Foundation XI 2019

Vol. XI

2019

No. 1

Foundation Edited and Compiled by St Chad’s College Middle Common Room

Editors: Helena Heald, Grégoire Payen de La Garanderie, and Sophie Pinto Assisted by: James Edwards and Frederik Seidelin

For copyright and usage information, please contact the Editorial Board via the Principal of the College: Dr Margaret Masson St Chad’s College 18 North Bailey Durham DH1 3RH

ISSN 1752-0398

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elcome to another edition of Foundation, the research journal of St Chad’s College. It offers a glimpse into the rich and diverse intellectual life that is such a distinctive and enjoyable feature of life at this College. Some of these papers first found expression as presentations in our regular postgraduate research forums, which help to set the bar for the kind of multidisciplinary, searching and supportive community of scholars we aspire to be here at St Chad’s.

As is clear from the contributors to this journal, this is not just an endeavour for our postgraduate students. In amongst the contributions from members of our Middle Common Room, we have an article from one of our SCR members, Beth Cooper — who has also been a member of both JCR and MCR — as well from one of our newest members, Eugene Williams, a current first year student. Subject matter ranges across the disciplines of economics, education, music, literature, aesthetics and anthropology, and we move between studies that are rigorously technical and scholastic to research that is contemporary, contextualised and applied.

While these papers are formal pieces of academic research, and impressive and informative each in its own way, they also represent the tip of the iceberg — the countless conversations and debates in our dining room, bar, libraries and gardens about all manner of topics which are all part of the daily fabric of the life of College and core to our identity and purpose as a multi-generational multi-disciplinary community of learning.

I hope you enjoy the contents of this year’s journal. If you would like to be more involved in the intellectual life of St Chad’s, do get in touch.

Margaret Masson Principal St Chad’s College June 2019 ~i~

Contents Contributors .............................................................................................. iv Preface ........................................................................................................ vii An Overview of the Main Climate Change Agreements and the Process that Led to Their Formation ............................ 1 Francesco Saverio Bellelli

Exploring Perceptions of Feminism in an All-Boys’ School and the Inclusion of Boys in Matters of Gender Equality ......................................................................................17 Beth Cooper

Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ ..................................................39 Pauline Hortolland

Adès the Traditionalist?: An Analysis and Discussion of I: Rings from Concentric Paths Op.24, in the light of Historical Precedent .............................................................................51 Tristan A L Latchford ~ ii ~

Kittens and Kalashnikovs: An Anthropological Analysis of My Time Spent Following the Islamic State on Twitter ........................................................................................................71 Matthew Richardson

Modern Manhood: the Carpe Diem Tradition and ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ ......................................................96 Hannah Voss

‘Virtues of Analysis’: An Aesthetic Interpretation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 Novel, ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ ........ 105 Eugene T Williams

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Contributors Francesco Saverio Bellelli is pursuing a PhD in economics at Durham University. His current research projects revolves around the economics of environmental diplomacy. The title of his thesis is: ‘The determinants of environmental policy and diplomacy; An empirical investigation of participation in environmental treaties and the influence of domestic pressure groups.’ Beth Cooper graduated from Durham University in English Literature and is currently pursuing a career in teaching, having graduated from her PGCE and MA in Education, also at Durham University. As a teacher, she conducts action research into teaching and learning and is an A Level English literature specialist. Recent publications include articles for the National Association for Teachers of English (NATE) magazine.

Pauline Hortolland studied at Sorbonne nouvelle - Paris 3 and at ENS de Paris. She is currently doing an MA in Romantic and Victorian Literary Studies at Durham University. She is interested in Romantic poetry, the long 18th century, poetry & philosophy and gender studies.

Tristan A. L. Latchford is in his fourth year at Durham. He read Music at Josephine Butler College and was awarded a BA in 2018.

He joined the Chad's MCR community last September and is currently reading for an MA in Music Composition. He is a distinguished composer, winning the Second Prize in the Junior Category at the Antonin Dvorak International Composition Competition in Prague in 2017. He has directed the college choir, and had his setting of Psalm 121 premiered by the choir in Durham Cathedral at the college's annual Advent Procession.

Matthew S. Richardson studied Religious Studies as a BA and MA at King's College London and Durham University respectively. He ~ iv ~

is currently completing a Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy Studies before beginning his ESRC-funded PhD in Human and Cultural Geography at Newcastle University. His PhD focus is on the physiology of religion, ritual, affect, sexuality, and ethnicity.

Hannah Voss graduated from Benedictine College in 2018 with a BA in English and is currently pursuing her MA in 20th and 21st Century Literature at Durham University. Her research centres on notions of national identity and border-crossing voices, especially in early 20th century poetry, as well as the work of H.D. This work is an extension of her past work on physical space and identity, on which publications include ‘Artists at the Turn of the Century: Willa Cather’s Literary Response to Modernism’ in The Sigma Tau Delta Review.

Eugene T. Williams has studied in both Japan and the UK, and is currently a first year Philosophy student with a particular interest in Aesthetics, Philosophy of Music and Philosophy of Science.

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Preface

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hroughout this year, I have gained a great deal of insight into the community of St Chad’s — a college that I already knew and loved. The breadth of interest that is displayed in this year’s edition of Foundation is impressive by all accounts.

Speaking to the strengths of any interdisciplinary endeavour, Foundation is also consequently an inclusive initiative. It has been with great pride, that I have been able to collaborate with authors from all three Common Rooms.

My gratitude to all those who helped in the editing and formatting of Foundation is unmeasured. It has been a task that should not be taken lightly. To this year’s Academic Committee (Helena Heald and Grégoire Payen de La Garanderie) I have particular thanks. Without their constant enthusiasm, the final goal could not have been reached. Additionally, to those members of St Chad’s who have moved into new sections of their lives, and yet still consulted on or edited elements of this edition, I have both admiration for their commitment to college and a great sense of thankfulness that we were the recipients of their time and effort.

Sophie Pinto, Academic Chair of the MCR St Chad’s College June 2019

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An Overview of the Main Climate Change Agreements and the Process that Led to Their Formation Francesco Saverio Bellelli

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he goal of this article is to introduce the four main international agreements on climate change. We start by tracing the evolution in international climate cooperation.

This process begins in the 1950s with the accumulation of scientific evidence and culminates decades later with the ratification of important international treaties. Then, we look in greater detail at the content of the main environmental agreements on climate change. How are they structured? What are the main obligations they set for ratifiers? These questions will be answered in the second half of the article.

From scientific evidence to political action

The first step in the international cooperation over climate change has its roots in the growing scientific evidence on the linkage between Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) and global warming.

The acquisition of scientific knowledge on climate change was a slow process that started in the second half of the twentieth century. The first consistent measurements of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere began in the 1950s in Hawaii.1 Nonetheless, the scientific awareness of the effects of human CO2 emissions and the magnitude of their impact emerged gradually over the Ęź60s and Ęź70s.2 At the time, a lot of confusion and many misconceptions 1 Weart, S. (1997). The discovery of the risk of global warming.

Physics Today, 50, 34–50.

2 Hecht, A. D. & Tirpak, D. (1995). Framework agreement on climate change: ~1~

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urrounded the phenomenon of climate change. In the US, a climate change programme was established in response to extreme weather events experienced in the 1970s.3 There were even allegations that these were the effects of deliberate climate modification operated by the USSR.4 As a response to the growing concern for environmental conditions, the UN conference on Human Environment was organised in 1972. The conference, held in Stockholm, led to the formulation of the Declaration of the UN Conference on Human Environment, also known as the Stockholm Declaration. The declaration institutes the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and kickstarts an influential environmental movement within international diplomacy. In 1979 the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) organised the First World Climate Conference to assess ‘existing knowledge of how higher atmospheric GHG concentration could lead to temperature increase.’5 Many participants considered global anthropogenic warming only a theoretical possibility. Therefore, the conference concluded that it was paramount to intensify international research on the issue.6 This research initiative is among the first examples of international cooperation on climate change.

The first global agreements on climate change

In the 1980s the depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) stimulated the interest of the public

a scientific and policy history. Climate Change, 29, 371–402.

In particular, the drought of 1972 and the extremely cold winter of 1976.

4 Hecht & Tirpak, 1995.

5 IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis report Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: IPCC .

6 Weart, 1997.

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An Overview of the Main Climate Change Agreements and the Process that Led to Their Formation

over environmental issues. 7 This contributed in raising the awareness of the effect of human emissions on the climate. The issue of the depletion of the ozone layer, and in particular the control of ozone layer depleting substances such as CFCs, has been addressed by the Vienna Convention for the Protection of Stratospheric Ozone in 1985, 8 which was complemented two years later by the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. 9 The protocol is a legally binding document that obliges the parties to gradually reduce the production and use of CFCs, until total phase-out. These two agreements were enormously influential in shaping all subsequent environmental diplomacy. They are some of the first truly global environmental agreements. Because of their success, they constitute a model for all following agreements on climate change.10 The Montreal Protocol is not traditionally associated with climate change, but it should be. First of all, most of the substances regulated by the Montreal Protocol are also potent GHGs. All later agreements on climate change refer directly to the Montreal Protocol for regulating the emission of these substances.

7

World Bank (2010). World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change. Washington D.C.: World Bank.

8 Vienna Convention (1985). Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer Vienna, United Nations Ozone Secretariat. (Accessed at: http://ozone.unep.org/en/treaties-and-decisions/viennaconvention-protection-ozone-layer).

9 Montreal Protocol (1987). The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, United Nations Ozone Secretariat.

Montreal. (Accessed at: http://ozone.unep.org/en/treaties-anddecisions/montreal-protocol-substances-deplete-ozone-layer ).

10 Oberthur, S. (2001). Linkages between the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols; Enhancing Synergies between Protecting the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate. International Environmental Agreements: Politics Law and Economics, 1, 357–377.

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Secondly, the ozone layer is tightly linked to global warming. In fact, the ozone layer bounces incoming radiation from the sun.

Hence, depletion of the ozone layer increases the greenhouse effect.

In 1985 at a WMO and UNEP scientific conference in Villach, the impact of other gases (other than CO2) on global temperature was ascertained.11 The need for further scientific inquiry on the issue of climate change prompted the creation of an independent scientific body: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC was established in 1988 by the UNEP and the WMO to investigate climate change and provide an independent scientific basis for policy and international cooperation. The IPCC plays a crucial role in gathering scientific evidence for political decisions. It is responsible for compiling a report on climate change that is used as a scientific basis for international climate agreements.

At this stage, there was a solid consensus in the scientific community over the causes of climate change. The second World Climate Conference of 1990, recognising the threat of anthropogenic global warming, called for a global agreement on climate change. Soon the general assembly of the UN established a negotiation committee that, in five sessions from 1990 to 1992, drafted the bases of a convention on climate change.12 They opted for a framework-protocol structure, in which basic principles and goals are first expressed in a framework agreement. These principles are then implemented through precise targets set in subsequent protocols. This structure follows the blueprint of the successful Vienna Convention/Montreal Protocol on ozone depleting substances.13 A critical point in the negotiation was to agree on the responsibilities for climate change and on how responsibilities should be distinguished on the grounds of Weart, 1997.

Hecht & Tirpak, 1995.

13 Oberthur, 2001.

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historical emissions and economic income. The consultations resulted in the formulation of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which underpins all later climate agreements. This principle recognises a shared responsibility in climate change, but it also asserts the obligation of developed nations to lead the way in climate action, reflecting the difference in income and their historical contribution to the emissions of GHGs.14 The text produced during the negotiations was adopted in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, better known as Rio Earth Summit). It is called the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). During the summit two other conventions were signed: the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification. The UNFCCC entered into force on March the 21st of 1994 after receiving the 50th ratification —by Portugal. The UNFCCC is instrumental in framing all future dialogue on climate change. This agreement served as a platform for negotiation and led to the formation of the other two large agreements on climate change: the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015).

An overview of the main climate agreements

Climate change is a global problem. The effort of a single country, on its own, is not enough to tackle global problems: that is why international cooperation is essential for success. Climate diplomacy is responsible for the coordination and promotion of climate action among nations. Given the nature of climate change, most of the activity occurs multilaterally rather than bilaterally, during regional and international summits (e.g. G7/G20, WEF) 14

Hecht & Tirpak, 1995. ~5~

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and within the framework of climate agreements. The process of international cooperation, so far, has delivered four important agreements under the UN negotiations (the Montreal Protocol, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement) and a set of smaller and related treaties.15 A notable example of smaller agreements related to climate change is the agreement on aviation emissions sealed in October 2016 under the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

These smaller agreements often refer to more specific and technical matters not regulated in the key treaties (for instance, maritime and air transport are not covered by the Paris agreement and Kyoto Protocol). In this section, we introduce in chronological order the four most important agreements related to climate change: the Montreal Protocol, the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

Montreal Protocol The goal of the Montreal Protocol (1987) is to contain the production and consumption of CFCs and halons, which are two ozone depleting substances (ODS). The parties agreed to a gradual reduction in the use of ODS, with the prospect of leading to a phase-out of the substances in the future. Today the protocol covers more than 90 ODS such as carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, partially halogenated CCs, methyl bromine and bromochloromethane. Some of the gases covered by the Montreal Protocol — such as carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and methyl bromine — are also potent GHGs. The Kyoto protocol and Paris Agreement only regulate GHGs not covered by the Montreal protocol.

The protocol underwent a substantial evolution over time with the aim of promoting increasingly tighter objectives for the 15

World Bank, 2010. ~6~

An Overview of the Main Climate Change Agreements and the Process that Led to Their Formation

participants. The protocol was amended eight times (in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2016). On top of the amendments, the protocol was also adjusted two times — in 1995 and 2007 — in response to new scientific evidence. Unlike amendments, adjustments do not need to be ratified by the countries: they automatically become effective. 16 The Kigali Amendment of 2016 is particularly important for climate change.

The amendment entails stronger commitments in curbing the use of HCFCs, a very strong GHG, which had partially been used as a less nocive substitute to CFC. However, the amendment was criticised because it sets a delayed entry into force for developing countries. The amendment is only partially satisfactory, many of the largest consumers of HCFCs are in fact not covered by the current agreement. For example, India, which has a vast air conditioning market, resisted the agreement and obtained a delayed entry into force in 2024.

The members of the Montreal protocol meet annually to negotiate and manage the implementation of the treaty. The protocol has financial mechanisms to support developing countries in implementing the agreement. Furthermore, the protocol establishes trade sanctions for states that do not meet their ODS emission targets and imposes trade restrictions with countries that did not ratify the protocol. This carrot-and-stick approach proved to be very effective in promoting participation and compliance with the protocol.17 So far, the trade sanctions have never been enforced.

The Protocol is deemed to be one of the most successful international environmental agreements. It secured universal ratification and delivered excellent environmental results: 16

UNEP (2010). A Success in the Making: The Montreal Protocol on Substance that Deplete the Ozone Layer, The United Nations Ozone Secretariat, UNEP, Nairobi.

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compared to the initial levels of consumption and production of ODS, levels in 2010 were reduced by 98%.18 Thanks to the Montreal protocol the ozone levels in the stratosphere are now starting to recover. In addition, the protocol contributed to reducing global warming by curbing the emission of GHGs and protecting the ozone layer.

UNFCCC The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 19 was signed during the 1992 Rio Earth summit together with two sister conventions: the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification.

The UNFCCC entered into force in 1994 after receiving the 50th ratification. The objective of the convention is to stabilise GHG concentration at levels that would ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,’20 where the definition of ‘dangerous’ must be informed by natural, technical, and social science. However, no binding emission target is set by this agreement, it merely establishes the principles and goals for future cooperation on climate change. The objectives of the UNFCCC would then have to be implemented through subsequent protocols (i.e. the Kyoto Protocol).

The Convention recognises important principles, such as the precautionary principle, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the right of developing countries to economic development. According to these, reduction in emissions should be achieved ‘on the basis of equity and in UNEP, 2010.

UNFCCC (1992) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC Secretariat. Rio de Janeiro. (Accessed at: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/items/6036.p hp ) 20 Article 2, UNFCCC 1992.

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An Overview of the Main Climate Change Agreements and the Process that Led to Their Formation

accordance with common but differentiated capabilities,’21 and scientific uncertainty cannot justify postponing environmental measures. On the other hand, developing countries are allowed to be temporarily exempted from formal commitments as it is recognised that developed countries have a greater responsibility for current GHG concentration and that developing countries face urgent priorities such as, among other things, eradication of poverty and sustainable economic development. To this end, the UNFCCC includes a list of nations that commit to stricter environmental policies — the so-called Annex I countries. In addition, the convention establishes the Conference of the Parties (COP)22 and lays some basic rules for future negotiation. This is an attempt to concentrate, under the banner of the UN, the international debate on climate change and avoid parallel agreements on the same subject.23 In conclusion, the convention delineates the principles of international climate change cooperation and urges for environmental action. The only binding obligation of the Convention refers to the reporting of information related to GHGs. Notably, countries must communicate national inventories of GHGs and report all the national implemented policies to combat climate change. The information requirements are slightly different for Annex I and non-Annex I countries.

Article 3, UNFCCC 1992.

The Conference of Parties (COP) is an annual meeting of the delegates from each ratifying nation. It is responsible for supervising the implementation of the agreement and negotiating all changes to the text of the treaty.

23 Hecht & Tirpak, 1995.

21 22

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Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol24 was signed in 1997 by more than 150 countries. However, many of the rules regarding its implementation had yet to be defined. For several years, negotiations followed practical implementation issues, ending on a stalemate. 25 Moreover, the protocol was not yet effective because it required ratification by countries representing at least 55% of world emissions in 1990. In 2000 — when the US rejected altogether the Kyoto Protocol — there seemed to be no way out of this impasse since the US accounted for a large share of world’s emissions. 26 Eventually, a compromised solution was found thanks to the introduction of more flexible compliance measures (the criteria determining if a country has met its obligations), which reduced the participation costs for several large countries.27 This change secured the participation of important emitters such as Russia, Japan, Australia and Canada, and allowed the protocol to enter into force in 2005.

The parties to the protocol meet each year at the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), which is always held jointly to the COP. The countries that joined the UNFCCC, but not 24

Kyoto Protocol (1997). Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC Secretariat. Kyoto.

(Accessed at: http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php ) 25 Pearson, C. S. (2011). Economics and the Challenge of Global Warming.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

26 Babiker, M. H., Jacoby, H. D., Reilly, J. M., & Reiner, D. M. (2002). The evolution of a climate regime: Kyoto to Marrakech and beyond.

Environment Science and Policy, 5, 195–206.

27 Dessai, S., Schipper, E. L., Corbera, E., Kjellen, B., Gutierrez, M., & Haxeltine, A. (2005). Challenges and Outcomes at the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. International Environmental Agreements, 5, 105–124. ~ 10 ~

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the Kyoto Protocol, have the right to participate as observers. The protocol covers the emissions of six different GHGs: carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), hydrofluorocarbon, perfluorocarbon and sulfur hexafluorids (SF6). Additional GHGs gases such as CFCs and HCFCs are also ozone depleting substances; thus, they are regulated by the Montreal Protocol.

The protocol sets precise emission reduction targets averaging about 5% below 1990 levels for a small group of nations. The group of countries with binding reduction targets — mainly composed of OECD countries and former Soviet Union nations — is listed in Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol, which coincides almost exactly with the list of countries in Annex I of the UNFCCC.28 The targets had to be achieved within the commitment period of 2008–2012.

At the end of the commitment period, Canada was the only country that officially did not meet the emission targets — hence its withdrawal from the protocol in 2012. However, the success of the other countries in meeting their objectives is mostly artificial.

Their success is linked to the economic recession of 2008, which slowed economic activity, and the use of the flexibility mechanisms of the protocol.29 The protocol stipulates that the reductions in GHG emissions should be achieved through national environmental measures. Nevertheless, the protocol also admits three flexibility mechanisms to meet the emission targets: EMISSION TRADING. The Annex B countries are assigned emissions allowances called Assigned Amount Units 28

29

Annex B includes Turkey and Belarus while Annex I does not.

Aichele, R. & Felbermayr, G. (2012). Kyoto and the carbon footprints of nations. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 63, 336–354. ~ 11 ~

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(AAU). Countries can trade them as a commodity. If the country emits more than it is supposed to, it can simply buy more allowances from a country that has an excess of AAU. This system is called cap-and-trade because a limit on emissions is set with the AAU, then the emitters distribute the emission permits through trade. The emission trading mechanism effectively allowed developed nations to “buy” into the emissions assigned to Central and Eastern European countries, which received a number of AAU larger than their emissions to support economic growth.30 CLEAN DEVELOPING MECHANISM (CDM). In addition to emission trading, countries obtain additional carbon credits by collaborating with developing countries in projects that reduce emissions. With CDM, developed nations can introduce emission-reduction projects in developing countries — where emission reductions cost less — in order to meet their own emission targets. At the same time, this mechanism has the added advantage of transferring technological knowledge to developing nations.31 JOINT IMPLEMENTATION (JI). The JI is the equivalent of CDM for collaborations between industrialised countries (both need to be in Annex B). The JI allows countries to earn emission credits for projects undertaken in other countries with binding targets.

