮ṇ̴̋̀ţȅ̴d long ranget̴.

Zahavah

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Subject Line: Special Consideration for Time Difference

Of course I’d still know who you are. How could you even say that?

Ṣ̶ _________

If you want it done, I won’t be the one to do it. ________ Hello Doctor Rhyou-Moon!

My name is S, I believe we conversed a few Earth months ago. I contacted you because I received funding to travel to Earth, but due to the rate my colleagues age, I require access to long-range reprinting. You have the authority to rewrite the plans. I’ve attached the current travel docs, but I was hoping you’d be able to reschedule the ticket to this station.

I am aware of the possible and likely complications, and I’ve signed a liability contract. (See attached) Best, S ________ Greetings S, I’d be pleased to reschedule this for you, and because of my interest in this project, I will personally pay the difference.

In return, I ask that you please record the effects of this long-range print.

I’m interested to see what happens to you.

Sincerely, G. Rhyou-Moon, PhD Head of Physics and Space Department No pronouns _________ S,

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE. DO NOT RESPOND. A change has been made to your ticket under the authorization of Doctor Genk Rhyou-Moon.

See the revised copy attached.

Zahavah, Ỉ ́w̃í̵̭ͅļ̶̈̄̒l̶ ̵b̴̦̉̈́̓̎̋ͅe ̂ͅŵ͗́ḯ̴̧̖t̶̥ĥ ̸y̴ͅȏͅų ̴́̀̌͂̄ͅs̸ô̶̦̯̮̩ơ̸̥ͅ​ͅn,̶ ̶̧̌m̶̧y ̵̧̹st̍̒ą̥̩̊̀ͅr̴̛̤p2 Ṣ _________ Sr̵̨̛ͅ,̴̨̎ͅ w̸̓h̴aţ̵ ̵̩h̴ȃ̵̋ͅv̸èͅ​ͅ ̴ȳ̸ǫ̶̱u ̴̧ͅd̶̊̓̌̍ó̸̧ṋ̶̱̗̃̎̏̅͂̉ͅế̸̛?

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Long May You Run

Morgan Zeina Mae and I used to run between the long stretches of crops. Our toes hit on the paths of dirt warmed by the June sun. When we spotted the perfect amount of red on a strawberry, accompanied by a dark green top, it was plucked. Crutching behind the tall stems of the tomatoes growing, we would devour the fruit, hoping grandma couldn’t spot us from the house.

The phone rings in the darkness of my room. I reach my hand out from the blanket and search the nightstand for it.

Putting the phone to my ear I say “Hello?” First silence, and then gentle sobs broke.

“Jane?” It was Mae. I began to sit up and turned on the bedside lamp.

“You need to come home. Something happened with Grandma.”

I didn’t want to think it was possible, but giving her age, I should’ve known it was coming.

My first encounter with death was just after my sixth birthday. It was late spring and my parents brought Mae and I to visit Grandma. While they sat inside and talked over coffee, Mae and I ventured outback. Her property was surrounded by Douglas Fir’s, so old to the land that the tops were impossible to see from the ground. Our rainboots squished in the mud, but we continued and laughed at the sounds our shoes made. We headed for the garden, hoping to see how much the carrots had grown since we last saw them. But there it was. Sprawled out with its mouth open enough to see its small white teeth, it’s brown eyes wide open, chest sunken in. The brown body of a rabbit stretched across the carrot stems. First, we screamed as we ran back to the house, and then once we caught our breath and told everyone, we cried. While Dad went to take care of it, Grandma rubbed out backs as we cried at the kitchen table.

When we started to calm down she offered, “Things will be alright. It happens every day.

To people, to animals.” She headed to her wall and took down a wooden decoration. A wheel of four colours.

“You see, these four colours? They represent many things. Each one of them is the stages of life. These four colours, white, yellow, red, and black, well they represent birth, youth, adulthood, and death. Eventually, we will be just like the rabbit and make it to the end of the circle.” Though she knew we understood, Grandma could always sense when things were wrong.

“How would you girls like some bannock?”

The drive up north was close to six hours. In this treacherous winter, it could be close to eight. When I told Grandma I was moving to the city, she smiled and reached her arms out to hug me.

