Transmodern Motion or the Rhizomatic Updated in In a Strange Room, “Take me to Church” and Babel

Abstract

Abstract The article aims at exploring how the concept of the transmodern fits, comprises and helps to understand transcultural events from a wider perspective. To do so, three metaphors will be addressed, namely Enrique Dussel’s ‘jungle’, Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s ‘rhizome’ and Sarah Dillon’s ‘palimpsestuous palimpsest’. In all three cases, issues like multiplicity, connectedness and a sense of motility are present. And, the article proves, they prove valid to render the aesthetic, ethical and political possibilities of contemporary texts that range from literature, Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room (2010), to music, Hozier’s hit “Take me to Church” (2014), and to cinema, González Iñárritu’s Babel (2006).1