30

Hepburn, C. (2007). Carbon Trading: A Review of the Kyoto Mechanism.

Annual Review of Environments and Resources, 32, 375–393.

31 Fancioni, F. & Bakker, C. (2013). The Evolution of Global Environmental System. Transworld; The Transatlantic Relationship and the Future Global Governance, Working Paper 7. (Accessed at: http://www.transworldfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TW_WP_08.pdf).

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An Overview of the Main Climate Change Agreements and the Process that Led to Their Formation

The Doha Amendment revised the protocol in 2012. The amendment institutes a second commitment period (2013– 2020) to the Kyoto Protocol (KP2), although only for a smaller number of countries. Japan, Russia, and New Zealand opted out and Canada had already withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. In total these countries only represented 13% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions in 2010. The remaining parties committed to a reduction of 18% of their emissions compared to 1990 levels as a transition period to the entering into force of the Paris Agreement. In addition to the basket of six GHGs of the first commitment period, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) was included in KP2. Sadly, the Doha amendments never entered into force because they did not receive enough ratifications.

Paris Agreement Overall the experience of the Kyoto Protocol was rather negative. Negotiations were arduous, the protocol engaged only a small number of countries, the commencement was extremely slow, and its effectiveness in curbing emissions is debatable.

Therefore, negotiators decided to opt for an altogether different approach for the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement 32 is the biggest multilateral agreement on the issue of climate change, with 195 countries signing the agreement in 2015. The target of the agreement is to limit the increase in average temperature to levels ‘well below 2°C’ and it admits the need to aim for an increase lower than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Furthermore, the agreement 32

Paris Agreement (2015). Paris Agreement on Climate Change, UNFCCC Secretariat.

Paris.

(Accessed at: https://unfccc.int/process-andmeetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement ). ~ 13 ~

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acknowledges the need for immediate action and urges the signatories to make emissions peak as soon as possible. The Paris Agreement also calls for action from non-party agents such as civil society, NGOs and subnational authorities.

The system introduced by the Paris agreement consists of a structure divided in two layers: 1) A common binding ground that regulates the assessment process and basic formal requirements such as the communication of GHG inventories; 2) A flexible target setting for participants, in which each party is free to establish its objectives and the way it proposes to achieve them. The goals are called Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). This structure breaks the Annex 1/non-Annex 1 subdivision of countries of previous agreements and creates selfdifferentiation through national commitments.

The agreement sets no binding emission targets for the participants and the ratifiers incur no sanction if they do not fulfil their NDC. However, the monitoring and reporting process is binding. In addition, every five years the parties have to update their NCDs objectives, which must represent a progress toward the target of the agreement and reflect the ‘highest possible ambition.’33 As of now, the reduction in emissions implied by the sum of all pledges is unable to ensure that the objective of ‘well below 2°C’ is met.

Just like the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris agreement institutes a market for emission permits known as Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMO) so that any country can buy or sell ITMOs to comply with national targets. The agreement also creates financial mechanisms to support developing countries in meeting their goals. The Global Environmental 33

Article 4, Paris Agreement, 2015. ~ 14 ~

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Facility (GEF) and the Global Climate Fund (GCF) are the two entities that operate the Financial Mechanism of the agreement.

During the last three COP meetings, negotiations focused on the endowments and rules of the financial mechanisms. Initially, developed nations had pledged 100 billion dollars to support the agreement. This financial target currently seems harder to achieve.

In October 2016, the international community signalled a strong political engagement by allowing the treaty to enter into force before the COP22 of Marrakech (this is impressive given that it took eight years for the ratification and entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol). A crucial role in its early adoption was played by the prompt ratification of the United States — which later decided to pull-out of the agreement — and China during a joint ceremony. Despite the strong display of political will, many practical implementation aspects will have to be determined in the upcoming conferences of the parties. The environmental success of the agreement will inevitably depend on the outcome of these technical negotiations. As always, the devil is in the detail.

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Exploring Perceptions of Feminism in an All-Boys’ School and the Inclusion of Boys in Matters of Gender Equality Beth Cooper

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he word feminism has a history of being a problematic term. The kind of controversy it has connoted over time has, however, shifted. In the early 1900s it spelled out a threat to the existing social order, before becoming closely aligned to an uncomfortable sexual politics whereby the political became personal. In a postmodern climate, it could even be argued that the word ‘feminism’ smacks of a political correctness which young people strive to depart from. This chimerical portrayal matters hugely for the future of feminism. In its current state, it is a portmanteau term, used to support any number of (often conflicting) agendas, and attached to a plethora of prefixes: liberal, radical, Marxist, post. The distinctions between these are often blurred and distorted by the lens of the modern-day media in which feminism is enmeshed with victimhood. To claim feminist allegiance appears to carry a weight of righteousness, of petulant entitlement and of blame. This approach can be seen to alienate emerging political agents, and feminism has become something with which ‘a younger generation of women actively disidentify’.1 If the identity crisis of feminism poses puzzling questions for young women, then it makes equal if not greater demands of young men.

To investigate this, this study will explore perceptions of feminism amongst students in an all-boys’ school. It will focus on how students grapple with feminism as a multifaceted term and how this affects students’ inclusion in gender equity. It will also 1

Mac an Ghaill, M. & Haywood, C. (2007). Gender, Culture and Society: Contemporary Femininities and Masculinities. London: Palgrave Macmillan. P. 27. ~ 17 ~

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consider the impact that discourses of victimhood (both girls as victims of sexism, and boys as victims of underachievement and negative representation) have on students’ identification with feminism. In doing so, I will address the lurking question of how the ideology of feminism ‘is still relevant in the so-called postmodern world.’2 This study will probe the contradiction that on the one hand, feminism is weak (‘fraught with ambivalence’ and characterised by a ‘generational gap’)3 and on the other, that it is witnessing ‘a renaissance fuelled by new technologies.’4 The effect of social media therefore has particular relevance to this study, thanks to ‘Internet campaigns such as “I Need Feminism Because” and the growth of significant feminist subcultures on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.’ 5 Anderson suggests that feminism’s ‘post-mortem’ is now ‘predictable’ and has fuelled a new anti-feminist mode of thought (a form of misogyny); this cautions us to interrogate and evaluate the concept of postfeminism and the ‘boy-turn’ in gender studies.6 The catalyst for this study was a Y10 student impersonating me at a feminist protest. Hearing my students criticising and mocking feminism initially alarmed and worried me. With more reflection, however, I realised that there were a number of different ways of looking at their complaints: they Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, p. 227.

Taramundi, D. M. (2016). ‘Gender machineries vs. feminist movements?

Collective political subjectivity in the time of passive revolution.’

Gender and Education, 28 (3), 372–385. Pp. 372–376.

4 Wånggren, L. (2016). ‘Our stories matter: storytelling and social justice in the Hollaback! movement.’ Gender and Education, 28 (3), 401–415.

P. 402.

5 Firth, R. & Robinson, A. (2016). ‘For a revival of feminist consciousnessraising: horizontal transformation of epistemologies and transgression of neoliberal TimeSpace.’ Gender and Education, 28 (3), 343–358. P. 343.

6 Anderson, K. (2014). Modern Misogyny: Anti-Feminism in a Post-feminist Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. P. xi.

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were right that some voices in feminism are extreme and that the proliferation of feminist voices makes it difficult to understand what feminism seeks to achieve today; they were also right that feminism and gender (in)equality has made huge gains and that its purpose has shifted; and they were right that men and boys face gender-related problems in today’s society. And it’s not always wrong to find feminism funny. But this is not a new dilemma: ‘Again and again men tell me they have no idea what it is feminists want. I believe them.’7 I felt that their perceptions could represent a genuine expression of disenfranchisement, and an indication that changes in gender identity have changed the nature of sexism for young people — an indication that feminism as we know it has waning relevance for postmodern citizens (who may be so well-versed in discourses of tolerance and diversity that they can move beyond political correctness). The views they were voicing could, however, represent an emerging ‘modern misogyny’ accelerating as feminist activism shifts online, or that being in a single-sex school had allowed anti-feminist feeling to fester.8 Furthermore, by examining these perceptions in an allboys’ school, this investigation connects with current issues surrounding boys in education: the notion that they are in crisis and represent a new disadvantaged group. This is a debate which has been played out on the public stage too: ‘Media and government, teachers and police, focus on boys mainly as potential problems.’9 This highlights the need ‘to create a world where feminist masculinity thrives.’10 Exploring how young men perceive feminism may, therefore, not only be an indication of bell hooks (2000). Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. London: Pluto Press. P. ix.

8 Anderson, 2014.

9 Frosh, S., Phoenix, A., & Pattman, R. (2003). ‘The Trouble with Boys’. The Psychologist, 16, 84–7. P. 84.

10 bell hooks, 2000, p. 71.

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developing gender politics, but also a complex matter of the effect of technology on digital natives’ sense of citizenship. In this way, this study seeks ways forward. Schools need to be proactive in fostering questioning, critical citizens for whom tolerance, diversity, and ‘British values’ are more than hollow jargon.

By acting as a practitioner-researcher, I have been wellplaced to use this study in a number of ways: to observe and reflect on the perceptions of feminism that I have been able to identify in one school; to raise awareness about feminism with my own classes and across the school; and to reflect on how best to promote inclusion in matters of gender-equity in an all-male environment.

Methods

The accumulation of different forms of data is a consequence of the reflexive nature of the investigation. As the study progressed, I was able to gather new types of information — which either broadened or deepened the evidence about perceptions — and to react to ad hoc incidents, which encouraged the community’s inclusion in the research. Sustained involvement gave me an indepth insight into perceptions and also led towards the consciousness-raising, inclusive aspect of the investigation. This reflects the fact that feminist research is committed to action: ‘the aim of feminist research is liberation.’11 Critical incidents: Over the course of this study there were a number of incidents in which students from my own class discussed feminism and gender, either as part of their English work, or because they raised their own questions about this research during lesson time.

Fonow, M. & Cook, J. (1991). Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. P. 6 11

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Staff interviews: To broaden the scope of my understanding of students in the whole school, I spoke to staff. A small number of staff volunteered to be interviewed to share their experiences, reflections, ideas and expertise about ways to encourage gender equity across the school.

‘Feminism is…’ postcards: Students from Y7–Y13 were asked to complete the statement ‘Feminism is…’

(FI) on a postcard as a definition in under 20 words.

The postcards were given to English staff for students to voluntarily complete in their lessons and registration period. Of the 1080 students on roll at the school, 472 filled in the postcards (44%).

Student focus group: Following the completion of the ‘Feminism is’ postcards, students were invited to be part of a focus group. A range of Y8–Y11 students volunteered to participate.

Excellence in English seminars: Reading literary texts dealing with feminism, boyhood, and masculinity, students in the ‘Excellence in English’ high achievers group had the opportunity to discuss gender equity from a range of perspectives.

Gender diaries and creative writing: Creative writing tasks were used to follow up discussion with my Y11 class, who wrote an article arguing for or against ‘International Men’s Day’. Two focus group participants voluntarily completed and shared gender diaries with me. All students were given the opportunity to keep a diary to record any observations, reflections and experiences focussing on gender issues in their lives.

‘What is feminism?’ workshop with undergraduate students: A group of six undergraduate students from a group called ‘FemSoc’ at a local university voluntarily ran an after-school workshop. Twenty~ 21 ~

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nine students from Y7 to Y12 voluntarily attended.

Evaluation forms: At the end of the year, students from the classes I taught replied to a number of questions and statements about their experience of being part of this study.

Conclusions — Overview

This investigation highlights the difficulty of being able to support students grappling with the multi-faceted nature of feminism. As a result, many of the boys in this study felt disillusioned with and disenfranchised by feminism. I found this particularly difficult because — while I call myself a feminist — I also have doubts and questions of my own. I therefore found the anti-feminist thread of these findings particularly meaningful for the future of feminism because these discourses were raw, frustrating, and — at times — worryingly caught up in the truth. Fascinatingly, however, not all of the critique and anti-feminism I encountered was misogynistic.

Some results can be viewed as evidence of the freedom and optimism of a new generation who want to move beyond the gender divisions of the past. The most inclusive and successful aspect of this study was, therefore, the collaborative enquiry. It was this which allowed us, as a school community, to collectively navigate the perilous waters of political correctness and moral values. This left me (as well as the students) with a conflicting yet complementary passion: to fight for the rights and wellbeing of women in society, but also to fight for and protect men, for whom gender is a difficult and often oppressive subject.

Students’ attitudes towards feminism appeared on a spectrum between criticisms including (in its most extreme form) anti-feminism, as well as support for gender equity (often mediated through the deconstruction of gender stereotypes). I was alarmed by the perceptiveness and support of some students (‘FI… cool! Everyone is equal’ — Y12/13, postcard), but equally ~ 22 ~

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startled and saddened by the ferocity of antifeminist sentiment (“FI… women trying to become superior and rule the world — Y11, postcard). From this, I can conclude that inconsistent views of feminism may be shaped by the limited knowledge they have access to: an incomplete picture of feminism. This knowledge often dwells on the historical liberation of women from legal and political oppression, and centres on the negative portrayal of both men and women in the media and on the internet.

This study also found a number of barriers to boys’ implicit and explicit inclusion in gender equity: anti-feminism and the notion that boys are victims of gender reform; the visibility of sexism; the ruthless individualism of neoliberalism; and the distortion of gender equity by discourses of male victimhood in the media. The assumption that feminism and gender empowerment is exclusively for girls and women underpins all of these. This highlights the need for individual teachers, schools, and wider educational policy to re-evaluate their social responsibility towards gender equity for both boys and girls and to reframe gender in a more optimistic light: boys and girls alike need to be redefined in the public eye as more than just victims.

Conclusions — Key findings:

• Strength of gender equality: this study found that many students care passionately about gender equality (focus group, workshop, creative writing) and recognise gender stereotypes as harmful (Excellence in English); • Criticisms of feminism: many students were concerned about the changing status of feminist activism today and the negative impact of extreme feminism (critical incidents, postcards); ~ 23 ~

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• Antifeminism: some students’ responses indicated passionate resistance to feminism both because they have been influenced by the negative portrayal of feminism and by neoliberal values and because they feel that boys’ rights are stifled (critical incidents, staff interviews, postcards); • Visibility of sexism: social media had a strong influence on perceptions because of the visibility of antifeminist discourses and sexist humour online compared to the relative invisibility of many forms of sexism in today’s society (focus group, workshop); • Boys’ rights: many students feel disenfranchised in society as a whole, which creates an adversarial climate where girls and boys are competing for ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ (focus group, workshop); • Inclusion: allowing students to be involved in a dialogue about feminism had both a positive and a negative impact. In some cases, it may have encouraged antifeminist rhetoric (critical incidents, postcards), but it also gave students the opportunity to access more reliable information about gender equality (workshop, evaluation forms).

Conclusions — Boys and feminism Support for feminism

I, a male 13-year-old describe myself as a feminist of my own choice. I feel the ‘own choice’ idea (that I’ve ~ 24 ~

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made my own educated judgement) is extremely important. (Y7— Gender Diary) There were a number of students who openly identified with feminism (creative writing, postcards). These students acknowledged that women’s rights extend beyond legal and political spheres, as well as the fact that men can also be victims of patriarchy and gender stereotypes.

On the whole, the voices of those students who supported feminism were often troubled and questioning (critical incidents, creative writing). The students who volunteered to participate in the focus group, for example, talked about conflicting views which influenced their opinions: the belief that feminism is right, coupled with the concern that feminism is flawed. The Y12/13 students appeared best equipped to make their own personal decisions about feminism a — stronger sense of selfhood that enabled them to more comfortably defeat the stereotype that supporting feminism might compromise their masculinity (Excellence in English, postcards). This supports Lynch and Lodge’s findings that some boys’ schools can be equitable environments,12 as well as the imperative for boys to be active agents of feminism identified by Lingard and Douglas13 and bell hooks.14 Criticism of feminism

I think most feminists have a massive victim complex and double standards and only concentrate on Lynch, K., & Lodge, A. (2002). Equality and Power in Schools: Redistribution, Recognition and Representation. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

13 Lingard, B. & Douglas, P. (1999). Men engaging feminisms: Pro-feminism, Backlashes and Schooling. Buckingham: Open University Press.

14 bell hooks, 2000.

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problems in this country rather than the countries with actual feminist problems. But hey, that’s just me and my white male privilege opinion. (Y11 — postcards) The evidence from the focus group, postcards from older students, workshop, and the creative writing, suggests that students are not simply ‘grumbling’ about feminism: criticisms are not merely a sign of boys’ reluctance to depart from their ‘patriarchal dividend.’15 Students also showed genuine concern about the effectiveness of feminism. On this point, I depart from Anderson’s conviction that critique in a ‘postfeminist era’ necessarily connotes ‘misognyny’, 16 and turn to Lingard and Douglas’ conclusion that ‘the issue of boys and men in the context of discussions about gender and feminism is not a simple or unitary one: it includes engagements with as well as engagements against feminism.’17 I would go further than this, however, to suggest that female feminists are (and need to be) also increasingly self-aware and questioning. The notion that feminism needs a new name, for example, emerged as a theme in the workshop (as it has done in the world at large, in campaigns such as HeForShe). While the view that young people occupy a postfeminist world remains a matter of academic contention, students’ worries do align with those of feminist scholars who recognise the need for a ‘postmodern feminism [which] offers the possibility of going beyond the language of domination, anger and critique.’18

Lingard & Douglas, 1999, p. 6.

Anderson 2014 17 Lingard & Douglas, 1999, p. xi.

18 Giroux, H. A. (1991). Postmodernism, Feminism, and Cultural Politics: Redrawing Educational Boundaries. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. P. 39.

15 16

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Anti-feminism

FI… a group of hypocritical women who believe because they have a vagina they are insecure little wrecks, as it is a stressful piece of the body. (Y11 — postcards) Some perceptions were found not only to be critical, but more openly anti-feminist (critical incidents and postcards). Many students showed a continued preoccupation with extreme feminism and the relevance of feminism today and with extreme feminists. This aligns with Anderson’s discussion of ‘modern misogyny’ that, because of the notion that ‘feminism is merely a history lesson,’ anyone who is still willing to suggest that sexism is an ongoing issue ‘faces allegations of man-hating.’19 Understanding of female oppression after the Second World War was inconsistent and often flawed (critical incidents, workshop). As a result, discussions about less visible forms of sexism in a late-capitalist society evinced a conflict between those students who perceived less visible forms of sexism as an exaggeration or a fable, and those who acknowledged the importance of ‘“benign” bigotry’ — ‘everyday, seemingly innocent slights, comments, overgeneralizations, othering, and denigration of marginalized groups.’20 The insidious invisibility of sexism is a particularly salient point in relation to the visibility of antifeminist discourses for young people in social media.

Fear, misinformation, peer pressure, rebelliousness and an awareness of boys’ issues may all play a part in the dominance of anti-feminist voices. This aligns with the notion that:

19 20

Anderson, 2014, pp. xiii–xvi.

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Gender reform provokes intense feelings in boys.

Many are confused by it. Gender reform seems to imply that all boys are successful, advantaged and powerful.21 The lack of justice in the notion that all men are privileged, particularly when secondary age children are so disenfranchised in society, can cause students to feel defensive and resentful. This is not simply a matter of boys who ‘feel the negative force of other relations of power and prestige based on class, race, and age,’22 it is also a symptom of the ‘boy problem’ context. In this way, there was an element of ‘blame’ (not simply critique) amongst the antifeminist responses in this study. Some respondents articulated very clear instances whereby they felt discriminated against because of the negative stereotypes of masculinity which unfairly colour expectations of young men (focus group, critical incidents).

Such blame and fear can be perceived as stemming from feelings of threat: both the threat to masculinity and ‘the power of feminism today that makes anti-feminists nervous and desperate to undermine it,’23 or from the notion that a fantasy of gender stability (a ‘happiness script’) is being denied to young people.24 Students in the focus group, workshop and in the creative writing exercise were, however, able to reflect on and criticise the antifeminism among their peers. It appeared that, while anti-feminist sentiment was vocal, more privately, some students had a mature understanding of what might make anti-feminism both flawed and harmful: ‘These frightened fools shrink away from our Kenway, J., Willis, S., Blackmore, J., & Rennie, L. (1997). ‘Are boys victims of feminism in schools? Some answers from Australia.’