She whispered, “As long as this isn’t goodbye.”

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As I got older, and our visits less frequent, I could feel the slow deterioration of her body.

Each hug is more fragile than the last. Her once dark skin became slightly paler, and her hair was entirely white like the snow I was currently driving through.

Grandma’s was situated on the outskirts of town. Down a dirt road, and surrounded by deep woods, it was nearly impossible to find unless you knew what you were looking for.

I pulled into the long drive, darkened by the branches of trees intertwining themselves with each other. Ahead, flashes of red and blue beckoned me to speed up. Four cop cars scattered themselves along the front of the house. Police walked along the property, some with clipboards and faces of concern, and others spoke into walkie talkies. I found somewhere to park the car, and got out.

Passing an officer I say, “I’m sorry, what is going on here? This is my grandma’s, where is she?”

Before I could get an answer, Mae came running out from the house. “Jane, come in, hurry up.”

Mae and I were always told as kids to stay where we could be seen and to never go past the tree line alone. Past the trees that looked like they held hands, keeping us from what was behind, was the blind river.

We were lucky enough one summer to have our parents take us on a trip to the city. We explored the museums, the big mall, and took a boat across the lake to an island where we went on rides. I remember feeling so small while I was there. And by the time we got back home I realized it was the first time I noticed the sign of Blind River. The one that states the town population.

“Dad,” I asked, “Why is it called Blind River?” Like many of the questions I ever asked, they were met with answers of unknowingness.

But he surprised me and said “Biniwaabikong. It means, ‘at the fallen rock.’”

“What rock fell Dad?” He and my mom laughed, “It’s just that unlike most rivers, the blind river here, you can’t really see the mouth of it. And because of its smooth sloping rock face along the river, is what fell. It didn’t really fall, but back in the olden days, it’s what the voyagers described it as. And they built the town at the mouth of the river.”

Mae pulled me inside, where nothing had changed. Grandma still had nowegian wood in every room, and everything smells of incense. Mom sat at in the living room, her stare fixated out the wall length windows that gave view of the backyard. She was wrapped in a grey quilt, her black hair, now populated in hints of silver, was thrown up with no intention of being neat. Though she was silent, her stance seemed the loudest in the room. I joined her on the couch with Mae following.

“Mom, are you okay?”

I got no response, and only a nudge from Mae in the side of my thigh.

“You’d think after so many years of telling you girls to not go past the trees, it would’ve been embedded in her memory.”

The three of us watched out the window as officers scattered themselves along the property, coming in and out of the tree line.

“Jane, look!” Mae pointed to a brown rabbit eating grass by the trees.

“Do you think I can catch it?” She asked. “I don’t know Mae, just leave it alone.”

Before I noticed, Mae was off to catch the rabbit, and her pink raincoat got lost in the tangles of the trees.

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“Mae no, come back,” I called out. I waited a moment for an answer, and looked up to Grandma’s house to see if anyone was watching. What was beyond the trees was unknown to both of us, but it was better that I hurried to find her, than to waste time getting mom or dad.

“Jane, you’re home,” Dad had just come in from talking with an officer. His hair was now entirely grey, and his clothes were noticeably wrinkled. He was tired in a way I’d never seen.

“Is everything okay Dad?” I hoped that maybe he would at least be more willing to talk than mom. He gestured for me to follow him back outside to the front porch.

“You guys are really freaking me out, where is Grandma?” I zipped up my coat, blocking my chest from the cold of the winter winds, and pulled my toque on my head.

“She’s not the same as she was Jane. She got worse, we even hired extra help after we moved in. Everyday it was something. She couldn’t hold her spoon, she didn’t want to bathe, and then she stopped talking,” he turned away from me and watched for a moment as the cops continued to converse with one another.

“The one time we leave her on her own for just a few minutes, she goes.”

