Room Number: TRS 2-164
Chair: Neil Kortenaar (U Toronto)
Join the Meeting: https://ryerson.zoom.us/j/93672303406?pwd=OEFoY1RWWFRDdHNqSEgzZmdDbmVRdz09
Speakers:
Philip Dickinson (U Lancaster), âAnimism and Opacity: Land of Look Behindâ
Sam Durrant (U Leeds), âAll of us playing togetherâ: Inheriting Kim Scottâs That Deadman Danceâ
Asha Varaharajan (Queens U), âHeterodox âAnimismâ: Reclaiming the Commons in Helen Oyeyemiâs Fictionâ
Paper Summaries:
Philip Dickinson (U Lancaster), âAnimism and Opacity: Land of Look Behindâ
This presentation explores Alan Greenbergâs 1982 film Land of Look Behind, notable for its striking images of postcolonial Jamaica and Rastafarian culture in the wake of Bob Marleyâs death. The paper proposes an aesthetic of ‘opacity’ that diverges from the logics of enclosure and some versions of ‘new’ animist ethics.
Sam Durrant (U Leeds), âAll of us playing togetherâ: Inheriting Kim Scottâs That Deadman Danceâ
Scottâs narrator’s Noongar name means âall of us playing togetherâ. His renarration of First Contact challenges us to reinherit the commons as a space of transperspectival possibility in which we learn each otherâs dances and misrecognise each other as djanaks, ancestors from over the seas.
Asha VaraDharajan (Queens U), âHeterodox âAnimismâ: Reclaiming the Commons in Helen Oyeyemiâs Fictionâ
This paper explores Helen Oyeyemi’s heterodox approach to “animism.” I argue that Oyeyemi’s fictions, because of their fearless and sly embrace and appropriation of multiple lineages, serve to heal colonial deracination of cultures, turning the violence of rupture into the art of reclamation and the vision of a new “commons.”