International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1 (1), 19–35. P. 27.

22 Ibid.

23 Anderson, 2014, p. 160.

24 Ahmed, S. (2010). The Promise of Happiness. London: Duke University Press.

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changing world and frantically attempt to shroud it in their testosterone tradition.’ (Y11 — creative writing).

Conclusions — Barriers to inclusion

Anti-feminism

The perception that feminism creates more injustice than justice can become a very real barrier to any further discussion in the classroom. Many students, for example, were inhibited by the cultural connotations of the word ‘feminism’ (postcards, workshop and focus group) as well as the view that feminism is, ‘a bunch of angry women who want to be like men.’25 Anti-feminism can also act as a tool to challenge authority — particularly for those students surrounded by strong female figures and matriarchs (successful mothers, siblings, and teachers). The attitude that presenting anti-feminist ideas is intellectual and clever can both blindside teachers and make their peers reluctant to be more openly supportive. The lack of authoritative male role-models (excepting the male undergraduates in the workshop) may have been a contributing factor here.

Irreverent humour has also emerged as a key factor shaping public and private feelings and beliefs about antifeminism and has become a kind of ‘closet sexism’26 for many young men (critical incidents, interviews with staff and postcards). Humour is an essential component of any schooling.

25 26

bell hooks, 2000, pp. vii–viii.

Dickson, A. (2013). Teaching Men to be Feminist. London: Quartet Books Limited. P. 27. ~ 29 ~

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However, the demeaning and hyperbolic logic of humour was often misconstrued as real criticisms of feminism.

Boys as victims

The fact that boys in education are experiencing an ongoing period of underachievement and struggle also contributes to students’ troubled relationship with feminism. A movement whose primary ambition appears to be the well-being and success of women sits uneasily with boys during a period of ‘crisis’ for masculinity and who are disenfranchised by their age.

Students showed awareness of the fact that their female peers glean the benefit of ‘victim status’ in society — that they enjoy the privileges of positive discrimination and the support of society whilst boys are left to flounder. It is difficult to negotiate the notion of sexism in wider society when in their local context these students’ female peers have higher levels of attainment.27

Sources of information; social media

These results suggest that — beyond knowledge about feminism as an historical movement — social and mainstream media are the primary sources of information and gender equality discourse that young people access (critical incidents, creative writing, focus group, workshop). Taramundi thanks new technologies for encouraging grass-roots participation among women: ‘Social media and the Internet are widely considered to hold the greatest potential for the reconstitution of feminist networks.’ 28 This study, however, suggests that social media has simultaneously Save the Children (2016) ‘The Lost Boys.’ Accessed at: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/lost-boys.pdf 28 Taramundi, 2016, p. 376.

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mobilised and brought together feminism’s most determined critics (critical incidents, focus group, workshop).

The fact that very few people ‘come close’ to feminism is not a new problem: ‘everything they know about feminism has come into their lives third-hand, that they really have not come close enough to feminist movement to know what really happens, what it’s really about.’29 As yet, there appears to have been more focus on the potential power of social media to effect positive change for feminism,30 but none which analyses the effect of online anti-feminism.

The visibility of sexism

It was difficult for some students to understand the nature of sexism today. Sexism is a multifaceted concept: misogyny in an older generation; misogyny in other countries; and a very different, invisible kind of misogyny in a younger generation. The knowledge, therefore, that feminism seeks to break down gender stereotypes and deconstruct patterns of power, dominance and oppression in society was inconsistent (workshop, focus group), and some students ridiculed these forms of sexism (interviews, critical incidents).

29 30

bell hooks, 2000, p. vii.

Anderson, 2014; Taramundi, 2016; Voela, A. & Guaraldo, O. (2016). ‘If not now, when?: feminism, activism and social movements in the European South and beyond.’ Gender and Education, 28 (3), 315– 329.

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Neoliberalism

The notion that women’s rights are in competition with boys’ wellbeing and incompatible with creating a better world for men leads to an adversarial approach to gender equity (critical incidents, focus group, workshop). In this way, neoliberal attitudes appear to exacerbate criticism of feminism (the workshop, focus group). The ‘extreme individualism’ of neoliberalism fuels the notion that women have the choice to defy gender expectations and that, merit permitting, they have the freedom to take on professional and leadership roles. The rhetoric of free, strong, independent women that they frequently encounter seems — understandably — at odds with the idea that many women aren’t ‘free’ in exactly the same way that they are, particularly given the age of these students, and the way that forms of sexism might change according to age.

Challenging the ruthless selfishness of this way of thinking requires tackling shallowness in the rhetoric of gender equality used in schools and society: ‘Despite our politically correct times, it doesn’t take more than a little scratch across the veneer of “we are genuinely committed to gender equality” to reveal these kind of attitudes.’31 This, coupled with the ‘insincere expression’ of social media creates the perfect storm for a very feeble and fractured form of ‘equality’.32

Postmodern citizenship

Some students struggled to know what to believe about feminism.

31 32

Dickson, 2013, p. 19.

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Postmodern ways of thinking can be celebrated in education in so many ways: as a ‘power-sensitive’ discourse,33 it has the potential to liberate subaltern histories. Its pluralistic nature encourages meta-narratives to allow educators to show ‘greater intellectual tolerance.’34 But postmodern citizens can also struggle to navigate the multi-narratives, irony, and irreverent playfulness of postmodernity. They may require greater conviction and courage to make moral decisions about the information they receive about gender.

Students’ appreciation of the instability of ideologies such as feminism means that they are almost paralysed by moral ambiguity. This illustrates a powerful dilemma pressing conflicting pressures on millennials: the need to be both critical consumers, but not too critical (not to the point of moral relativism).

The future for boys and gender equality

While the scope and scale of this study have been small and unique, it has shaped my own professional approach and values, and given many students in this community the opportunity to see feminism from new angles. In this way, one of the most important conclusions I can draw is that any practitioner with an interest in gender, feminism, and equality should not shy away from sharing their thoughts and passions with their students. This investigation signalled how effective consciousness-raising can be in a local, community-based context where teachers can provoke debate and guide their students towards actively questioning and

Giroux, 1991, p. 24.

Shaw, J. (1995). Education, Gender and Anxiety. London: Taylor and Francis. P. 24.

33 34

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being thoughtful about feminism (and how we, as teachers, need to question our own beliefs too).

I therefore highlight a number of ways forward for practitioners. I have found that a focus on gender identity and masculinity, for example, is effective as it taps into a zeitgeist of heightened gender awareness. I also suggest that consciousness raising is important, so that students can have access to information that they can trust, which demystifies feminism, and which shows that boys’ issues should be addressed in tandem with feminism — not in opposition to it.

Gender identity

Discussing gender identity with students has the potential to act as a springboard to address feminism. A number of students showed sympathy with the need to break down gender stereotypes and for young people to be masters of their own gender identities. The seismic shuddering of Mac an Ghaill and Haywood’s ‘genderquake’35 was particularly evident in the older students’ attitudes towards stereotypes, who showed an awareness that they are ‘wrong’: both flawed and harmful (creative writing, critical incidents). Many students were able to talk about masculinity and femininity as ‘opposite poles of the same axis.’36 This supports Salisbury and Jackson’s findings that ‘boys aren’t just brainwashed by macho values […] they have a much more wry, contradictory approach — half-mocking, halfaccepting.’ 37 Where this was the starting point, students’ understanding of less visible forms of sexism and how this links Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2007, p. 27.

Beynon, J. (2002). Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham: Open University Press. P. 8.

37 Salisbury, J. & Jackson, D. (1996). Challenging Macho Values: Practical Ways of Working with Adolescent Boys. London: Taylor and Francis. P. 13.

35 36

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boys to feminism seemed stronger (focus group, gender diaries, classroom discussion).

Boys’ issues

Raising awareness of boys’ issues alongside feminism when dealing with gender equity in schools seems critical for showing that ‘feminism is for everybody.’38 By giving credence to the disenfranchisement that many boys might feel or experience, feminist educators can better avoid students’ defensive reactions or forms of feminism which alienate and demonise masculinity: ‘Boys need healthy self-esteem. They need love. And a wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children. Patriarchy will not heal them.’39 Raising awareness

Discussing feminism in an all-boys’ school deconstructs the preconception that feminism is a taboo subject for boys and demonstrates the trust and respect that should be at the heart of gender equality. Discussion is, however, a tool to be used with caution (critical incidents, interviews with staff, focus group).

Written exercises may produce more considered and honest responses free from the peer pressure or strong emotional reactions of verbal discussion. In my role, I was both outnumbered and too much involved in the relationships and humour of the classes I taught for them to see my point of view as authoritative on its own — for them it was an ‘opinion’ — whereas a whole-school approach or the intervention of an 38 39

bell hooks, 2000. bell hooks, 2000, p. 71. ~ 35 ~

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external agency might reinforce the message that men should be unafraid to call themselves feminist (workshop).

The workshop pointed to the fact that students may have a far more advanced, developed, and nuanced intuition and knowledge about gender equity than could have been expected (or hoped). But in many cases, some of the complexities and ‘high level’ ideas within gender studies can be misunderstood. Speaking to and challenging students in an arena where they can dig deeper than Twitter soundbites and YouTube humour and hyperbole therefore has great value. There is precious little research dealing in detail with the impact of online activism on gender equality and it is a potentially rich field for further scholarly research and enquiry.

Postmodern citizenship

My experience conducting this research made me feel that postmodern citizens need to be given the conviction and confidence to act on their beliefs, rather than dwell in the liminal space between conflicting ideologies. Students may be wellversed in discourses of equality — that ‘of course’ women ‘should’ be treated with respect — but this study suggests that they have a tendency to hide behind the language of equality, without necessarily being prepared to make an active change to sexual discrimination. Tackling such shallowness and insincerity may well be a wider issue for schools and citizenship as we enter into a new world of technology and simulacra.

Feminism is huge. The vastness of feminism can be overwhelming because it is shifting, multifarious and fickle. But sometimes, feminism can be simple (‘FI… knowing that men can make their own cup of tea’ Y12/13 — postcard). This research can be seen, therefore, to highlight the need for a renewed sense of purpose and vigour in teaching young people who face the insurmountable challenge of embracing opposing forces: who ~ 36 ~

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must be critical consumers whilst not compromising their moral values; who need to be both proud and sceptical about their gender identities; who need to be both be critical and supportive of equitable discourses; who need to see masculinity as both strong and weak; who need to see women and girls as powerful and vulnerable; and who need to be both feminists and boys.

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‘And distant warblings lessen on my ear, / That lost in long futurity expire’: Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ Pauline Hortolland

On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood, Robe in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood; (Loose his beard and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the trouble air) And, with a master’s hand and prophet’s fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. (‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’, lines 15–22)

A

fter the great success of ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (1751), ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ (1757) represents a turning point in Thomas Gray’s poetic career.1 The use of the marginalised figure of the bard has often been interpreted as a longing for an older form of poetic authority and for a more immediate and authentic relationship between the poet and his readership.2 The poem also quite notably launched

Mulholland, J. (2008). ‘Gray’s Ambition: Printed Voices and Performing Bards in the Later Poetry.’ ELH, 75 (1). P. 111: ‘completed until 1757, this poem signalled an important shift in Gray’s career and turned attention toward traditional Scottish, Welsh, and Irish cultures, encouraging the collection of ancient ballads, folk songs, and runic poetry, an activity that became prominent during the 1760s.’

2 Kaul, S. (1992). Thomas Gray and Literary Authority: A Study in Ideology 1

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the Celtic Revival of the late eighteenth century, inspiring Macpherson’s Ossian (a legendary bard) and new poetic experimentations with alliterations. 3 Yet, although Gray’s ‘experiments with representing bardic voice’ have been analysed more than once,4 the sophisticated temporal frame of this poem is rarely commented on; most critics usually do little more than underline its uncommon complexity.5 I argue that the analysis of this temporal frame should be crucial in our appraisal of the innovative dimension of the poem, as it is this temporal frame which allows the lyric voice of the bard to take on a prophetic tone. At first entitled ‘Ode II’, the poem was later renamed ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’, which underlines its belonging to lyric poetry and to the poetic form of the ode, but also endows it with an epic quality (that is brought out by the heroic figure of the bard),6 therefore hinting at a form of generic instability.

Indeed, Gray’s lyric poetry is famous for the way it seeks to memorialise and preserve lost times and places, notably in ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ or ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’.7 However, in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’, future

and Poetics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. P. 239: ‘disenfranchised eighteenth-century poet ventriloquizing the voice of ancient cultural empowerment and finding in a feudal poetics a nostalgic celebration of bardic potency.’

3 Mulholland, 2008, p. 117: ‘It was Gray’s research in Welsh prosody that led him to revive the use of alliteration, an unpopular literary device among eighteenth-century poets.’

4 Ibid., p. 111.

5 Ibid., p. 117: ‘the unusual temporality of “The Bard”.’

6 Ibid., p. 111: ‘By resisting the English invaders, the Welsh bards defend their political independence and their indigenous culture, the two essential attributes, in Gray’s opinion, of poetic vibrancy.’

7 Hühn, P. & Kiefer, J. (2005). The Narratological Analysis of Lyrical Poetry, ~ 40 ~

Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’

events are foreshadowed, as the bard-prophet predicts the tragic fate of Edward I’s offspring throughout English history, creating a tension between present, past and future. Such a complex play on temporality is unusual in traditional lyric poetry and is more typical of epic poetry. This can be linked to Gray’s constant questioning of the conventions of the ode, for instance in the ‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’, where he uses a mock heroic tone to deride the conventions of traditional celebration.

It is worth noting that lyric poems, such as the odes, are often defined by their particular relation to time. Traditionally, the condition of a lyric poem is stasis – timelessness, a pause or a suspension – that defines the lyric poem as the description of a mood or of a moment, rather than of an action. In his Poetics, Aristotle defines lyric poetry as a category which subsumes the ode and the elegy, which is opposed to epic poetry and to verse drama. Indeed, the characteristics of lyric poetry are often opposed to that of the narrative (and therefore to that of the epic)8 — ‘fiction [being] about what happens next; lyric [...] about what happens now.’9 Another characteristic of lyric poetry is that

Studies in English Poetry from the 16th to the 20th Century. Berlin: Narratologia. P. 85: ‘The function of memory [in ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’] as a contrast and therapeutic response to loss is communicated here by the isotopy preserving, referential, symbolized. That is to say, memory can provide a metonymic link with a past life and a dead person.’

8 Dubrow, H. (2006). ‘The Interplay of Narrative and Lyric: Competition, Cooperation, and the Case of the Anticipatory Amalgam.’ Narrative, 14 (3), 254–271. P. 254: ‘Lyric is static and narrative committed to change, lyric is internalized whereas narrative evokes an externalized situation, lyric attempts to impede the forward thrust of narrative, and so on.’

9 Culler, J. (2015) Theory of the Lyric. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 226. ~ 41 ~

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it is defined by rituals and by the use of apostrophes.10 Therefore, the temporality of lyric poetry is not that of a diachronic narrative taking place in the past, and ‘lyrical time’ traditionally unfolds in the present. Lyric poems thus rarely focus on the future, a convention which ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ breaks with.

However, this ‘lyrical present’ is also quite specific. For Jonathan Culler, this ‘now’ is not that of linear time or that of a gnomic present, but can be defined as an ‘iterable now,’11 which is ‘something more than a report on what I am doing right now,’ and which can be seen as a ‘serial state’ rather than a mere occurrence.12 Through the use of a timeless present, lyric poetry thus enables the preservation of a suspended moment, allowing the poet to expand time through iteration. For David Fairer, ‘the “now” of the [lyric] poem is a helpful concept [...] with its emphasis on a performative element within the text,’ as the eighteenth-century lyric poet ‘is capturing a mood and is conscious of projecting an expressive, strongly characterised voice that carries the poem so as to reach the heart of the listener.’13 Yet, the use of the lyric form of the ode in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ is made more complex by the employment of a sophisticated temporal frame that allows for the prophetic tone of the bard, which heralds the Romantic poets’ yearning for a greater poetic agency.

The aim of this article is therefore to show how Gray’s use of a prophecy in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ creates a generic and temporal hybridity, as epic and lyrical times seem to intertwine in the poem. It will be argued that Gray’s particular use of the Ibid., p. 226: ‘In lyric, there is characteristically dominance of the apostrophic and the ritualistic.’

11 Ibid., p. 289.

12 Ibid.

13 Fairer, D (2010) ‘Lyric Poetry: 1740–1790.’ In M. O’ Neill (Ed.), The Cambridge History of English Poetry (pp. 397–417). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 397.

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Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’

prophecy in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ can also be seen as an example of what Heather Dubrow calls an ‘anticipatory amalgam’ that ‘combine[s] qualities of narrative and lyric.’14 ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ is often said to be at the root of Romanticism because of its focus on Welsh national history and of its use of a prophet-like character. Yet, one could add that the use of prophecy also ushers in a form of hybridisation, which will also be typical of later Romantic poetry. Moreover, I argue that it is possible to trace a genealogy of the use of prophecies in Gray’s poetry, which would later influence Romantic poets, such as Blake, who illustrated the poem.

It is worth noting that the title of the poem is highly programmatic of its contents. By asserting that his ode is a ‘Pindaric’ one, Gray reverts to a pre-Aristotelian conception of lyric poetry that enables him to integrate a prophetic tone and an epic mode into his poem. For centuries, Western poetry has been defined alternatively by inspiration or by craft. The dominant paradigm in the eighteenth century was that of ‘craft and decorum’, and was notably embodied by Pope, who was seen as the heir of an Aristotelian and Horatian tradition, which ‘rehabilitates poetry as an appropriate human pursuit by stressing its artisanal as opposed to its inspirational characters.’15 Conversely, until Pindar’s time, ‘Greek poets still claimed prophetic qualities.’16 Pindar is believed to have taken part in this other tradition that defined poetry through inspiration, which dates back to Archaic Greece, when the prophecies of the Pythia in Delphi, for instance, were uttered in dactylic hexameters, which was also the metre of the epic.17 Of course, other models for Gray’s Dubrow, 2006, p. 265.

Leavitt, J. (1997). ‘Poetics, Prophetics, Inspiration.’ In J. Leavitt (Ed.), Poetry and Prophecy. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press. P. 13.

16 Ibid., p. 11.

17 Ibid.: ‘Not only did poets claim prophetic gifts, but seers and oracles gave forth their mantic utterances in verse. At the oracular cult center of 14 15

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bard are the Shakespearean prophecies of the ‘nightly fears’ line 7 predicted to Edward I by the bard are reminiscent of Richard III’s fate in the eponymous play. The same is true of the figure of Merlin, who was used during the late sixteenth century as a mouthpiece for political prophecies, before the rise of neoclassicism in the mid-seventeenth century.18 It is important to remember that by the mid-eighteenth century, ‘inspiration began to come back into fashion,’ as poets like Burns and Macpherson displayed ‘an ideology of inspiration from nature and/or a postulated surviving folk paganism.’19 By calling his ode a ‘Pindaric’ one, Gray thus asserts his desire to write a poem which is not a mere artefact and product of craft, but which is endowed with a mantic agency — that of the bard and of the prophet. He subscribes to an archaic lyric tradition that ‘makes poet and prophet the guardians of the knowledge of the past as well as the future and, in this sense, masters of truth.’20 In the Pindaric conception of the ode, lyric poetry is therefore completely compatible with a prophetic tone and an epic dimension, which may be linked to the fact that the prophecy is often seen as an ‘all-encompassing literary kind.’21

Delphi, the medium of Apollo, called the Pythia, went into an ecstatic state and uttered words in the name of Apollo […] these messages, whether repeated by the prophet or spoken directly by the Pythia, were rendered in hexameters, the verse form used for epic poetry and hymns.’

18 Ibid., p. 18: ‘During the same period, as Howard Dobbin has shown (1990) political prophecy deriving ultimately from Celtic tradition, often attribute to Merlin and generally conveyed in Latin verse, played a destabilizing role in the polity; one such prophecy was invented by Spenser as part of the Faerie Queen.’