Grandma’s forest was large, and at that age it was easy to get lost. The branches were too close, and the way they touched made it impossible to see the sky. In the darkness of the day, I ran in the direction the wind and rain was blowing in. I kept calling out her name, so loud and for so long that my chest hurt. I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. My cheeks felt tired, the way they do when you blow up too many balloons. I called out her name again, waiting to hear her little voice call back. But the moments passed, and I began to cry. I sat on the floor of the woods, and felt my legs being poked at by fallen pine needles. I had my head down as I wiped my tears, though they never felt like they’d stop. But the sound of a crunch up ahead made me look up. A small brown bunny, like the one Mae a had left to chase after, sat below a tree up ahead. It stared at me with its black eyes, and then turned away and ran away, so I hurried to follow it.

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on with her?” I tried my best not to be mad at my dad, but I felt like the time away from home made me a stranger to this place and the people here. Sometimes I could feel like who I was, had drifted out of my body, and the ghost of me was out there somewhere. I had spent the past four years surrounded by concrete, and buildings so tall that down some streets, it was impossible to see the sky. As the school year got busier, I also stopped going to meetings with Native Student Association.

“You’re busy with school Jane, it is what you should be focusing on. We have this covered, or at least we thought. It’s not easy here. We try our best to keep up with you, to make sure Mae is doing alright, but above all, I have to make sure your grandma is well. For not just you, your sister, or me, but your mom. She has barely eaten, and her sleep is worse. It took so long for us just to convince her to stay inside, and to let the cops find her.” My dad sat down on the porch steps, taking his toque off and rubbing his balding head.

I sat down and joined him, “I’m sure she feels helpless. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t find one of you. Especially in those woods.”

I hadn’t been chasing the bunny for long before I could see the river and reached the clearing. I could see Mae in her pink coat stuck in the mud. Her arms flailing, she was sinking along the bank of the river.

“Mae, stay still!” I ran as fast as I could to reach her, and could hear her crying over the light rushing of the water. The bank of the river was muddy, stepping into it my boots quickly sunk down. I pulled up one leg at a time to get to where Mae was. My arms were outstretched and ready

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to grab her small body and try my best to bring her back to solid ground. She tried her best to turn her body to me, but could only twist her torso. Her little face was covered in tears, and the ponytail that held up her brown hair was drenched from the rain.

When I finally made it close enough to grab her, I held tight onto her arm, “You have to get on my back.” I pulled my legs up to turn around so she could get on.

“I can’t move Jane, my feet are stuck.”

“Just take off your boots, hurry,” I said holding her.

I waited as she slipped out her one foot, and grabbed onto my back, and then bent my knees so she could hold on with both hands. When she got on, I hoisted her up, and felt exhausted as I carried us away from the bank. We almost reached it when we could hear our parents and Grandma calling our names. Mae called back to them, but I had no breath to do the same. I could see as they finally made it out from the darkness and to us just at the edge of the bank. My mom grabbed Mae off my back, and my dad pulled me up and put me back down where there was no mud. He went past me into the mud to grab Mae’s shoes out. As mom held Mae close to her chest, my Grandma looked at me barely worried. I made my way to her, scared that she would lecture me about what happened, but she hugged me and whispered in my ear, “Tell Mae no more running after rabbits.”

We didn’t have much else to say to each other. So we sat and watched as the sun started to rise, and the cops continued to roam the property. I turned and looked through the glass front door and saw my mom hadn’t moved. Her head was still focused out the back windows, and Mae had fallen asleep next to her.

“Dad, you should go make some coffee for Mom.” He nodded and got up.

“Maybe you should come in Jane, it’s cold.”

“Yeah, in just a second,” I waited till he got inside, and left the porch. The cops really couldn’t do much. It was a difficult piece of property to get a good sense of. Even in the yard where the sun hits perfectly enough to get the crops to grow, and the flower beds to flourish, there was the feeling that the trees would swallow you whole. I made my way past the snow covered crops, and watched as the snow started to fall around me, and continued to the forest. I walked aimlessly through the woods, hoping that maybe my body would remember the way to the river. But the world was silent around me, and I tried my best to hear the crack of the ice or the whistle of the wind. I just kept going, trying my best to keep my mind cleared from all the thoughts that a person in this situation should have.

I kept my head down, watched my feet step in fresh snow, until the ground underneath it felt soft. I looked up and had made it to the river. The sky was a mix of grey and blue, and the sun tried its best to puncture through the clouds it was hidden behind. Certain parts of the river were topped by pieces of ice, but for the most part I watched as small ripples ran through the water.