19 Ibid., p. 19.

20 Ibid., p. 10.

21 Rhu, L. (1990). ‘After the Middle Ages.’ In J. Kugel (Ed.), Poetry and Prophecy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. P. 174. ~ 44 ~

Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’

What is more, turns towards the future in Gray’s poems are not rare, and they often take the form of a prophecy or a vision. For instance, in ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, the idea of fate is highlighted by a new dynamic towards the future, as shown by the first use of the modal ‘shall’ in the poem (‘Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate’, line 96). In ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’, the words ‘doom’ (line 51) and ‘fate’ (line 95) also enable a turn towards the future of the innocent children. Those poems can be considered precursors to ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’, which is built on a prophecy of a Welsh bard turning the Plantagenets into a cursed family akin to the Atreidae.

However, the parameters of the future situation which is described in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ are more sophisticated than in earlier poems by Gray. Indeed, the bard’s prediction is made from the past, creating an enclosed temporality and enabling a play on historical irony, as the reader knows that the curse of the bard will prove to be true. The poet turns lyric time into historical time, as the ‘now’ of the lyric poem is dilated to contain the future times of English history, while being enclosed in the historic past of the bard’s utterance.22 The bard’s prophecy is introduced by a conventional reference to the Parcae, who traditionally wove the threads of destiny (‘And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line’, line 48), while the bard promises to turn the life of ‘Edward’s race’ into a ‘hell’ (lines 51–52). The prophetic tone of this passage is asserted by the use of the modal ‘shall’ (line 54). The bard goes over the tragic fate of Edward I’s lineage, the ‘She-wolf of France’ (line 7), a reference to Edward II’s wife, and the ‘bristled Boar in infant blood’ (line 93) alluding to Richard III. The rise to power of 22

Mulholland, 2008, p. 118: ‘This transforms prophecy from a vision to be seen into a song to be heard, emanating from the future back into the past, which the Welsh bards in turn re-vocalize to Edward and his English army (as well as Gray’s contemporary readers).’ ~ 45 ~

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the Tudors, of Welsh descent, will be the bard’s revenge (stanza III. 2). The bard’s prophetic speech then ends with his sudden suicide and with the assertion that what he has described to us is a ‘vision’ of ‘The different dooms our fates assign’ (lines 139–140).

The bard has thus been able to access a superhuman knowledge, and, much like the mythological Cassandra, his prophecy will not be listened to by Edward.23 The notion of ‘anticipatory amalgams’ may help us to grasp the intricate play on temporality which can be found in the poem.24 What Heather Dubrow calls an anticipatory amalgam is a blend of both narrative and lyric that does not involve a competition between the two modes: ‘among the most intriguing forms of conflation is what we might term the “anticipatory amalgam”: texts using anticipatory amalgams foresee events that may occur and in so doing blend modes and temporalities.’25 She adds that ‘threats, prophecies, promises (speech acts that are intriguingly similar in a number of ways) may all be the basis of an anticipatory amalgam,’26 which is particularly relevant to the case of ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’, as the poem hinges upon a prophecy.

Dubrow notes in the definition of anticipatory amalgams that ‘[they] often grant power and authority to those whose purchase on those attributes is limited or blocked.’27 This is exactly the case of the Welsh bard in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’, as the prophecy and the curse are his last resort to fight against the Dubrow, 2006, p. 266: ‘The ability to foresee the future is indeed a power, though, as Cassandra learns to her cost, it can be intertwined with the tragic lack of the ability to forestall the events in question or even to be believed.’

24 Ibid., p. 267: ‘the blending of temporalities that characterizes the anticipatory amalgams.’

25 Ibid., p. 264.

26 Ibid.

27 Dubrow, 2006, p. 265.

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Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’

injustice of Edward I. Indeed, the prophecy as an incantatory speech (for instance with the ominous personification of nature in lines 23–24) gives him the authority and the agency that he cannot seek in another, more traditional way. In the poem, the bard is both an avatar of the poet and an enigmatic, almost supernatural, figure who is endowed with prophetic powers (‘And, with a master’s hand and prophet’s fire, | Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre’, lines 21–22). This equation of poetic utterance with quasi-divine utterance heralds Blake’s use of such a prophetic tone in his great epics and in his prophetic books, including Jerusalem, Vala, Milton and The Book of Thel.

Yet, the power of the bard is very much a poetic one because it lies in his ability to produce striking poetic images that can stir hatred against the king, for instance with the description of the corpses of his ‘lost companions’ who are attacked by ‘ravens’ and ‘famished eagle’ (lines 35–38). These verses underline the cruelty of the king’s repression, as the Welsh bards (who were very important in Welsh society) are not given an appropriate burial. In his prophecy, the bard addresses the king directly (‘oh king!’, line 25; ‘Edward, lo!’, line 97) as if they were on an equal footing, and attempts to influence his political choices by terrifying him and cursing him. The bard’s approach to Edward I illustrates Dubrow’s idea that ‘in many stances, however, the direct speech act of threatening or promising or foreseeing embeds an indirect speech act of commanding.’28 Moreover, a deep connection is made in the poem between poetry and freedom, the fight of the Welsh bards against Edward’s tyranny is continued in the bard’s threatening prophecy, this connection prefigures the poetic agency of the Romantic poet-prophet.

Although the bard seemingly interacts on an equal footing with the king, he is also a victim, as it is doubtful that he can really influence the king through his prophecy, however true it might be.

28

Ibid., p. 266. ~ 47 ~

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While the reader knows that the prophecy is accurate, as argued above, and that historical events will unfold as the bard describes them, Edward I is not deterred from repressing the Welsh bards and oppressing the Welsh people. The fact that the bard’s prophecy heralds a future punishment shows that the bard is aware of his helplessness and demonstrates that he himself anticipates his failure to convince Edward I. This failure is also contained in the notion of ‘anticipatory amalgam’, which often shows the weakness of the poetic speaker according to Dubrow: ‘if anticipatory amalgams often serve to assert the speaker’s control over events and a reader, they may also, as in this instance, demonstrate the limitations of such control.’29 Although political agency is not granted to the bard, the poet (through the figure of the bard) seems to be given back his status of ‘master of truth’. Gray in this poem makes the voice of the lyric poet audible again and prefigures Blake’s vatic stature and voice. In spite of its tragic consequences, the suicide of the bard at the end of the poem also participates in this reassertion of the agency of the bard, who ultimately refuses to abide by Edward’s rules and calls his death a ‘triumph’ (line 142). The fact that the poem ends with the death of the bard makes this prophetic utterance all the more striking and unsettling. Indeed, the death of the bard-poet defines the figure of the bard (and thus that of the poet) primarily as a Promethean figure who mediates between different worlds — the dead and the living, the gods and the mortals. Poetry is therefore not conceived of as a mere craft (although the bard uses the verbs ‘adorn’ (line 125) and ‘dressed’ (line 127) to describe the action of poetry) but as the result of a superhuman inspiration. This inspiration is not openly divine, though its source remains enigmatic. Moreover, just as prophetic and poetic voices mingle in the poem, both lyric and epic voices are to be heard intertextually: the ‘voice as of the cherub-choir’ 29

Ibid, p. 267. ~ 48 ~

Prophecy, Temporality and Poetic Agency in Thomas Gray’s ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’

(line 131) was later said by Gray himself to be that of Milton, the great epic-poet who was also to become Blake’s model.

Therefore, although Gray emphasises his belonging to the tradition of the lyric in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ with the mention of the prophet’s ‘lyre’ (line 22), the complex use of temporality in the poem also links it to a narrative mode. This hybridity is especially noticeable in the use of foreshadowing effects and predictions, creating an ‘anticipatory amalgam’ as defined by Dubrow. Gray uses this device to assert the poetic speaker’s agency, but also to play on historical irony and to create a particular bond with the reader, who already knows the unfolding of the history of England and the historical downfall of the Plantagenets. This play on temporality in ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ therefore underlines Gray’s experimentations with lyric poetry, as he stretches the boundaries of the ‘lyrical present’ so as to introduce foreshadowing effects and epic sublimity.30 In doing so, Gray revives an older, pre-Aristotelian definition of lyric poetry, which endows his poetic voice with new vatic qualities.

Several decades before Shelley, Gray thus demonstrates that ‘Prophecy [is] an attribute of poetry.’31 Indeed, ‘The Bard: A Pindaric Ode’ highlights Gray’s fashioning of a new type of poetic agency, which strikingly prophesies, beyond the Plantagenets’ downfall, the well-known figure of the (Ro)mantic poet-prophet.

Dubrow, 2006, p. 267: ‘If narrative often, though of course not always, involves a story that is set in the past (which differs of course from the time of discourse) and located in a mimesis of physical space ("it happened in this place") and lyric often the mode that focuses on the lyric present or overlapping time schemes and a mimesis of mental space ("it is happening in my mind"), the hybrids in question are typically optatives located both in the mind in the present and in a physical space that may exist in the future.’

31 Shelley, P. B. ([1820] 1965), ‘A Defence of Poetry.’ In R. Ingpen & W. E. Pecks (Eds.), The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. New York: Gordian. P. 112.

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Adès the Traditionalist?: An Analysis and Discussion of I: Rings from Concentric Paths Op.24, in the light of Historical Precedent Tristan A L Latchford

T

he work of Thomas Adès is arguably difficult to give provenance; the traditional elements of his music remain firm, whilst his approaches to harmony and audience interaction often align his music with post-modernist thought.1 The concerto is a compositional type with an extensive canon that has gained many traditions and compositional norms.

Since the dawn of Modernism in the early 20th Century, composers began to challenge the conventions of the concerto. In the same manner as they had with many other compositional formats, techniques such as subverting the expectations of the listener by increasing the number of movements, or having the soloist take a back seat to the orchestra’s overwhelming presence were employed.

Peter Lane concludes that Adès’s work thrives on its engagement with particular aspects of tradition.2 However, the methods of analysis that Lane uses to create his 2013 reading of the piece are far from traditional. In his contemplation of the various movements of Adès’s concerto, Lane employs several Lewinian ideas about interval transformation 3 that, whilst See throughout Adès, T. (2010). Violin Concerto: Concentric Paths. London: Faber Music.

2 Lane, P. V. Z. (2013). Narrative and Cyclicity in Thomas Adès Violin Concerto (DPhil dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (Document ID 1371038148). P. 72.

3 see Lewin, D. (1987). Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations.

New Haven: Yale University Press. For a more general explanation of 1

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illuminating, tell us little about whether Adès takes a traditional approach to form in the concerto. Lane’s analysis can be strongly contrasted with Jairo Duarte-Lòpez’s highly direct approach that makes use of pitch-class sets to discuss Adès’s use of harmony.

Duarte-Lòpez addresses the form of Adès’s concerto, suggesting that it is a tripartite construction with some motivic overlap. Yet what Duarte-Lopez’s approach gains in its discussion of structure, it loses in its insight to the motivic and melodic patterns within Rings. It seems that to discuss the extent that Adès employs traditional tropes of the concerto style within Rings, the two analyses need to be integrated and extended.

In this essay I will interrogate the notion that Adès’s composition reflects a traditional approach to the issues presented in historical discourse on the concerto, despite his usual designation as a postmodern composer, and will analyse Rings to judge the extent to which Adès uses these traditional techniques. Using these two analyses, as well as creating an analysis of my own, I will ask to what extent Adès employs traditional tropes of the concerto style, and how these manifest themselves within his writing. I will also address Adès’s approach to harmonic construction in relation to traditional writing, and what effect this has on the structure of the piece.

Analytical Approaches to the Work of Thomas Adès

Analytical concerns facing the early violin concerto in the late 18th and early 19th centuries are often confined to discussions about different types of sonata form. That sonata form pervades compositional work in this period, is explored in some Lewin’s theories see Satyendra, R. (2004). An Informal Introduction to Some Formal Concepts from Lewin’s Transformational Theory Journal of Music Theory, 48 (1), 99–141. ~ 52 ~

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depth by analysts such as James Hepakoski, Warren Darcy,4 and William Caplain,5 to name but a few. That remains of sonata form still haunt music composed in the 20th and 21st centuries, is less often addressed. In the concerto, the characteristics of sonata form often occupy the opening and closing movements of pieces.

The archetypal classical concerto consists of three movements in a fast - slow - fast alignment, where the first movement would be a conventional sonata form, and the final movement a sonata rondo. What began with the Bolognese sonata, and became Ritornello forms broken up by virtuosic episodes, further evolved into a structural sonata format during the 18th Century. This discourse between the soloist and the orchestra remained a pertinent question in the concerto right into the late 20th century.

Although, as Whittall notes: ‘As in earlier times, concerto composition was not confined to works called concertos [in composition post 1945]; one of the most interesting consequences of the modernist aesthetic is the play of expectation that the use — or avoidance — of a generic title can create […].’6 This is far from the case in Concentric Paths, where the soloist takes a front seat throughout the piece. It is unclear as to whether the soloist fulfils the traditional role, but the subtitle of ‘Violin Concerto’ that the composer gives links well with the audience’s expectation of the piece with the virtuosic soloist present for the duration. It is clear therefore that sonata form, and discourse between the soloist and orchestra remain important traditional features of the concerto canon.

Hepokoski, J. & Darcy, W. (2006). Elements of Sonata Theory Oxford: Oxford University Press.

5 Caplain, W. E. (1998). Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. New York: Oxford University Press.

6 Whittall, A. (2005). ‘The Concerto since 1945.’ In S. P. Keefe (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Concerto (pp. 161–174). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 161.

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Whilst the concerto is riddled with a long history of traditional formats, the idea of ‘cycle’ is also pertinent, having many distinct meanings in music. ‘Cycle’ may refer to a repeated segment of notes or chords, the term quickly coming into use with the advent of 12-tone composition to describe the point where the row began to repeat itself. In symphonic literature, the ‘cycle’ is the complex Beethovenian issue of writing a unified work that contains several distinct movements joined by some form of metastructure. Both of these issues could be described as longstanding traditions in composition by the time of Adès writing Concentric Paths in 2005. To Lane, regardless of Adès’s status as a postmodern composer, it seems that the whole concerto engages with some aspects of tradition.7 Lane does not state precisely which compositional traditions Adès engages with, but the ideas of ‘cycle’ in harmony, as well as in enclosed forms, could both be present in Adès’s writing. Solely from the viewpoint of the first movement, the idea of a harmonic cycle of notes is more pertinent than a symphonic type cycle of movements.

Adès’s organisation of harmony as both transformational and activated across different registers (into different strata) makes analysis of his work a laborious process. John Roeder uses a variety of different methods to approach analysis of Adès’s music, including Lewinian ideas of transformation and rhythmical matrices. During the course of his essay, Roeder analyses common themes and trends in Adès’s composition; he notes that relations can be made to more serendipitous forms of analysis, such as NeoReimannian theory, which he describes as ‘revealing in respect of both theoretical reflection and creative practice.’8 Indeed, Adès’s 7 8

Lane, 2013, p. 72.

Roeder, J. (2006). ‘Co-operating Continuities in the Music of Thomas Ades.’

Music Analysis, 25 (1/2), 121–154. P. 129. Roeder also draws extensively from Kramer, J. D. (1995). Beyond Unity: Toward an Understanding of Musical Postmodernism. In E. West Marvin & R. Hermann (Eds.), Concert ~ 54 ~

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common use of occasional functional harmonic chords often makes pitch-class set analysis, and sometimes even Lewin’s transformation theories complicated to justify. This is also illustrated further in Roeder’s diagram of parsimonious voice leading where he states that ‘apparently irreconcilable continuities of this passage are ultimately made to co-operate in a post-tonal simulacrum of harmonic counterpoint.’ 9 It is not surprising that both previous analyses of Concentric Paths cite Roeder’s observations on analysing Adès’s music, taking different approaches of their own.

Jairo Duarte-Lòpez’s analysis of Adès’s work focusses on understanding the structural features of the work. After a brief discussion of the composer’s background, the focus turns to the three goals of his analysis: demonstrating how various ‘punctuations’ provide an overall harmonic structure, establishing the pre-compositional foundation of the procedures used by Adès to develop compositional material, and to explore how the structure relates to the notions of ‘continuity’ and ‘goaldirectedness’ set out by Roeder.10Duarte-Lòpez asserts that the form is tripartite, consisting of an introduction, two themes, three transitions and a coda (illustrated in Table 1 below).

Music, Rock, and Jazz since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies (pp. 11– 33). Rochester: University of Rochester Press.

9 Roeder, 2006, p. 141.

10 Duarte-Lopez, J. (2016). Structural Continuities in the First Movement of Thoma Adès’s Violin Concerto (Concentric Paths) Op. 23, (DPhil dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (Document ID 1796991316). P. 6. Here he cites Roeder, 2006, pp. 121–154. ~ 55 ~

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Duarte-Lòpez then goes on to discuss the material following the opening bars (1–20), stating that, ‘After the introduction (b. 1–20), in the A section [for Lòpez b. 1–45], the movement introduces a series of accented tutti chords every 3 to 5 measures.’11 Duarte-Lòpez asserts that these chords denote the phrases, and in turn provide a structural basis for the movement.

In his reading, they serve to establish a structural framework and provide ‘re-setting points’ that create the effect of ‘endless waves of goal-directed continuity.’ 12 He likens these waves to the auditory effect of M.C. Escher’s Waterfall.

These ideas of continuity also extend to Duarte-Lòpez’s reading of texture and density in the movement, explaining that the internal layers of music flow with constant transformations.

With regard to harmony, his approach is to apply an analysis based on twelve-tone and set theory,13 noting that ‘The Concerto’s opening material reveals the simultaneous use of twelve-tone serialism, tonal-type harmonies, and linear chromatic motion as the means to provide a sense of continuity and goaldirectedness.’14 The analysis is rather plagued by the regular Duarte-Lòpez, 2016, p. 12.

Ibid, p. 13.

13 His main analytical approach is the use of pitch-class set theory, discussed in Forte, A. (1978). The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven: Yale University Press, and also explained in Straus, J. N. (2016). Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory. London: W. W. Norton. Pp. 4–94.

14 Duarte-Lopez, 2016, p. 25.

11 12

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appearance of harmonically functional tetrachords, but his reduction of the opening 13 bars of the piece is illuminating.

Despite the analytical method Duarte-Lòpez applies, he finishes by quoting Straus, writing: “All tonal music is centric, focused on pitch classes or triads, but not all centric music is tonal.”15 With this statement in mind, it can be said that the notions of centricity in the Concerto show aspects that are reminiscent of traditional tonal organization[…].16 It seems clear from Duarte-Lòpez’s analysis that there is a certain level of harmonic organization in Adès’s writing, but it is unclear how far this ‘traditional tonal organization’ extends, as Duarte-Lòpez approaches Adès’s writing from a post-modern perspective, as opposed to a traditional one.

Assessing the cyclical nature and narrative in Concentric Paths was the task of Peter Lane’s 2013 dissertation, in which he stated that neither quasi-Schenkerian or transformational analytical approaches addressed the unique interaction between both circular and linear structures within the work’s narrative.17 After a brief exploration of Adès’s orchestral work Alysa, where Lane quotes Roeder’s analysis, he discusses the orchestration and role of the soloist, writing that ‘in many ways, Concentric Paths owes more to the formal traditions of the 18th century concerto than it does to the 20th century.’18 Lane’s argument for this assertion is rooted in the classical movement design of the concerto, and the fact that ‘Adès does little to challenge the ultra-

Straus, 2016, p. 131.

Duarte-Lopez, 2016, p. 49.

17 Lane, 2013, p. v.

18 Ibid., p. 16.

15 16

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traditional role of the soloist.’19 His structural analysis agrees broadly with that of Duarte-Lòpez, in that he places the structural weight of the movement on the percussive tutti exclamations seen in bars 20, 35, and 62. Lane also deconstructs the solo violin material in bars 4–8, breaking the theme into ‘cyclic palindromes’ that remain static, and ‘voiceleading preparations’ that descend by a semitone. This reading of the opening figurations provides a useful process-based description of the thematic material that in turn enables a greater insight into Adès’s compositional thinking.

Lane also makes use of the advice that Roeder presents in his essay and draws a diagram of durational process to illustrate the parsimonious voice leading in bars 1–20.20 Perhaps the most useful of Lane’s harmonic analyses is the transformational network for bars 91–104, which are ‘almost literally an inversion of the first 20 measures of the movement[…].’21 Lane notes that the major difference is the theme that is heard in bar 109, having already been constructed by the developmental process. He also states that the cycle falls one semitone short of a complete octave, not mentioning if the final chord of the cycle is ever heard.

Lane takes his structural analysis of the cycle even further before concluding his discussion on the movement, noting that the descent of the cycle is completed just before the returning ascent at bar 90. Lane sees the first 90 bars as a linear process of downward motion, that prepares the short, inverted repetition of the opening. This statement leads to a major issue in Lane’s analysis: the lack of any kind of formal function. Throughout the essay, Lane does not explain the structural significance or relation of any of the features he discusses, a flaw not found in the analysis

by Duarte-Lòpez. Despite both analyses taking different approaches, their conclusions about Adès’s composition are Ibid.

Lane, 2013, pp. 23–28.

21 Ibid., p. 35.

19 20

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remarkably similar. In his conclusion, Lane writes the aforementioned: “Whether or not we embrace the idea that postmodern concepts of form and continuity apply to Adès’s music, or if such concepts can even be defined, it seems clear that this piece thrives on its engagement with some staples of the tradition, while entirely circumventing others.”22 Once again, Lane doesn’t provide us with any examples of what these ‘staples of tradition’ constitute, providing the reader with only the brief explanation earlier in the text whilst addressing Orchestration and the Role of the Soloist.

These analyses both agree that there is a traditional element to Adès’s composition, but to find the nature of this traditional element, the analyst needs to search for traditional Violin concerto tropes within Concentric Paths. Therefore, arguably the most effective way to elucidate the extent to which Rings represents a traditional approach to concerto composition, is by applying traditional forms of analysis to the post-modern concerto. Therefore, using traditional methods of analysis and integrating these ideas with those presented by Lane and DuarteLòpez will enable me to get a clear picture of the extent that Adès’s Rings can be described as a traditional Violin concerto.

Analysis

From the onset of the first bar, the soloist is prominent from the orchestra, stating repeatedly the G and D, which is initially accented by interjections from the Flutes. These interjections then begin sounding B and F#, which in bar 4, begins the descent. The beginning of this descent also marks the primary theme, which Lane divided into ‘cyclic palindromes’ and 22

Lane, 2013, p. 72. ~ 59 ~

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‘voiceleading preparations.’23 This theme continues to descend until bar 12, when it is booted back up again in a registral transfer in bars 12–13. The descent then continues onward until another registral transfer takes place in bars 17–18, culminating in a climax at the end of bar 20. The descending figuration has several interesting characteristics not addressed by Duarte-Lòpez, such as the importance of fifths in the notes Adès chooses (of which more will feature later). This is illustrated most clearly in figure 1 below, which shows a reduction of the first 20 bars of Adès’s Rings. The notes in the reduction have been coloured to accent the fifths present in each successive voice of the progression. Of particular note, is the way that Adès introduces each new set of fifths by dropping a semitone and overlapping two sets, before later resolving it. These resolutions cause the 7th chords that proliferate in this first section, and make up bars 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, and 16.

Figure 1 —A reduction of the harmonic content in the solo violin in bars 1–20 of Adès’s Rings

The material at the upbeat to bar 21 clearly constitutes new compositional material, but also contains a strong reliance on 5th relations. With each successive return of this material, the 23

Lane, 2013, p. 23. ~ 60 ~

Adès the Traditionalist?

process of descending fifths is more pronounced, and shown in figure 2 below.

Figure 2 — Solo violin part with descending 5ths highlighted, bars 109–111 in Adès’s Rings

With these two gestures, we can start to build a structural picture of the piece, beginning with 3 bars of introductory material, moving on to the primary theme (bars 4–12), and after a short development (in the form of registral transfers in bars 13– 203), new material (bars 204–23). An important facet of this new material is that it fragments, and it is using this fragmented nature that Adès provides us with a series of gestures that recall the theme again in bars 26-28, and 29-38. It is the second of these that constitutes the mature secondary theme, which gently descends in semitones a 5th apart. This theme is also used as a compositional device to provide contrasting sections of ‘solo’ and ‘tutti’ for the Violin and orchestra. When the soloist is playing the primary theme, the orchestra simply punctuates its motions, but when the soloist plays the secondary theme, the orchestra takes over the primary theme and shares it out between parts. The semiquaver pattern is only entirely absent in a single bar of the whole movement, during the end of the soloist’s cadenza-like section, before the push to the retransition. The way that Adès handles these two themes throughout the piece enables us to develop a structural picture based around them (table 2).

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Bar

1

3

14

20– 21

29

38

45

62

71

Function: Intr S1 TR S2 S2 Dev. ~~> ~~> ~~> o (frag) Ritornello/ R1 ~~> ~~> E1 ~~> R2 E2 ~~> R3 Episode Bar 76 85 91 94 105 109 113 121 Function: ~~> RT Intro S1 TR S2 CODA End Ritornello E3 ~~> ~~> R4 ~~> E4 R5 ~~> / Episode Cadenz

Table 2 – Table showing the structural functions of melodic material in Adès’s Rings.

Whilst the central themes are a key component of Adès’s construction of the piece, register also plays a fundamental part in the operation of the movement. From our traditional analytical viewpoint, it seems that Adès uses register in the same manner as an 18th Century composer may have used keys. A good example of this can be found by comparing the introduction (bars 1–3), with its second arrival in bars 91–94, where it reappears an octave down and in a pattern that is the reverse of that found in the opening bars. The material is clearly the same, but in inverse, a statement that becomes even clearer on inspection of the Clarinets in bar 91, which mimic the Flute gestures in bar 3, but once again in reverse. The reverse operation in these bars subconsciously sets up the listener for the ensuing upward motion that the theme takes in bars 94–105. Adès even mimics the original transitional material here, in bars 105–109 with two very similar registral changes to hasten the upward progression toward the secondary theme in bars 109–113. The secondary theme, perhaps to balance the octave displacement of the first theme, is displaced by a perfect 5th above the listeners’ original hearing in bar 29. In fact, the original hearing began on an F#, and ~ 62 ~

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the final hearing in bar 109 begins on a B§, both notes that are crucial to the harmonic structure of the piece.

This leads directly to another feature of Adès’s composition: a sense of direction, something that Lane touches on at the end of his analysis, stating that the background (descending) intervallic processes are completed just before the introductory section in bar 90, and the beginning of the ascension.24 This direction is also felt in the recapitulation that, when set off by the introductory material in reverse, transposed an octave down, ascends toward the secondary theme, arriving at B§, when previously the same process yielded Bb that fragmented into transitional material, and finally arrived at F#. With these four points of melodic entry as structural guidelines, we can form a more complete understanding of Adès’s use of harmonic material throughout the piece. It is also in these expositional passages, as well as in the themes themselves, that the importance of fifths is highlighted as a key part of Adès’s harmonic construction process. In bar 4, B and F# are introduced to the G and D instated in bars 1–3 to kick off the primary theme’s development process, whilst the G and D undergo a registral transfer.

A similar tradeoff occurs in the retransition section in bars 85–90, where B and F# alternating in the soloist’s part are replaced for G and D with a simple fade out. It is the addition of Bb and Eb that begins the ascending inverted theme, culminating in polychord constructed of fifths in bar 109 with A in the bass and B§ outlined by the violin’s theme. It is then left to the coda to resolve these harmonic issues, which it does by creating an oscillation between chords containing Bb, D, Eb, and F#. The registers of these sonorities are then shuffled until the Eb is eliminated by registral transfer to D, and the G is added. The piece ends on a clear sonority containing G, Bb, D, F# — leaving only the 24

Lane, 2013, p. 37. ~ 63 ~

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Bb unresolved. This final sonority is the last step in the transformational network that Lane created for bars 91–104, suggesting that the transition, second theme, and coda are the required effort to move that extra step to complete the cycle. This once again highlights the importance of fifths in the harmonic construction of this movement.

Another feature springs from Lane’s observation: Seeing the first 90 measures as a linear process of downward motion preparing the inverted repetition of the opening creates little, if any hermeneutic contradictions [between a cyclical and linear view of the movement’s structure].25 It is this movement-wide registral oscillation that Adès exploits in the final 30 bars of the movement. The ascent in bars 90–108 is suddenly reversed in bar 109 by the arrival of the secondary theme, which returns the direction to a downward trend. When the secondary theme eventually fragments into the coda, the motion is initially one of ascent, accented by the orchestral accompaniment, but this gives way to a sudden descent in the final two bars that crashes downward into the harmonic resolution. This oscillating figure gives a strong impression of the piece being ‘cyclic’ even from a linear perspective, as Lane suggests. The harmonic rhythm also increases significantly during the coda, and the orchestras own oscillating figure, that activates many different registers, encourages the cyclic notion. Through this movement-wide oscillation, the listener gets the impression that the harmonic rhythm and intensity of the piece are increasing, simply because the direction of travel around the C 1 cycle changes more regularly

25

Lane, 2013, p. 37. ~ 64 ~

Adès the Traditionalist?

It is clear that there are many facets of Adès’s Rings that can be interpreted from a traditional analytical perspective, such as the pseudo-sonata thematic structure that the piece seems to fit, as well as the virtuosic solo part that clearly partakes in ‘solo’ and ‘tutti’ sections illustrated by the orchestra and soloist playing the same or different material. The harmonic structure is nonfunctional, but not non-centric, and there is a clear importance and structural weight placed on the G, D and B, F# fifth sonorities which aid to transform and mutate the harmony as Adès embarks on the 12-tone cycle.

Integrating the Analyses

The very fact that a cohesive analytical reading and argument can be drawn from non-post-tonal methods of analysis suggests that Adès’s compositional approach in Rings has many traditional aspects as both Lane and Duarte-Lòpez stated.

Thematic structures play a key role in my analysis as markers of traditional formal boundaries. I believe that the exact repetition of the second theme, and the inverted recapitulation of the first theme provide a pseudo-sonata superstructure that ties the movement together. I should clarify at this point that I do not believe that the piece is written in sonata form, as this would require tonal engagement with the melodic material. From all three analyses seems that the way that melodies unfold throughout the piece, and the extended fragmentation and development of both themes from bar 38 onward provide a strong case for this reading. Lane’s reading of the developmental sections works particularly well with my analysis, and dividing Lane’s diagram before the registral change provides a stronger argument for register being an integral part of Adès’s transitional material.

The analysis of bars 91–104 also strongly supports my analysis, with transitional material beginning once again with the registral transfers. My reading of the structure differs more from Duarte~ 65 ~

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Lòpez’s tripartite reading. Whilst the broad superstructure is the same, my labels and designations of important structural events occur at quite different places. Duarte-Lòpez also labels bars 76– 85 as a ‘false recapitulation,’ whereas in my reading this area is the retransition into the recapitulation, and the cadenza figuration for the soloist.

The ritornello/episodic reading of the piece also drew interesting conclusions in the way that Adès uses themes in conjunction with the orchestra. It was this section of the analysis that led me to label the figuration in bars 76–85 as a cadenza and retransition rather than a recapitulation. Adès uses both themes as a method of generating orchestral dialogue by ensuring the first theme (built entirely from semiquavers) is always played by either the orchestra or the soloist. This is most clear in the sections where the secondary theme is present, and the figurations of the primary theme become clear in the upper woodwinds. Throughout the movement, Adès fragments the primary theme and alternates its provenance in the orchestra.

This not only sets up a dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra, but sets up internal dialogue within the orchestra itself, heightening the sense of call and response to the listener. The ‘punctuations’ discussed by Duarte-Lòpez integrate well with the traditional ideas of ‘solo’ and ‘tutti’ sections, as the areas that he identifies are also areas where the theme is altered. The surrounding, continuous nature of the orchestral accompaniment during the primary theme is what inclines me toward labelling it a ‘Ritornello,’ as the orchestra plays along as a whole with the soloist by picking out individual notes from the soloist’s line. The virtuosic nature of the soloist’s material is also in keeping with tradition, and regardless of whether the soloist is playing the primary or secondary theme, the material is complex and extreme in register. All of these traditional aspects of concerto composition seem to be present in Rings, grounding Adès composition firmly within the expectations of the genre. ~ 66 ~

Adès the Traditionalist?

The final aspect of the concerto to address is the least traditional. The harmonic and melodic construction is where Adès deviates from an otherwise traditional concerto format. The manner in which Adès employs harmony within his post-modern idiom has some tone centric implications, but never tonal function, as stated by Duarte-Lòpez. That doesn’t mean that certain sonorities aren’t important however: the G, D and B, F# dyads play crucial structural functions within the piece. Rings uses fifths extensively as part of its structure, even during transitional and motivic material, and it is through layering these fifths that Adès travels round the semitonal C1 cycle during the development process. This is even true of the Eb, Bb dyad, which plays important structural functions at the beginning of the inverted recapitulated theme due to the altered harmonic trajectory. It is no surprise that both occurrences of the secondary theme outline the B, F# dyad, as the piece seems to mirror itself through bar 90.

It is the harmonic structure that Adès innovates in his construction of the concerto, and in so doing, he puts aside all the traditional aspects of the concerto as secondary to the harmony. It is for this reason that traditional elements can be found throughout Rings. They have been shaped around the features of Adès’s harmonic process, a statement exemplified by the themes, which both outline descending fifths in semitones — or in the case of the recapitulatory primary theme, ascending semitones. This harmonic process also causes one of the more potent large-scale effects, harmonic oscillation, which speeds up as the movement progresses.

From integrating all of these analyses, there is a clear engagement with traditional compositional practices in the first movement of Adès’s Concerto, specifically in the formal organisation of the piece, the dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra, and the levels of virtuosity expected from the soloist. It remains unclear to what extent tradition pervades the further movements of the concerto, but Lane does provide some compelling arguments toward this notion in his analysis ~ 67 ~

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addressing the other movements.26 There is also far more to be said about the issue of ‘harmonic direction’ in Rings, noted by Lane in his discussion of the harmony later on in the piece, and briefly addressed during my discussion of harmonic oscillation in the piece at the end of my analysis. Whilst not a traditional aspect of concerto composition, the feature is certainly a compelling one, providing a sense of ‘goal-directedness.’ It is unclear what structural implications this has when addressed at the level of the concerto, and whether there are features of the harmonic methods employed here that become developed later on. Lane mentions the way in which Adès develops melodic material found in the first movement in later movements, so why not harmonic material as well? It is in areas such as these that the use of serendipitous traditional forms of analysis is unlikely to help our understanding of Adès’s piece, unless the entire structure of the concerto is more deeply rooted in tradition than analysts have initially realised.

Taking a traditional analytical viewpoint with Rings has proven beneficial in that we can address the extent to which Adès engages with tradition at the level of the listener, but we cannot comment on the entire compositional process that the piece exhibits. This analysis can help us to identify key structural points, phrases, melodic material, and a relation to an overarching form, yet it cannot illustrate the harmonic cycles Adès uses as a superstructure to construct his material, the row disposition within the piece, or the level to which Adès engages with postmodern compositional thought. Perhaps later studies may integrate these three analyses and tackle to what extent Concentric Paths can be described as a post-modern composition, when considering the strong traditional compositional root within the piece. There is also something to be said for the creation of a wider definition of sonata structure to discuss post-tonal 26

Lane, 2013, pp. 39–70. ~ 68 ~

Adès the Traditionalist?

composition, based on the deposition of themes and harmonic transformations rather than keys. Despite the low likelihood that sonata form remains prevalent in post-tonal composition, there is almost no literature discussing the influence that these ideas have on post-tonal composition, and whether the disposition of: first theme, second theme, development, first theme, second theme, coda remains influential in orchestral literature.

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Kittens and Kalashnikovs: An Anthropological Analysis of My Time Spent Following the Islamic State on Twitter Matthew S. Richardson

J

une 29th, 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi slowly climbs the steps to the pulpit of the Mosul Grand Mosque. In a rare televised appearance, he declares the following: Your brothers, the mujahideen, were blessed with victory by Allah [‌] After long years of jihad, patience, and fighting the enemies of Allah, he guided them and strengthened them to achieve this goal. Therefore, they rushed to establish the Caliphate.1

This is the first time since 1924 that a Sunni Muslim leader could make such a claim with any sort of credibility and has profound socio-political ramifications across the globe. 2 The territorial gains and control over some 11 million subjects, a population roughly equivalent to Portugal, meant that the Islamic State (IS) considered themselves worthy of something greater than statehood.3 The announcement was controversial and was denounced by Muslims across the planet including those within the minority militant Salafi movement.4 Never before had any group so dramatically captured the Caliphatic principle, defying

1 Maher, S. (2016). Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea. London: Hurt and Company. P. 3.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid. ~ 71 ~

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the odds of the contemporary geo-political arena and reviving a religious obligation abandoned for centuries.5 In this paper I shall present a longitudinal reflection on my digital anthropological analysis of IS. It incorporates an abridged version of the paper which formed the written product of this research with specific attention paid to the chapter on media propaganda.6 I had decided to engage in such an analysis because on June 3rd, 2017, I found myself in the parameters of the London Bridge Terror Attack. The attack marked just short of three years since the declaration of the Caliphate, an event which spawned the genesis of IS, symbolising its unprecedented growth, power, and threat.

The original paper included a tri-partite analysis commencing with a discussion on the organisation’s expert use of contemporary social media technologies in relation to McLuhan’s paradigm of ‘the medium is the message.’7 I argued that the message of IS had been particularly effective in their recruitment campaign as it appealed to fundamental theological and political aspects of the Islamic habitus, as reframed as in reaction to shifting geo-political changes in the Levant and wider Muslim world. Finally, I concluded that IS constitutes a Caliphatic sect whereby the process of reframing and reembodying the Islamic habitus became a method of sustaining utopian and introversionist responses to the world.8 In doing so, IS marketed 5 Ibid.

6 Richardson, M. S. (2018). Sex, Social Media, and Salafi-Jihadism: An anthropological analysis of the Islamic State as a Caliphatic Sect (MA Dissertation).

Durham University.

Accessed at: https://www.academia.edu/37680002/Sex_Social_Media_and_Sala fiJihadism_An_anthropological_analysis_of_the_Islamic_State_as_a_Ca liphatic_Sect 7 McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. P. 7.

8 Wilson, B. (1970). Religious Sects: A sociological study. London: ~ 72 ~

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itself as the locus for attainable salvation and the harbinger of the Armageddon, an unsustainable propaganda device which ultimately led to mass disenfranchisement and contributed to the collapse of the Caliphate.

Here, I focus on the utilisation of social media by IS in their well-funded, well-organised, and precise propaganda campaign. I include the data originally harvested from six Twitter accounts known to be updated by users in the Levant. I will move through two separate stages of analysis in relation to the data collected and arrive at a revision of McLuhan’s paradigm. First, I use Geertzian terminology to explore the medium of IS, namely, their use of social media technologies as a tool for increasing the scope of their message to the world, thus eliciting an increased response to the force of their message.9 Then, I identify the contents of these messages, which are laden with socio-political and ideological meanings framed by the leveraging of Islam, thus affirming the force of the message. The justification for focusing on the first chapter of the dissertation is due to recent events in the British political sphere regarding Shamima Begum, one of the Bethnal Green Trio radicalised by a recruiter whose online presence forms part of the dataset. Furthermore, it is the online platforms which marked the entry and exit points of this research project, thus presenting a cyclical process whereby this analysis can proceed.

Methodology

IS in no way represents mainstream Islam or Muslims.

Nevertheless, the methodology of this paper reflects the reality

9

Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Geertz, C. (1968). Islam Observed: Religious development in Morocco and Indonesia. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Pp. 111– 2. ~ 73 ~

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that its ideology is based on fundamental tropes of the Islamic faith that are reinterpreted in accordance with the Caliphate’s own strategic objectives.10 11 These objectives centre on building a complete society for Muslims whereby control over a distinct geographical territory permits the correct implementation of their interpretation of the shari’a and commands obedience from the entirety of the ummah (the Islamic community). 12 Consequentially, critical engagement with the ‘Islamic’ in Islamic State is necessary to understanding the group’s ability to garner support and function as a religious, millenarian movement.13 Therefore, I follow Geertz’s typology of the anthropological study of religion: to determine how IS uses certain ideas, acts, and institutions to ‘sustain, fail to sustain, or even inhibit religious faith.’14 This is critical when attempting to engage with the psychological, political, and ideological messages IS seeks to convey in its propaganda campaign.

Furthermore, I employ Maher’s classification of IS as a millenarian, Salafi-Jihadi movement.15 Simply put, this defines IS as a movement whose Salafi soteriological outlook seeks to emulate the practices of al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ, the first three generations of the Islamic community known as the ‘pious predecessors,’ who constitute the purest, most authentic form of

Muir, J. (2017). 'Islamic State': Raqqa's loss seals rapid rise and fall.

Accessed at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35695648 (Accessed: 20th July 2018).

11 Pelletier, I. R., et al. (2016). ‘Why ISIS's Message Resonates: Leveraging Islam, Sociopolitical Catalysts, and Adaptive Messaging.’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 39 (10), 871–99. P. 874.

12 Ibid.

13 Wood, G. (2015). What ISIS Really Wants. Accessed at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/whatisis-really-wants/384980/ (Accessed: 10th August 2018).