Though I tried my best to keep it together this whole time, I finally felt my body break down. I knelt on the snowy bank, holding my shoulders as I sobbed. She was gone, there was no chance I’d ever have the chance to say goodbye to her. To hold my favourite person one more time, to kiss the top of her head, and hold her hand and admire the ring from my grandfather on her finger. I wished for another summer day in her kitchen, making strawberry jam and relish, while listening to her Beatles records. Everything about her began to plunge through my mind, and for a moment it almost felt like I could feel her arms hugging my back and wrapping around my chest.

It felt so real I opened my eyes and turned around to see her. She looked blurry through my tears,

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so I wiped them dry, but she wasn’t there. I heard something move at the edge of the tree line and looked for what it was. I got myself up, my knees were soaked and felt frozen to the bone. There it was. A small brown bunny that rested near the base of a tree. It looked at me and didn’t blink its black eyes. My eyes started to fill up, but I wiped them and smiled.

“Goodbye Grandma.”

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Today, 2020

Seavey van Walsum everyday Beige sludge smudges memory like sand sifting out from under the tracks I can no longer tell if today is grey, just as yesterday was a monotone buzz Just as the first day my reptilian legs found solid ground Or just as the day I was born – the first time around – was Positive splits and productivity spirals Kronos treads onward and our Trends tip downward with environmental stress We procrastinate, decrastinate, acrastinate, or whatever we do now– there is no end objective; pleasure’s point’s superfluous when everyday You wake up and it’s the same 24 hours everyday Your pay is scaled back and all you do is watch everyday You log onto Your job in bed and You can’t enjoy the scandal everyday You wait for a blip to send You a relief check everyday You notice You’re on 30% capacity (all You ever asked for was Time; here are wet, digested bushels of it) everyday Beige sludge smudges memory like sand sifting out from under the tracks I can no longer tell if today is grey, just as yesterday was a monotone buzz Or just as the day my reptilian legs found solid ground

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Or just as the day I was born -the first time around- was Great moons rise and drag one another out, bending each gravitational route

Aion is scrambling, and twisting about folding back and sticking together in fat, waxy ribbons, it’s the end of the knot I can’t

find I diffuse, sink in, become saturated by it There is no objective; boundaries are superfluous when everyday I wake up having sieged Troy in the night, (a hollow steed atop my neck gets me there) everyday I feel fiery dust collects behind my occipital bone everyday, I see a man roll back a thunderous stone everyday, I feel the first strands of genetic material wind up under my fingernails everyday, I see the burning streamer flung at us, half masticated ferns hanging out my mouth, everyday now I sit in a clean room which smells of sanitizer and tulips All the knowledge of the human world beneath a chrome-brushed tablet I am as autonomous as my tools everyday– Kairos, like a windchime, Breaks up inertia with cool notes, the music flutters outside my window.

Kids are standing below. finding a rubber cherry ball in cedar shrubs Today, They are playing kickball with their dad Yesterday, I think I heard them play the same game, doesn’t it get repetitive?

Now, Ta-da! The ball is found, triumphant shrieks fly up, even from the child that can’t talk yet Their smiles don’t wear masks. They should be more scared than they are, I think. They

should be aware of the crumbling parts of the world, I think. They should

have an idea, I thin– an Idea–

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Today, 2020

I put on shoes.

And go outside where the sky is spread out. In theory it scared me but now, I feel alright

now, like it’s not all happening all at once.

The windchimes sing out again The time is right the time is wrong; But the time is written and it is drawn the time is the moment and that is Kairos; This is all the moments that have ever been and is therefore, in some variant, the right one

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Special thanks to: The Department of Literature and Critical Theory, The Centre for Comparative Literature, Professor Shaun Ross, Professor Atsuko Sakaki, and Victoria College.

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Literature and Critical Theory Student’s Union 2020-2021 President Vice President Events Coordinator Treasurer Journal Editor Communications Coordinator Communications Coordinator Lower-Year Rep

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Maia Harris Michel Minze Mikayla Oliver Cassandra Hartmann Ellen Grace Parsons Neve Ostry Young Omar Hadi Emily Kim

LCT Journal 2021