14 Geertz, 1968, p. 2.

15 Maher, 2016, p. 5.

10

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Islam. 16 Salafism becomes Salafi-Jihadism when it seeks to establish itself against existing power structures through five politicised ideologies: tawḥīd, hakimiyya, al-walā’ wa-l-barā’, jihad, and takfir.17 Henceforth, I will use Salafi-Jihadism as a synonym for the ideological and political school inclusive of organisations such as IS, al-Shabaab, and al-Qaeda.

An important methodological consideration concerns the polyvocal nature of Salafi-Jihadism, let alone Salafism or mainstream Islam more generally, that must be recognised before continuing.18 This relates to the phenomena of Orientalism and neo-Orientalism which voids and reduces such polyvocality.19 Historically, Orientalism refers to the generation of knowledge about the Orient from the West as rooted in the colonial interests of the latter, thus resulting in a Foucauldian production of knowledge whereby knowledge is conditioned by the sociopolitical-historical contexts in which it emerges.20 The post9/11 theatre saw the emergence of neo-Orientalism, a phenomenon operating within Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations21 and Lewis’ The Crisis of Islam22 paradigms.23 NeoOrientalism becomes manifest in the feelings of apprehension, fear, and hatred towards Islam and Muslims through the conflation of Islam with terrorism and Muslims with Terrorists.24 16 Ibid.,

p. 7. p. 14.

18 Ibid., p. 9.

19 Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

20 Kerboua, S. (2016). 'From Orientalism to neo-Orientalism: Early and contemporary constructions of Islam and the Muslim World.’

Intellectual Discourse, 24 (1), 7–34. P. 9.

21 Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster.

22 Lewis, B. (2004). The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror.

London: Orion Books Ltd. 23 Kerboua, 2016, p. 20.

24 Ibid.

17 Ibid.,

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Alongside Orientalism proper, this results in a culturalist and reductionist generation and interpretation of knowledge about all matters pertaining to Islam, Muslims, and the Orient.25 Though I agree a neo-Orientalist bias is apparent in Lewis’ work and recognise his use of unsupported qualitative and quantitative judgements,26 I have decided to include his work as it is pertinent in understanding the Manichean worldview IS constructs.27 To avoid a culturalist or reductionist reading of IS, it is necessary to affirm that the movement represents only a very specific form of Salafi-Jihadism, which in turn only represents one particular form of Salafism, which itself is only one specific Sunni Islamic school.28 Furthermore, it is necessary to recognise the Orientalist and neo-Orientalist biases inherent in the sources I employ, particularly regarding my preliminary data harvesting of media reports concerning sympathisers. Such biases are often manifest in the reductionist accounts of sympathisers which evacuate them of their religious and political agency by framing them as sexually or socially deviant.29 This is particularly evident in the account of the ‘jihadi brides’, a trope frequently touched upon by mainstream media and politicians, especially after three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green left the UK to join IS in 2015 and the death of Begum’s new-born child in 2019.30 31 Echoing the

25 Ibid.,

pp. 24–5.

2004, pp. 23–4, p. 117, & p. 27.

27 Kruglanski, A. W. (2014). Psychology not Theology: Overcoming ISIS' Secret Appeal.

Accessed at: http://www.eir.info/2014/10/28/psychology-not-theology-overcoming-isissecret-appeal/ (Accessed: 10th July 2018).

28 Maher, 2016, p. 9.

29 Martini, A. (2018). ‘Making Women Terrorists into "Jihadi Brides": an analysis of media narratives on women joining ISIS.’ Critical Studies on Terrorism, Published Online March 1st, 2018, 1–20. P. 14.

30 Ibid.

31 Dearden, L. (2014). ‘The Glasgow Teenager who Dropped out of 26 Lewis,

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anti-cult scares of the 1970s and '80s, these narratives construct a causal explanation for radicalisation through the ‘brainwashing’ rhetoric, thus delegitimising the political or ideological agency of sympathisers by framing their decision to join IS as an occurrence orchestrated by others without their knowledge or consent, thus portraying the decision as lacking any serious contemplation predicated on reason.32 This leads to a narrow account of the sympathiser phenomenon which maintains Orientalist hegemony on behalf of the West and prevents us from fully grasping the true extent of the threat they pose.33 To avoid such a narrow reading, I decided to conduct my own data collection of IS Twitter accounts to compare and corroborate Martini’s critique with other multidisciplinary sources.34 My decision to use Twitter accounts stems from their accessibility whereby I could collect data from these open and publicly available social media accounts without engaging with suspected terrorists.

Finally, it is necessary to engage with this data with a general air of doubt. Social media accounts of sympathisers are notoriously hard to verify.35 When they are verifiable, as mine were through a snowball method following Pearson 36 and University to Marry an ISIS Fighter in Syria.’ Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-glasgowteenager-who-dropped-out-of-university-to-marry-an-isis-fighterin-syria-9706610.html (Accessed: 10th May 2018).

32 Cottee, S. (2015). ‘The Zoolander Theory of Terrorism: Jihadists are often portrayed as brainwashed dupes. They're not.’ Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/zool ander-terrorists-brainwashed-isis/393050/ (Accessed: 24th August 2018).

33 Martini, 2018, p. 14.

34 Ibid.

35 Klausen, J. (2015). 'Tweeting the Jihad: social media networks of Western foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq.’ Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 38 (1), 1–22. P. 3.

36 Pearson, E. (2016). ‘Online as the New Frontline: Affect, Gender, and ISIS~ 77 ~

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Dearden,37 it is crucial to understand that these accounts are heavily censored and used in the precise production of propaganda.38 Nevertheless, I believe such material is crucial as it reveals the messages, symbols, and images which IS seeks to broadcast to the world. Similarly, in the case of returning disenfranchised sympathisers, it is likely that information is manipulated, withheld, or exaggerated for fear of repercussions from security authorities.39 Method

The method of this paper follows Hegghammer’s approach of aggregating various multidisciplinary sources before disaggregating themes that appear to be ideologically and anthropologically linked to construct an as comprehensive account of IS as possible.40 All sources were chosen by publication date, with the Declaration of the Caliphate marking the beginning of the catchment period. Initially, I engaged with media sources from four UK news organisations, including seven sources from The Independent (a liberal online newspaper), three from The Guardian (a centre-left tabloid former broadsheet), one from The Telegraph (a right-leaning broadsheet), and one from the BBC (a Take-Down on Social Media.’ Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Online Publication, pp. 1–26.

37 Dearden, 2014.

38 Klausen, 2015, p. 3.

39 The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (2017) Enhancing the Understanding of the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon in Syria.

Study conducted by H. el-Said and R. Barrett. Accessed at: http://www.un.org/en/counterterrorism/assets/img/Report_Fina l_20170727.pdf (Accessed: 10th May 2018). P. 11.

40 Hegghammer, T, (2013). ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting.’ American Political Science Review, 107 (1), 1–15.

P. 13. ~ 78 ~

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centrist news agency). This was combined with three sources from the American magazine The Atlantic (a publication for sociocultural commentary on contemporary issues), and one video source from Fox News (a right-leaning news station). The data collected from these sources were mainly secondary observations of tweets or images emerging from IS-affiliated sources or reports from sympathisers claiming to have joined IS. Media articles were sought through the key-words <IS and Social Media>, <IS and Jihad>, <IS and Women>, <IS and Islam>, and by suggested articles related by author or title.

Data from media sources were aggregated with those released by several counterterror organisations. These include a detailed report by el-Said et al. given to The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) about the motivations, experiences, and causes for disillusionment of current and former IS FTFs (Foreign Terrorist Fighters).41 These were combined with scholarly studies on IS primarily from the Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Critical Studies on Terrorism journals which provided a chronological database of scholarly material dealing with IS and comparative cases of previous Salafi-Jihadi and nonSalafi-Jihadi terror organisations.

It was from these sources, particularly Pearsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s study of the IS Twitter community, that I was able to employ a snowball method whereby prominent IS Twitter users were identified and sought online, thus ensuring their verifiability.42 By tracing digital communication between separate sympathiser accounts, I was able to identify and establish a larger online social network operating both in the Levant and the UK. Personal data harvesting took place through April to June 2018 and only included publicly accessible accounts. Due to many accounts included in the initial data harvesting being suspended by Twitter for terror activities, I 41 42

UNCCT, 2017.

Pearson, 2016. ~ 79 ~

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have included only the six accounts which remain live at the time of writing (July–August 2018).

Of these, two accounts appear to be managed by male users: “Abu Bakar Adnan”,43 and “Brother Abd’Allah”;44 whereas four were managed by female users: “Umm Nosaybah Kalashn”,45 “Umm Maryam”,46 “Umm Usmaan”,47 and the infamous “Umm Layth” 48 whose real identity is confirmed as the female propagandist Aqsa Mahmood who assisted in the radicalisation of the Bethnal Green Trio.49 These accounts were available for public cross-referencing at the time of submission, September 2018. As of April 2019, the accounts belonging to Adnan, Abd’Allah, Maryam, and Kalashn are still available for cross-referencing whereas Layth and Mahmood’s accounts are both still live but have had their tweets removed.

The Medium and the Message: IS and the Internet

In June 2014, IS projected itself onto the world stage in an array of bloodshed, power, and carnage mediated through the glass screens of laptops, computers, and smartphones across the globe.50 As the entry point into this anthropological analysis, I explore the group’s use of media in and of itself, analysing the role of media within the organisation, its contribution to the expansion and maintenance of the Caliphate, and offering a revision of ‘the

https://twitter.com/abubakar_adnan https://twitter.com/abdallah3100 45 https://twitter.com/xmujahidax 46 https://twitter.com/Umm__Maryam 47 https://twitter.com/Islaamforever 48 https://twitter.com/UmmLayth_ 49 Dearden, 2014.

50 Farwell, J. P. (2014). ‘The Media Strategy of ISIS.’ Survival, 56 (6), 49–55, p.

49.

43 44

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medium is the message’ paradigm.51 I also introduce my own data harvested from the social networking site Twitter, where individuals interact around posts known as tweets. These tweets can take the form of text, images, videos, or URL links within the spatial constraint of 280 characters.

The Medium of the Islamic State

Evidently, the medium of the internet and social media is of great importance to IS and great concern to international and domestic security agencies; it is the expert use of social media that appears to be a primary catalyst in the recruitment of ‘young and impressionable people’ who are more likely to be using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.52 Though online radicalisation does not always result in offline extremist behaviour,53 54 it is possible that the current spike in sympathisers has coincided with the global reach of IS propaganda disseminated through social media.55 For example, YouTube alone claims more than one billion users every month, whereas Facebook and Twitter have approximately 500 and 350 million active users respectively.56 Writing during the growth and politicisation of mass media before the advent of the Internet, McLuhan argued that new media technologies function to extend the central nervous system of the body into the global public sphere, abolishing both

McLuhan, 1964, p. 7.

Awan, I. (2017). ‘Cyber-Extremism: ISIS and the Power of Social Media.’

Society, 54(2), 138–49. Pp. 138–9.

53 Pearson, 2016, p. 2.

54 UNCCT, 2017, p. 39.

55 Awan 2017, p. 139.

56 Ibid.

51 52

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temporal and spatial constraints and contracting the world into a village.57 Consequentially: [W]hen our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate […] in the consequences of our every action […] As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.58 This hyperextension of the self has profound sociopolitical ramifications: the new media allow socially and politically marginal individuals to move from the fringes to the centre of society, resulting in increased feelings of responsibility and anxiety. 59 Who these individuals are, and what these consequent manifestations of responsibility and anxiety exactly are, however, are not specified.60 Nevertheless, the point being made is clear: ‘the medium is the message.’61 Put simply, this means that the socio-political consequences of any medium result from the new scale it introduces into our current affairs.62 Therefore, McLuhan’s argument does not focus on the message itself, but instead, the consequences of the message as they are amplified and accelerated, thus changing their scale or pace in human perception.63 McLuhan uses the analogy of the railway to demonstrate this: the railway did not introduce movement, transportation, or the wheel into society, but accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally McLuhan, 1964, p. 3.

Ibid., pp. 4–5.

59 Ibid., p. 5.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid., p. 7.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid., p. 8.

57 58

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new kinds of cities, employment, and leisure.64 This, he argues, is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway medium.65 The use of media by terror organisations for logistical, propaganda, educational, or social networking purposes is nothing new.66 67 It is certainly logical to argue that images of beheadings and crucifixions circulating on IS Twitter accounts resemble the image of the falling man on 9/11.68 Indeed, the message appears to have remained the same. Writing in the postSeptember 11th era, Lewis argues that the message portrayed by al-Qaeda in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania was one of notoriety, fear, and a psychological message of warfare capturing the very essence of terrorism.69 This manifestation of terrorism extends back into the 20th century with similar employment of media by non-Islamic terror movements in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ireland.70 However, the mediation of this message, i.e. the mass dissemination of such images of brutal violence that â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;defy civilizational standards,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; is something that sets IS apart from other terror organisations.71 With the growth in personal television and mobile devices, the scale of dissemination of such images is unprecedented,72 thus generating emotive responses of fear and anxiety amongst audiences never before reached and extending the physical battlefield into online and psychological frontiers.73 74 Ibid.

Ibid.

66 Pearson, 2016, p.5.

67 Lewis, 2004, p. 125.

68 Klausen, 2015, p. 13.

69 Lewis, 2004, p. 126.

70 Ibid., p. 126.

71 Maher, 2016, p. 11.

72 Awan, 2017, pp. 138â&#x20AC;&#x201C;9.

73 Pearson, 2016, p. 1.

74 Klausen, 2015, p. 13.

64 65

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As this is a fear that stems from the moral panic triggered by terrorism, I argue that the use of social media in the provocation of this panic affirms the force and scope of the message for those who the violence is directed toward.75 76 Namely, the centrality and range of the message to the lives of those who receive it.77 Similarly, social media acts as a megaphone by which IS can send out live updates of their activities in the Levant and what it feels like to be a supporter in its territory.78 The parallel to McLuhan is paramount here; not only has the message of fear become amplified through the destruction of spatial and temporal boundaries via social media, so too has our sense of embodiment become extrapolated into the war-zone.79 The digital environment now allows us to see, hear, and feel what it is like to be with IS in the Levant, eliciting either fear or empowerment depending on one’s sympathy to the organisation. 80 I would extend this argument to say that images of brutal violence thus permeate the public and private sphere which, if we follow McLuhan become collapsed into one,81 and act as a constant reminder of the Caliphate’s threat. This became particularly apparent in the burning of the Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasabeh, a blasé show of violence that perverted Qur’anic scriptures regarding the treatment of prisoners of war.82 To demonstrate the extension of the self into unconstrained cyber-space and the psychological response this extension entails, I have decided to include

Asad, T. (2008). ‘On Suicide Bombing.’ The Arab Studies Journal, 15/16 (2/1), 123–130. P. 128.

76 Geertz, 1968, pp. 111–2.

77 Ibid.

78 Awan, 2017, p. 142.

79 McLuhan, 1964, p. 8.

80 Awan, 2017, p. 142.

81 McLuhan, 1964, pp. 4–5.

82 Maher, 2016, p. 209.

75

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screenshots of Kasabeh’s execution video (Figure 1)83 and convey this act of psychological warfare.84 As a warning, the images on the following page are extremely disturbing. The sequencing of the video is portrayed left to right starting from the top lefthand image.

The video begins with slick, professional cinematography. It depicts the logo of the organisation’s media outlet Dabiq in a manner akin to what one would see with 20th Century Fox. Before the execution itself, the video is interspersed by images of burned children, some of whom are babies, following a supposed airstrike by Assad’s forces. Kasabeh can be seen wearing an orange jumpsuit imprisoned in a metal cage in arid surroundings. The torch is lit and the sound of a nasheed (an Islamic chant laden with Scriptural references) begins playing as the flames approach the cage. Kasabeh is engulfed in flames, keeping his composure for a few moments before his screams can be heard amidst the nasheed as he struggles against the burning heat. As the video draws to a close, viewers are left stunned by the seemingly inhuman movements Kasabeh’s charred body makes as the flames dissipate. The emblematic black flag of IS flies in the corner throughout the entirety of the video.

Fox News (2015). Warning, Extremely Graphic Video: IS burns hostage alive.

Accessed at: http://video.foxnews.com/v/4030583977001/?#sp=show-clips (Accessed: 24/08/2018).

84 Klausen, 2015, p. 13.

83

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This is not the only way in which IS mirrors McLuhan’s paradigm. For example, there is an important social and cultural dynamic to their use of social media in proselytization, particularly regarding female recruitment.85 Namely, social media can operate as a comparative site of liberation, free of gender constraints frequently found offline; women are more likely to be recruited through online approaches as they are less likely to be recruited offline due to cultural restrictions on physical freedoms, particularly ‘free-mixing.’86 This became apparent in my own data collection whereby female accounts disseminated information directed towards the recruitment of other women. Of importance Peresin, A., & Cervone, A. (2015). ‘The Western Muhajirat of ISIS.’ Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 38 (7), 495–509. P. 500.

86 Pearson, 2016, p. 4.

85

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was the Twitter account of Kalashn, a woman claiming to have eloped to Syria from the UK via Algeria, where she provides logistical information on joining the Caliphate (Figure 2).

Following McLuhan and Pearson, I claim that the socio-political consequences of the extension of the self into digital space facilitates the break-down of cultural boundaries, thus providing an unprecedented generation of an online, female jihadi community.87 88 This is combined with the hyperextension of the message of psychological warfare and follows Geertzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terminology that IS is a movement that utilises social media to increase the scope or range of social contexts within which its message appeals, whether this is in terms of psychological warfare or the facilitation of radicalisation.89 This is how the Islamic Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use of social media fits into the medium is the message paradigm, as social media increase the scope of the

McLuhan, 1964, p. 7.

Pearson, 2016, p. 4.

89 Geertz, 1968, p. 112.

87 88

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message that IS seeks to broadcast. 90 91 However, this only provides an account of the means that IS employs to reach their audiences and induce the appropriate feelings of fear or support; the message itself is left relatively unaccounted for and thus demands a revision of McLuhan’s argument.92 The Message of the Islamic State

Reflecting Asad, Arendt, and Pearson, images of extreme violence are particularly powerful when they permeate the public sphere via the media as they constitute a visceral response to dangers that invade the boundaries of life, thus generating a collective moral shock amongst the target audience.93 94 95 These images will have varying responses depending on whether the target audience is comprised of sympathisers or those deemed enemies, and generally convey a message of unconstrained power.96 97 For sympathisers, this is paired with graphic images of the Syrian conflict and the persecution of Sunni Muslims under Shi’a hegemony, accelerating the process of radicalisation by playing on the high-scope moral and social obligation of Muslim solidarity.98 Thus, the images of Kasabeh’s execution serve a dual purpose. On one hand, they affirm the solidarity amongst sympathisers through the overture of gruesome images of innocent suffering under the Assad regime, presenting a message of justified

Ibid.

McLuhan, 1964, p. 7.

92 Ibid.

93 Asad, 2008, p. 128.

94 Arendt, H. (1970). On Violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. P. 49.

95 Pearson, 2016, p. 5.

96 Farwell, 2014, p. 50.

97 Klausen, 2015, p. 13.

98 UNCTT, 2017, pp. 35–6.

90 91

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violence.99 100 On the other, they present a collective moral shock to those who deem such violence to be an unjustified act of terror.101 Apparently paradoxical messages ranging from images of extreme violence to seemingly innocent photographs of ‘pizza with the bros [sic]’ or FTFs with kittens and Nutella are found both in my own data and that of prominent thinkers in conflict and terrorist studies (Figure 3).102 103 Figure 4 features images and messages posted from Umm Maryam’s account. It depicts three contrasting messages, one celebrating the 2005 London Bombings, one of a young girl, dressed in all black, carrying the flag of IS, and another praying for the victory of the Caliphate.

Though this variety of images appears paradoxical, the message conveyed is of a single narrative that is used to proselytise and recruit sympathisers.104 Klausen argues that female propagandists dressing up their children in IS attire as if it were a football uniform is to make extremism appear a normal lifestyle decision.105 Moreover, the images displayed in figure 4 illustrate Farwell’s argument that ‘warmer’ images aim to communicate the message that, whilst the organisation enacts brutal violence, the Islamic State stands for promoting the welfare of the people, specifically oppressed, Sunni Muslims in the Levant.106 These Stern, J., & Berger, J. M. (2015). ISIS and the Foreign-Fighter Phenomenon: Why do people travel abroad to take part in somebody else's violent conflict?

Accessed at: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/isisand-the-foreign-fighterproblem/387166/ (Accessed: 24th August 2018).

100 Arendt, 1970, p. 79.

101 Assad, 2008, p. 128.

102 Klausen, 2015, p. 19.

103 Farwell, 2014, p. 50.

104 Klausen, 2015, pp. 19–20.

105 Ibid., p. 17.

106 Farwell, 2014, p. 50.

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images reflect a transparency in the militantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; actions, communicating an elaborate message of visibility and stability which affirms the sympathiserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resolve to join the State.107 Reflecting Arendt, I would argue that this message of stability is to counterbalance the message of terror conveyed through images of graphic violence as it is only from stability, not violence, that power can be derived.108 Thus, images of humanitarian work and the stability and comfortable lifestyle within IS affirm the power, and thus the appeal, that IS seeks to convey to recruits.109

Ibid.

Arendt, 1970, p. 56.

109 Ibid.

107 108

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But the message does not stop at an attempt to normalise the actions of supporters. IS-affiliated accounts also dedicate their time acting as ‘agony aunts’ to sympathisers by providing practical and pastoral advice to those willing to travel to the Levant. 110 Reflecting the findings of the UNCCT report, 111 sympathisers are already keen on the decision to join IS, however, it is only after establishing contact with online recruiters that they are provided with the information required to make the journey. 112 Aqsa Mahmood is an infamous figure in the recruitment of female sympathisers, specifically the Bethnal Green Trio, of which Shamima Begum was a member.113

Practically, the medium is the message to the extent that social media provides the necessary platform for anyone to access the information relevant to making the journey to the Levant. But the message itself, i.e. this vital information, is pivotal in facilitating the growth in IS’s recruitment abilities and thus Klausen, 2015, pp. 15–7.

UNCCT, 2017, p. 39.

112 UNCCT, 2017, p. 39.

113 Dearden, 2014.

110 111

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explains the unprecedented surge in the number of individuals travelling to Iraq and Syria.114 This was corroborated by my own data collection (Figures 2 and 5), albeit somewhat more semantically than specifically. What is interesting, and not specific to the case of IS, is how the perpetrators of terrorism justify and frame their actions.115 116 Despite the material disseminated by ISaffiliated accounts varying massively, it has been noted that the majority is underpinned and justified by Salafi-Jihadi tropes.117 In my own data collection, core Islamic terms such as hijra, jihad (struggle), and Khilafah (Caliphate) featured frequently on ISaffiliated accounts albeit reframed towards ISâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own strategic objectives (Figures 4 and 2). Following Pelletier et al., the leveraging of such general Islamic tropes through jihadi propaganda plays upon the solidarity among Sunni Muslims against Shiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;a hegemony, the political unrest in The Levant, and their version of Salafi-Jihadi ideology that mobilises such messages and facilitates radicalisation. 118 By referencing mainstream Islamic concepts, the message that IS seeks to disseminate is endowed with appeal and legitimacy to those it is marketed towards, as such, Islam becomes a vehicle to further the message of IS and facilitate radicalisation.119

UNCCT, 2017, p. 7.

Asad, 2008.

116 Pelletier et al., 2016, p. 871.

117 Ibid.

118 Ibid., p. 872, 119 Ibid., p. 894.

114 115

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Figure 5: Umm Nosaybah Kalashn on her journey to Syria

Reflecting Hirschkind’s comprehensive ethnography of Islamic mediation by new and popular media, albeit in a slightly dated way, the media gives expression to a religious sensibility moored in a set of geopolitical and ideological conditions.120 This is a sensibility that IS plays upon and uses to frame its online and offline activities by employing the media to animate and sustain said framing of such conditions. 121 This is catalysed by the embodied nature of this religious sensibility, which is itself conditioned by the physiological nature of the Qur’an whereby individual piety is displayed by the moral-somatic response to Word of God. 122 Consequentially, feelings of fear, despair, humility, angst, and intoxication display a ‘Qur’anically tuned body and soul,’ a marker of one’s closeness to God.123 This process involves the whole physical body and the entire moral person as a Hirschkind, C. (2009). The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette sermons and Islamic counterpublics. New York: Columbia University Press. P. 4.

121 Pelletier et al., pp. 871–2.

122 Hirschkind, 2009, pp. 75–6.

123 Ibid.

120

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unity of body and soul.124 This links back to Pelletier et al.’s argument whereby the peppering of propaganda with Qur’anic verses triggers an embodied moral response amongst target Muslim populations, thus raising their interpretation of Islam above questions of legitimacy or authenticity.125 The power of the Qur’an in eliciting such psycho-somatic responses amongst the audience thus demands further attention to the message itself and the process whereby Islam is employed by IS to further its own strategic objectives. 126 In this way, the employment of core Qur’anic concepts results in the force of IS’s message being increased amongst target Muslim populations; for Geertz, this is the centrality of the message and the extent to which it takes precedence over other forms of knowledge.127 Conclusion

The medium is the message as it increases the scope of IS’s message to the world, eliciting an increased response to the force of their message i.e. the appeal of empowerment, sympathy, or psychological warfare.128 129 However, the medium is not the message in and of itself, it merely facilitates the reception of the messages IS wishes to convey, which themselves are laden with socio-political and ideological meanings framed by the leveraging of Islam, thus affirming the force of the message.130 Therefore, it is necessary to examine the cultural sensibilities this reframed message appeals to, thus facilitating the exponential growth of IS. For an examination of the full circular process in which this Ibid.

Pelletier et al., p. 886.

126 Ibid.

127 McLuhan, 1964, p. 7.

128 Geertz, 1968, pp. 111–2.

129 Ibid.

130 Pelletier et al., 2016, p. 871.

124 125

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message is broadcast, received, and re-broadcast, please consider the chapters on the Islamic habitus and IS as a Caliphatic sect in the original dissertation.

To conclude, I will share the following cursory typology of IS as a Caliphatic Sect. When a Caliphatic sect forms, it makes its presence known through its proliferation of the media.

This presence will reflect ever-evolving and ever-expanding scopes and forces of Salafi-Jihadi messages. The appeal of this message will draw from the Salafi-Jihadi process of justifying and framing the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities whereby the religion of al-Salaf is framed as in reaction to shifting geopolitical contexts. The formation of this movement will structure itself around the Caliphatic principle and the emotional effervescence this structure provides for sympathisers.131 The success of the group, however, will depend on its ability to manage those very same structures and processes it seeks to employ to perpetuate its own existence.

The Islamic State in its current form has fallen, but for all the reasons that brought it about and the ensuing violence across the Middle East and North Africa, it is likely that its Caliphatic objectives will be sought once again.132 We can only speculate as to the success of such copy-cat groups if they manage to contain such an entity. If they do succeed, we may see a legitimate and functioning Caliphate in the 21st century. Only time will tell if I am right.

Durkheim, E. (1995). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated

by Field K. E. New York/London: Free Press.

132 Muir, 2017.

131

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Modern Manhood: the Carpe Diem Tradition and ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ Hannah Voss

T

hough scholarship now debates whether the outline of effective tragedy in Aristotle’s Poetics is descriptive or prescriptive, the Poetics has nevertheless indelibly imprinted itself on discussions of concepts of tragedy and tragic figures in literature. The recipe of a noble figure falling from his high position as a result of tragic circumstances set the standard to be subscribed to or subverted henceforth. T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is often cited as the tragedy of the modern man, in which no one is noble and no one can be important enough to experience a fall. Instead, with the modern age comes the impossibility of the application of Aristotle’s formula, and man’s fall from greatness is instead his failure to achieve greatness in the first place. Prufrock as a character is deemed to be tragic because he cannot actualise himself as masculine, failing in every way to realise the potential of his gender and the expectations surrounding it. He sets out from a low point and falls further, when even sirens in his fantasy will not notice him (125).1 However, this reading of ‘Prufrock’ rests on assumptions about social standards of masculinity that the text itself undermines. Reliance on obviously idealised images, unrealistic standards, and transgressions within Prufrock’s own thought processes suggests that the poem is not the tragedy of the modern at all. Rather, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is 1

Eliot, T. S. (2012). ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ In N. Baym and R. S. Levine (Eds.), The Norton Anthology of American Literature, (vol. D, pp. 368–371). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. ~ 96 ~

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Eliot’s proposal of a solution to modern isolation, in keeping with his philosophy outlined in ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’.

The events in the poem centre around Prufrock’s deliberation and attempt to speak to a woman. The inclusion of ‘love song’ in the title places the work in the tradition of poetry written to woo women, an occurrence that is notably absent from the poem. More specifically, the poem’s references to Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ places Prufrock in the context of carpe diem poetry, a genre in which women are encouraged to ‘seize the day’ and succumb to the speaker’s sexual advances because time is fleeting. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ entreats a woman to sleep with the speaker, emphasising the lack of time in one’s life and arguing ultimately that if she does not lose her virginity to him, she will lose it eventually to her grave (27–32).2 Prufrock turns the images of ‘To His Coy Mistress’ on their heads, repeating throughout that ‘indeed there will be time’ (23), rejecting the need to ‘carpe diem,’ and proposing that even if he had ‘squeezed the universe into a ball’ (92), he would still have been unsuccessful in winning the woman. He emphasises that even a minute gives enough time to fail to ‘seize the day’: ‘In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse’ (47–48).3 The crux of Prufrock’s emasculation in the poem, then, seems to be his inability to speak to a woman, falling short of a standard set by the tradition of carpe diem poetry, and in fact the very concept of love songs.

Ultimately, defining manliness by a man’s success with women is an idea far more ancient than the tradition of carpe diem poetry. Unable to validate his masculinity through a female relationship, Prufrock falls back on the sirens of antiquity. He notes that he has ‘heard the mermaids singing, each to each’ Marvell, Andrew. ‘To His Coy Mistress.’ Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-andpoets/poems/detail/44688.

3 Eliot, 2012.

2

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(123).4 Traditionally, sirens sing in order to tempt men to their deaths. However, even in this fantasy, Prufrock is unsuccessful. He is not sufficiently desirable—for his own destruction, let alone seduction—for the mermaids to sing to him, despite his total imaginative control of their actions and the outcomes (125).5 This is the crisis of the poem: Prufrock cannot even imagine a world in which fantastic female beings with evil designs would deign to notice him. This crisis is what suggests the interpretation that Prufrock is a tragic character. As a man, he is meant to inhabit the world of carpe diem and love songs, having agency in relationships with women, but he cannot bring himself to do so.

He finds himself trapped in social conventions, having ‘known the evenings, mornings, afternoons’ (50) of coffee and conversation, in which ‘eyes [. . .] fix you in a formulated phrase’ (56)6, unable to break through to actually encounter or ‘presume’ his own desirability to a woman. As a result, he misses his chance due to his indecision and fear.

However, in his essay on Andrew Marvell, Eliot writes on ‘To His Coy Mistress’, ‘The theme is one of the greatest commonplaces of European literature. [. . .] Where the wit of Marvell renews the theme is in the variety and order of images.’7 This wit is something Eliot believes to be lacking in his time, and he seeks to preserve it.8 Given the composition of ‘Prufrock’ as a collection and arrangement of images, it appears that Eliot is trying, like Marvell, to renew the theme of carpe diem poetry.

Unlike Marvell, he inverts the concept of seizing the day—and the woman—and shows the unrealistic and unattainable idea these Ibid.

Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Eliot, T. S. (2006). ‘Andrew Marvell.’ In L. S. Rainey (Ed.) Annotated Waste Land, with T.S. Eliot's Contemporary Prose, (pp. 146–158). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

8 Ibid.

4 5

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traditions posit. Firstly, the woman’s response in carpe diem poems is never recorded, so there is no way of knowing whether the speakers are actually successful in their seductions. It seems as though suggesting to a woman that her options are either a relationship with a man or the grave would be less than appealing.

In Sir Walter Raleigh’s poem, ‘The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd’, Raleigh theorises a possible response to ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’, a carpe diem poem by Christopher Marlowe. The nymph of Raleigh’s poem rejects the shepherd’s advances on the grounds that though time is short, it still exists, and the mentality of carpe diem fails to account for the duration of one’s life after male conquest. This phenomenon is echoed in ‘Prufrock’, as despite Prufrock’s anxieties about how he is perceived by women, the poem never reveals what the women in the poem actually think of him. Rather, he projects what he believes are their thoughts: ‘They will think: “How his hair is growing thin!”’ (41).9 The women’s lack of voice reveals the artificiality of the carpe diem tradition, in which men create structures and expectations in which to interact with women without ever consulting the desires of said women. Prufrock is perhaps right to wonder ‘how should I presume?’ (61),10 given that his own understanding of the desires of women is entirely constructed in his own mind as a result of the tradition he inhabits and his inability to make meaningful female connections.

However, as a result of this tradition, Prufrock considers himself a failure, unable to recognise that his own concept of masculinity is faulty. As Cyrena Pondrom writes, ‘Gender offers itself not as automatic, inborn and unreflective, but as a complex set of cultural expectations that are performed in social behavior.’11 Eliot, 2012.

Ibid.

11 Pondrom, C. (2009). Conflict and Concealment: Eliot’s Approach to 9

10

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Prufrock’s crisis is embedded in his own attempts to formulate and behave according to what he believes masculinity is as determined by his cultural and social environment.

However, idealised images and concepts demonstrate the constructed nature of these expectations, reinforcing that carpe diem poetry is more a fantasy than an actual standard to be measured against. The refrain of the poem, ‘In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo’ (13-14)12 evokes Michelangelo’s depictions of ideal masculinity and masculine beauty in figures like the David and ‘Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel’. Michelangelo has the specific connotation as a Renaissance artist whose artistic tradition is primarily concerned with representation of the ideal or perfect human form, based in a rediscovery of classical philosophies of the human body. While the depictions of men in the Renaissance are nominally the epitome of masculinity, they are not realistic depictions of what actual men look like. They are idealistic and artificial standards that are intentionally unattainable. Prufrock’s very perception of the world he feels he cannot enter is idealised, which he fails to understand. He paints an idyllic picture of the setting, saying, ‘After the sunsets and the dooryards, and the sprinkled streets / After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—' (101–102).13 These are images from a novel. Prufrock recognises his inability to access this reality and creates idealised, quasi-fictional images to associate with it, not realising his exclusion is as a result of fictionalised expectations in the first place, magnified in his own mind to seem insurmountable. Alone, the images of the setting could seem realistic. Taken in their context, Prufrock actually approaching a woman, which is interspersed with references with references to the eternal, it is Women and Gender. In D. Chinitz (Ed.) A Companion to T. S. Eliot (pp. 323–334). New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

12 Eliot, 2012.

13 Ibid. ~ 100 ~

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clear that Prufrock has conceived of an idealised world inhabited by everything he desires that he himself is unable to access. This fantasy world is followed immediately by the image of another more obvious fantasy, that of the mermaids, ‘riding seaward on the waves [. . .] / wreathed with seaweed red and brown’ (126, 130).14 These worlds are inaccessible to Prufrock, not because he fails to meet a standard, but because the standard is unachievable.

Inconsistencies in the text of the poem itself suggest that Prufrock’s failure is not in falling short of masculinity itself, but in failing to realise that the image of masculinity he seeks to meet is in fact itself an unrealistic image. In his essay ‘“Broken Images”: Discursive Fragmentation and Paradigmatic Integrity in the Poetry of T.S. Eliot’, Anthony Johnson argues that T. S. Eliot presented fragmented images in his poems so that the reader ‘must become actively involved in bridging the gaps so created and in devising morphosyntactic, semantic or pragmatic bypasses to reconstitute textual continuity’.15 Essentially, Eliot’s disjointed and varying arrangements of images create a fragmentation that requires the reader to construct the narrative of the poem. By involving the reader in this act of construction, the poem calls attention to the constructed nature of the standards by which Prufrock appears to be measuring himself. Prufrock is even aware of the construction of his own identity. He writes, ‘There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet’ (26–27)16 He must prepare his face and construct himself in order to engage with the outside world and the expectations placed upon him. Furthermore, while Prufrock is dejected because of his inability to attain or access the ideal characteristics of masculinity, he also considers adopting Ibid.

Johnson, A. L. (1985). ‘”Broken Images”: Discursive Fragmentation and Paradigmatic Integrity in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot.’ Poetics Today, 6 (3). 399–416.

16 Eliot (2012).

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transgressive behaviours. Despite his self-perceived old age, he asserts that he will adopt youthful styles and ‘wear the bottoms of his trousers rolled’ (121). He also asks himself if he dares ‘to eat a peach’ (122),17 a euphemism for submissive sexual behaviours. In a poem focused on a man’s ability to assert himself in the presence of women, these hypothetical adoptions of fashions and behaviours suggest an awareness of the artificiality of social norms.

In recognising the artificiality and unattainability of the standards Prufrock ‘fails’ to meet, another interpretation emerges.

Rather than writing a tragedy, or an elegy to the masculinity of modern man, Eliot presents a new take on the carpe diem poem, as he perceived in the poetry of Marvell. ‘Prufrock’ suggests that a solution to human isolation involves abandoning strict adherence to social structures and standards. In ‘“Till Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown”: Community in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”’, James Haba writes, ‘With this poem in particular, Eliot may help us to see that the alienation which is a hallmark of the twentieth century is perhaps only a misunderstanding, a flawed perception, of ourselves and our experience.’18 Prufrock is only a tragic figure when viewed through the lens of social norms and the assumed unquestionable authority of the tradition of love songs. This interpretation also ignores the process of Prufrock’s psychological development over the course of the poem. Haba explains, ‘Through confessing himself so utterly, Prufrock has perhaps prepared himself to waken, to come out of a kind of sleep and to enter an experience beyond self consciousness.’19 At the end of the poem, Prufrock has explored the boundaries of his social sphere and come to understand them as fantasy, just as the Ibid.

Haba, J. C. (1977). ‘“Till Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown”: Community in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”’ Modern Language Studies, 7 (1). 53–61.

19 Ibid.

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final mermaids are fantasy. Suggesting ‘Prufrock’ as an inheritance to and modification of the conventions and traditions of the literary and artistic forms of carpe diem, Eliot embodies his own philosophy of poetry, detailed ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’. He writes that when a new work is created, ‘The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them’. 20 The prior works of art, of Marvell and Michelangelo, are necessary for ‘Prufrock’ to convey its meaning.

However, with the production of new art, such as Eliot’s poetry and modernist literatures more generally, the entire prior body of works must be considered in light of the new. The tradition of a form of literature not only contributes to the basis of new works in the tradition, these new works also indelibly shape the understanding of the tradition itself. To think that ‘The Love Song of Prufrock’ is merely a lament as to the modern man’s failure to uphold this tradition, instead of a proposal for a new way of considering the same theme, is to misunderstand Eliot’s own position.

Eliot, T. S. (1982). ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent.’ Perspecta, 19, 36– 42.

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‘Virtues of Analysis’: An Aesthetic Interpretation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 Novel, ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ Eugene T Williams

B

y way of introduction, I will demonstrate the philosophical and aesthetic considerations which underpin my interpretation of Gravity’s Rainbow. First, I should mention that I interpret my aesthetic subject with the assumption in mind that all art, and all aspects of a work of art, are aesthetic statements. In other words, the decisions made by the poet to write one word instead of another, or by the composer, to use a certain instrument in place of another, are decisions made such that we can formulate the following corollary statement: ‘My decision, [Decision x], is a valid artistic idea’. This formula might not be a particularly controversial one when taken at face value.

This is because the direct opposite of this view — that artists can make decisions whilst thinking that ‘My decision, [Decision x], is an invalid artistic idea’ — is rather ridiculous. However, a fair criticism of my position is that it seems to make the unqualified assumption that all artistic decisions are ‘conscious’. To this, I respond by conceding that many decisions are not at all conscious. I would even argue that most of the influences which lead to these decisions are unconscious. My claim is not that all artists are ‘consciously’ making aesthetic statements, let alone that they are formulated in exactly the way I have proposed.

Rather, my goal here is to construct as truistic a formula as possible, in order to reframe our interpretation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel in terms of aesthetic ‘decision-making’.

A closely related thought is that of intentionality and interpretation. That is to say, in a situation where an artist is interpreted by others, what exactly is the criteria by which we judge the accuracy of that interpretation? What makes that ~ 105 ~

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particular interpretation ‘true’? This is by nature a difficult question, as the artists themselves have differing views on this aesthetic problem. Some artists would contend that an interpretation of their work is only true if they themselves recall making the artistic decision in the way described by the interpreter (one might imagine Shakespeare in stitches upon reading the Freudian analysis of Hamlet, though there is no telling what the man’s aesthetic intentions were). Others would argue that their artistic intentions, as creators, are not necessarily where interpretation begins and ends. I was once speaking to my father, a composer, who, upon relistening to a composition of his own, written two decades prior, stated ‘Did I really write that? It really has passion. It seems to be a premonition of the move from [the hills of Wales] to the towers of Tokyo.’ If one is able to interpret one’s own artistic work in this manner, it would seem that a work of art takes on a life of its own, independent of authorship. There are countless examples in which an artist is questioned on whether a certain artistic decision was reflective of, say, the political tensions of the time. Some of the most common responses might be ‘Maybe’ or ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ I personally take for granted that the correctness of one’s interpretation does not merely hinge on the conscious intentions of the author.

Indeed, that would be problematic for an interpretation of our current author, whose artistic intentions will perhaps never be known to the wider public.

One of the most difficult aspects of writing this interpretive essay is that my subject matter, Pynchon’s novel, is actively commenting on the act of interpretation in general. By extension, it comments on the act of interpreting the novel — a point to which I will return in the final and most technical section of this essay. I do not make such lofty claims in order to excuse an incapability to articulate the concepts which follow — I should suppose there is no excuse for that. I believe quite seriously that Pynchon’s novel concerns itself with the efficiency of various methods of interpreting phenomena. So, in actuality, one might ~ 106 ~

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find that my essay will address problems within the Philosophy of Science as well as Psychology, as much as it does the aspects of Pynchon’s literary technique. I only ask that one keeps in mind that I deviate from strictly aesthetic language only insofar as those other topics (philosophy of science etc.) are an essential part of the aesthetic provided by the work. That being said, a passing familiarity with those areas of philosophy will likely be needed to fully comprehend my analysis.

‘A Reality Unto Itself’: Attributing the Text

Almost any reference to the man’s work, any attempt at a coherent explanation of his fiction to an outsider, comes prepackaged with a reference to the man himself. Yet, the mystery which surrounds the American novelist Thomas Pynchon is difficult to make any ‘reference’ to at all; he has avoided the media since the very inception of his literary career, evading photographers, refusing interviews, ‘vigorously guard[ing] his privacy and his past.’1 It is the verdict of many thinkers that to focus on Pynchon’s ‘image’ is a sure way to be sent on an endless distraction — to become lost in a ‘Pynchon-esque’ labyrinth of misinformation (perhaps intentional on the part of Pynchon).

Nevertheless, I start at an admittedly common place in order that I might draw attention to an aesthetic concept which I believe is central to the text in question.

Language may create a reality unto itself, equal to, if not surpassing, that of the world of things.2

Weisenburger, S. (1990). Thomas Pynchon at Twenty-Two. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. P. 693.

2 Tabbi, J. (1995). Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk. Cornell University Press, p.79.

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It is Joseph Tabbi in ‘Postmodern Sublime’ who introduces the words of Samuel Werenfels (1657–1740), who I believe accurately predicts the aesthetic achievement of Pynchon’s third novel, at least from a purely linguistic or stylistic account. Many cursory views of literary ‘postmodernism’ (it seems ‘cursory’ is about as good as one gets with such unhelpful jargon) take the essence of the postmodern ‘tradition’ to be a hyper-involvement with one’s literary medium. These authors are expected to relentlessly make their presence known through the use of ironic self-insertion. However, with Gravity’s Rainbow, it seems that Pynchon’s aim is closer to Werenfels’s ‘reality unto itself’ than to the fragmentary and vaguely self-referential style associated with postmodernists today. I will now attempt to explain what a ‘reality unto itself’ might constitute in the context of postmodern literature, and demonstrate the various techniques which Pynchon uses to create the isolated and complex sense of reality found within the contents of the novel.

Gravity’s Rainbow (henceforth: ‘GR’) is well-known for its ambiguous narrator, which seems unable to fix itself to a single mode of thought. It is not only that its focus continually shifts from the perspective of one character to another — this was demonstrated in a far less unsettling way by modernists like Virginia Woolf, in To the Lighthouse. It is also the case that it is unclear whether the thoughts being communicated are the narrator’s or the characters’. Ultimately, neither of these interpretations are satisfying. On the one hand, it is implausible to assume that a traditional ‘narrator’ is responsible for the multitude of conflicting attitudes and thoughts which are presented throughout the novel. At the same time, ‘character’ also seems merely incidental to ‘narrative’, which continues regardless of the gigantic cast, eventually even abandoning Slothrop, the most prominent role, in the book’s final chapters. The strange names attached to these so-called ‘characters’ is a feature which has come to stylistically define Pynchon’s novels (Tyrone Slothrop, Tantivy, Pirate Prentice, Geli Tripping, to name a few in ~ 108 ~

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GR). These might also contribute to the impression of being isolated within the novel’s own reality. Expressive statements like: ‘Is it an indication of things to come, next election? Oh, dear…’3 are left in a vacuum, not able to be contained by any character or narrator, but only by the boundaries of the text. We could decide to attribute these instances to particular characters, or to whatever arbitrary narrator we have in mind, but this always feels like a rather forced manoeuvre, and we are ultimately left without an obvious candidate.

So, the standard view of the postmodern aesthetic does not take us far. Are we to suppose that all of these narrative ambiguities and expressive cutaways are flashes of ‘Pynchon’s own voice’? An example of ‘self-insertion’? How can we do this, when we have hardly solved the mystery of who ‘Pynchon’ is to begin with? This sends us back into our labyrinth, our very own ‘Pynchon-esque’, and, to the dismay of literary critics, humiliation at our inability to form an adequate interpretation.

Consequently, we are left with an unattributed text, with absent beginnings and a loose-end provenance. The voice which communicates the contents of GR is precisely as unstable and disembodied as it sounds, and there is no hope of finding convenient identifiers like ‘Thomas Pynchon’. The narrative voice attaches itself freely to whatever host-body happens to be in the foreground. Narration follows the narrative event, much like we do. It shares our excitements and fears whilst relaying the thoughts of the many characters. Or perhaps, as suggested by Siegel, the characters are simply vehicles for the narrator, ‘projections’4 of its conscience, even. In this case, characters serve the function of displaying this ‘narrative conscience’ in a legible manner, rather than the reverse. There is something to be said for Pynchon, T., (2000). Gravity’s Rainbow. London: Vintage. P. 231. (This is a quote I found by opening the book at a random page; this is a ubiquitous aspect of the work.)

4 Tabbi, 1995, p. 79.

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this view — it certainly accounts for the seeming insignificance of the characters.

For Siegel’s analysis of narration to work, however, one must also remember that the narrator exists through, and only through, the characters. In other words, the narrator does not exist without the characters, and the characters do not exist without the narrator. I make this adjustment because, according to Siegel’s original claim, the narrator is essentially the only entity which exists throughout the novel. And yet, the text would not exist without those ‘projections’, as the narrator would have no medium. Furthermore, GR must uphold the façade of being driven by traditional elements, viz. plot and character. In my opinion, it could accurately be stated that the ‘story’ of GR is communicated by a circular dynamic of narrator and character, such that readers are given the option of taking the traditional elements at face value, or tackling the contradiction head-on (as I will do later on).

Many authorial choices seem at first arbitrary: various factual errors, like the oddly mistimed death of Anton Webern (which occurs in July of 1945 in the novel, but September in our version of events5), and strange linguistic quirks, like the frequent use of ‘sez’ instead of ‘says’ (and other such examples). However, all such peculiarities are in fact responsible for the uniqueness of the world of GR which Tabbi aptly suggests is a ‘reality unto itself.’6 This would explain why introducing GR to an outsider is so impossibly difficult. The novel ‘coheres’, but strictly within its own reality. Therefore, an explanation of GR would require an explanation of the entire system. David Seed makes a similar claim (emphasis mine): Critical analysis will by its very nature work against the values implicit in Gravity’s Rainbow whose Weisenburger, S. (2006). Gravity’s Rainbow Companion. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Pp. 248–249.

6 Tabbi, 1995, p.79.

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rhetoric and associational method are peculiarly resistant to discussion. The critical reader is thus forced to choose between the unacceptable option of silence and the inevitably distorting effects of separating out different aspects of the novel for examination.7 If this evaluation is correct (as I believe it to be), it becomes hard to tell what one’s best ‘next step’ would be. If ‘separating out different aspects of the novel’ only results in distortion, then my interpretation must at all times address GR as ‘completely’ as possible, aiming not at specifics but at wider structures and foundational concepts. As we will come to realise, however, my interpretation, or my method of analysis, is itself subject to these considerations. I therefore encourage the reader to apply my following discoveries to this very essay, if for no other reason than to provide a conceptual example, which will be much needed in the next few pages.

I also encourage multiple readings of my final section. As much as I will try to explain the concepts in a straightforward order, I believe it is unavoidably the case that many of the concepts in the early paragraphs will only be fully illuminated in the context of the whole essay.

Connectedness, Relativism, and the ‘Virtues of Analysis’

This final section is a demonstration of my interpretation of GR, in light of the conceptual difficulties outlined so far. Whereas the previous section was dedicated to explaining the nature of the ‘reality’ which Pynchon constructs, I will now show to what end this unique system was constructed. In other words, the question 7

Seed, D. (1988). The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press. P. 158. ~ 111 ~

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being asked is ‘what makes GR compelling?’ My short answer is that GR is one of the most convincing and evocative embodiments of the 20th century to be put to paper. My extended answer is that, besides incorporating almost every cultural aspect of the first half of the 20th century,8 GR’s ‘reality’ is also able to represent the academic debates which came to define the era. I say that it ‘represents’ instead of ‘references’ these debates (though it does both), because this is the most impressive sense in which GR is linked to its period; it is not just a document about the 20th century, it is a document which is itself a textual embodiment of the time period.

My ‘interpretation’ then, is how I believe GR manages to incorporate the academic essence of the 20th century. What I call my ‘interpretation’ is a reading of GR which follows from my discovery (and assumption) that the thematic centre of the novel is humanity’s ‘methods of analysis.’ To clarify the terminology, what I signify by ‘methods of analysis’ are the fundamental ways in which human beings interpret the world around them. GR concerns itself with these methods, and the comparative effectiveness of each of them.

The passage which lies at the heart of my reading is the following conversation between the characters ‘Pointsman’ and ‘Roger Mexico’ — Pointsman speaks first: ‘Pierre Janet — sometimes the man talked like an Oriental mystic. [...] “The act of injuring and the act of being injured are joined in the behaviour of the whole injury.” Speaker and spoken-of, master and slave, virgin and seducer, each pair most conveniently coupled and inseparable. The last refuge of the incorrigibly lazy, Mexico, is just this sort of yang-yin This is done through countless references, which are best documented in Weisenburger’s Gravity’s Rainbow Companion.

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rubbish. One avoids all manner of unpleasant lab work that way, but what has one said?’

‘I don’t want to get into a religious argument with you,’ [...] ‘but I wonder if you people aren’t a bit too — well, strong, on the virtues of analysis. I mean, once you’ve taken it all apart, fine, I’ll be first to applaud your industry. But other than a lot of bits and pieces lying about, what have you said?’9 [italics author’s] The debate is most clearly defined in this humourous early passage, which acts as the lens through which I interpret the rest of the work. The clash between Pointsman’s strictly reductionist (and likely falsificationist) view of phenomenal analysis, and Mexico’s holism is reflective of many of the debates which shaped philosophical thought — particularly about science — in the 20th Century. Within philosophy in general, one might refer to the split in terms of ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy. More appropriate, however, is the split between philosophers of science — more specifically the falsificationist doctrine of Sir Karl Popper and his intellectual allies, and the holistic-symbolic psychology of such figures as Carl Jung.

I myself did experimental work for several years, but, through my intensive studies of the neuroses and psychoses, I had to admit that, however desirable quantitative definitions may be, it is impossible to do without qualitatively descriptive methods. Medical psychology has recognized that the salient facts are extraordinarily complex and can be grasped only through descriptions based on case material. But this

9

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method presupposes prejudice.10

freedom

from

theoretical

In this passage, from Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung speaks in terms of ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ analysis. Whilst they are not at all synonymous, I prefer to speak in terms of ‘specificity’ and ‘generality’ for this essay.

Whilst the reductionist is able to rigorously test and observe phenomena through an assumed framework or scientific logic, there is always the possible downside that the data is so finely assembled, so detailed and removed from human experience, that one loses all sense of applicable ‘analysis’. Even in the case that a particularly intelligent researcher is able to comprehend the data, the field to which the findings now apply has been made so miniscule (to avoid an unreasonably high number of variables), that the original aim of the research has vanished amidst its own specificity — hence the ‘distortion’ which David Seed pointed out. As Roger Mexico explains: ‘other than a lot of bits and pieces lying about, what have you said?’

On the other hand, the holistic thinker/interpreter (in my language, ‘general’ thinking) has the advantage of staying true to the scale of the question being asked. Vague philosophical questions must always have vague philosophical answers. Jung would no doubt have disapproved of my words, as ‘vagueness’ is precisely what so many scientists and philosophers of science charged his brand of Psychology with. Jung of course believed that his holism was as ‘scientific’ as one could hope for when dealing with explanations of the human mind, which was his area of intrigue as much as it is ours. Indeed, it is a commonly held view that reducing the complexity of the mind to simple ‘data analysis’ is either criminally dishonest, or naïve and unrealistic.

Jung, C. G., (1980). The Archetypes and the Collective Conscious. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pp.55–56.

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Most think that it is no longer too early to state that possession of the word ‘science’ has been won over by the reductionists, which, if nothing else, is convenient for academia; we are these days able to relegate Jung to the field of Philosophy.

On the one hand, this might sound like a loss for ‘generality’.

Those who place their faith in science and reductionism as the only truth that exists, can dismiss Jung as ‘unscientific’. However, those who are well versed enough in the philosophy of science are less quick to judge. For holistic thinkers, it is now possible to cast doubt on ‘scientific’ method as a whole; the convenience works both ways.11 But we must cast our minds back to GR, and the 20th century, where these terms are not so rigidly defined, and thinkers fought for the right to be called ‘scientific’ — which more of less meant ‘valid’ and ‘reliable’, even just ‘correct’, in my estimation.12 I will now take us through the ways in which ‘methods of analysis’ are thematically interspersed throughout the text, and readers’ interpretations of the text.

The novel, when read superficially, without any regard for the concepts discussed above, might be interpreted as a text with paranoid characters. This limited reading would recognise that figures such as Slothrop live in a reality where everything is connected — there must be a point where all facts meet at a shared source, a universal conspiracy. The only alternative he can feel is to ignore the hyper-connectedness of his reality, and fall into ‘anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a Sir Karl Popper was often criticised for his ‘falsificationist’ view, in large part due to the fact that it was unable to account for the apparent ‘scientificity’ of the Darwinian theory of evolution, which is famously unfalsifiable. According to Popper, then, evolution could be unscientific: a major problem for this particular model of ‘specific’ thinking. The question in the 21st century is essentially whether one chooses to believe that scientific ‘truth’ is the only type of truth that exists.

12 This is, of course, a generalisation.

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condition not many of us can bear for long.’13 Tabbi describes this with eloquence: Pynchon likes to present characters in mental states that fluctuate between the total theory of a paranoid delusion and […] total relativism.14 Whilst seemingly ‘superficial’ (paranoia is likely the first thing a reader would notice), this is nevertheless an essential step for our reading. The next step for our reading is therefore to realise that ‘Paranoia’ and what Pynchon calls ‘Anti-paranoia’ form a dichotomy which acts as a central theme to the novel, as we have just now discovered.

However, the terminology ceases to cohere when applying it to the wider context of the narrative structure and style of the novel. No narrative can ever be explained sensibly as a ‘paranoid’ or ‘anti-paranoid’ narrative. So, the novel only functions on the dichotomy of ‘paranoia-anti-paranoia’ at one particular level of analysis. So the next step is to discern how the novel functions at other levels. Here, Tabbi’s previous words become useful — at the level of narrative (and the manner in which it is narrated), we say that the novel alternates between ‘connectedness’ and ‘relativity’: […] critical mass cannot be ignored. Once the technical means of control have reached a certain size, a certain degree of being connected one to another, the chances for freedom are over for good. The word has ceased to have meaning.15

This particular passage is an instance where the contents of the novel itself describe the dichotomy of Pynchon, 2000, p. 434.

Tabbi, 1995, p. 77.

15 Ibid., p. 539.

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connectedness-relativity. However, the narrative of GR, by the internal contrast between its at times dense, technical and specific language, and the vague factors, such as the meandering narrator or the narrative technique of dividing paragraphs with the use of double spaced ellipses, makes the contradiction quite obvious to an attentive reader.

Paranoia-anti-paranoia can therefore be described as the emotional manifestation of connectedness-relativity, and connectedness-relativity as the manifestation of paranoia-antiparanoia which pertains to narrative structure. These are two different levels of analysis, and both are equally important, and are referring to the same phenomena.

An intermediary step, which I will not dwell on as it has already been explained previously, is that the character-level and narrative-level dichotomies can be translated to the world of 20th century Academia which I believe they so accurately depict. As suggested earlier, the spectrum is one of ‘reductionism-holism’.

Finally then, our most general level of analysis. We must consider how readers such as ourselves can interpret the aesthetic reality of the novel, and what single conceptual spectrum defines the way all other ‘levels’ manifest themselves in that spectrum. In other words, the dualities mentioned above must all have a single, articulable, most general duality — a ‘lowest common denominator’ — to explain Pynchon’s novel as a whole aesthetic entity. I return to my own phraseology and call this the ‘specificity-generality’ spectrum.

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Figure 1: A table visually demonstrating the next several paragraphs that follow. Refer for clarity. Levels of Analysis are shown on the left, starting at the bottom from most specific (the characters) to most general (the reader/critical thinker).

The right side of Figure 1, which I have labelled ‘Literal Object’ for lack of a better description, reveals how Pynchon has in fact written the novel in such a way that the multiple levels at which GR can be analysed transcend those levels, either making direct reference to, or acting as metaphors for other levels. When both Pointsman and Mexico downplay the other’s analytical methods, what is occurring is that these characters are making direct reference to another level of analysis, viz. ‘20th Century Academia’. Furthermore, if we are to incorporate my previous thoughts, ‘reductionism-holism’ for the 20th Century Academic, can be translated to ‘specificity-generality’ for the Pynchon reader (since they refer to the same phenomena), making it the case that ~ 118 ~

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characters are essentially anticipating the possible ways in which readers can interpret GR — the reality in which they exist.16 David Seed seems to have discovered this portion of my reading himself when he notes (italics mine): Many characters thus personify different ways of interpreting phenomena, even of interpreting the novel itself, and are arranged in the narrative so that no single possibility gets unconditional authority.17 Perhaps attentive readers have noticed that as I have spoken about ‘levels of analysis’, I have also been speaking about ‘more specific’ and ‘more general’ levels of analysis. So, as I forewarned at the end of the previous section, my ideas here are self-applicable, in fact, they are necessarily self-describing. As such, my coinage of the ‘specificity-generality’ dichotomy is in itself an attempt to forge a ‘holistic’, or, in my language, a ‘general’ analysis of the text. By attempting to create a coherent analysis — which involved us splitting the novel into its ‘levels of analysis’ — we have effectively fallen prey to our own interpretation. Here lies the most fundamental issue when attempting to interpret Pynchon’s work; it is impossible to write a ‘complete’ analysis without being dragged into an interpretive mess — the very same mess depicted by the contents of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’.

Conclusion

My only concluding remarks would be that it is truly remarkable that a single text is able to contain what is essentially a commentary on literary criticism (even ‘interpretation’ as a whole), let alone whilst having created such a compelling and In one sense, this is entirely obvious from the beginning: the characters in the novel are trying to understand their own reality.

17 Seed, 1988, pp. 160–161.

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entertaining work of art. Even if one were to disregard my analysis, it is nevertheless impressive that GR, as a constructed reality, is able to stimulate such a wide range of discourse; to me, this is an inbuilt quality of the novel. It is now clear that whilst Pynchon never ‘self-inserts’ to any obvious degree, there is quite obviously a sense of ‘self-observation’ in GR, which I find far more aesthetically compelling than ‘self-insertion’, which at any rate is perhaps no longer such a daring or subversive quality for an artwork to have18. Perhaps, if nothing else, I have proven David Seed’s right one final time when he declares the subject of this essay as ‘resistant to discussion.’19 However, I hope to at least have provided a kind of conceptual ‘springboard’ from which others can interpret Pynchon’s work. I might add, less delicately, that if I have indeed written a ‘holistic’ account of GR as I claim to have done, I have only completed half of the grander task.

Here I am referring to a comment made by David Foster Wallace during an interview with Charlie Rose in 1997: ‘a lot of the schticks of postmodernism — irony, cynicism, irreverence — are now part of whatever it is that's enervating in the culture itself.’

19 Ibid., p.158.

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