Abject Research Articles

“It Had Been Rather Good”: Recovering Joy through the Practice of Black Resistance inside the Kitchenette

Abstract: This article analyzes how Black authors pushed back on white definitions of home that excluded Black residents of kitchenette housing. By performing a close textual analysis of Gwendolyn Brooks’s Maud Martha (1953) and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the article examines how these works use the abject space and positionality of the kitchenette and its residents to challenge the signification of home and the stigmatization by those who would always see Black lives as wanting. Ultimately, Brooks and Hansberry depict characters who refuse to capitulate to discursive confinement and instead trouble sociopolitical norms and structures and propose new ways of knowing and being to find agency and joy.

아브젝트 아트 특성이 반영된 특수분장 마케트 제작

Characters in media have been actively created according to trends in literature and art. The creatures in Hollywood films since the 1980s have been loved by many due to their fascinating design and latest special makeup techniques. The proportion of special makeup and maquette production techniques needed to design such creatures has gradually increased and has become more important in the film industry. This study attempted to design creatures, using the characteristics of abject art, going against traditional art, which pursues idealistic and typical beauty. The goal is to design creative characters through art trends, which has not been handled in previous studies, through a maquette production technique that displays concept design. In terms of research methods, the theoretical background of abject art was reviewed through an analysis of technical books, previous studies, and Internet data. The characteristics of abject art into boundary ambiguity, aversion, and lowliness. The works since the film ‘Alien (1979)’, known as the epitome of the creature design process, were categorized into three characteristics of abject art in consideration of opinions from expert groups. In addition, three special makeup maquette works were created according to the type of abject art characteristic. It is anticipated that there will be further studies on design using special makeup maquette during the pre-production of media, having an awareness of the importance of media character design, which reflects the aesthetic characteristics of art trends.

Refugees in abject spaces, protracted ‘waiting’ and spatialities of abjection during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This paper engages with a reinterpretation of the concept of abject space situating it within abjection theory and the concept of ‘waiting’. It develops further the term of ‘spatialities of abjection’ and discusses how the complex relationality occurring in abjection manifests in various spaces, through porous, changing, invisible boundaries but also specific temporal conditions. Doing so allows us to unpack the transformations of the abject space alternatively and simultaneously considered as a refuge and as a place of danger, factor of contamination. More importantly, the paper situates the reading of spatial abjection through a temporal lens, denoting how abject subjects are spatialized in a context of ‘political waiting’ but more importantly in a situation where active ‘waiting’ re-shifted to passive ‘waiting’ because of the pandemic implications. To do so, we focus on the spatialities of abjection affecting Syrian refugees living in informal tented settlements (ITSs) in Lebanon during the COVID-19 crisis. While abjection, stigma and xenophobia were already occurring prior to 2019, ITSs as abject spaces and refugees as abject subjects were targeted by supplemented rules and control. Those led to more controlled encampments and immobilization, increasing their dependency and reliance on international aid.

Abject, Disgust and Aesthetics of Heterogeneity

Abject, Disgust and Aesthetics of Heterogeneity

The God-Awful Small Affair of the Invisible Organist: David Bowie Translated

Abstract Following the sudden death of David Bowie in January 2016, perhaps the least expected tributes were the various organ renditions of his 1973 single ‘Life On Mars’ played by the organists of St Albans Cathedral, Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow and Dublin’s St Joseph’s Church. Becoming instant social media sensations, what are we to make of these different versions of Bowie’s song played on the pipe organ, the so-called ‘King of Instruments’, and why did the organists choose ‘Life On Mars’ over any other Bowie song? In this essay, I consider these and other related questions from a range of theoretical perspectives, initially drawing on philosopher and musicologist Peter Szendy’s notion of the musical arrangement as translation, whilst also conceding that as a translation, something in the process of arrangement is lost. What might that ‘something’ be? Understanding him to be one of the most conspicuous musical artists of our time, I go on to employ media philosopher Sybille Kramer’s transmission theory of communication, positing Bowie as a messenger-translator who is also a powerful cultural interferer. As such, he is the antithesis of the church organist who, like the person of the textual translator as outlined by translation theorist Lawrence Venuti, has occupied a marginal if not abject space within musical history. Given this relegated position, how does Bowie’s own use of the organ sit with its use as an instrument of elegy in the various renditions referred to above, and can it tell us anything else about translation?

Beyond the land of Palestine: deserts, shores, seas

ABSTRACT How the land of Palestine is imagined goes to the heart of Palestinian identity, making the process a significant and fraught endeavor. However, while the centrality of land to the imagined geography of Palestine has long been acknowledged, less attention has been paid to Palestine’s sea. This paper therefore explores how the canonical Palestinian authors, Ghassan Kanafani and Jabra Ibrahim Jabra represent – or omit – the sea in their works. I argue that, as members of the Nakba generation, for these two authors the sea signifies a one-way passage into exile, thus casting Palestine’s shores and sea as abject spaces, severed from the imagined geography of homeland, producing what I term “terracentric” discourses of Palestinian homeland. The paper’s conclusion turns its attention to contemporary Palestinian cultural production to address the ways subsequent generations of Palestinians have begun to reconceptualize the relationship between the land and sea of Palestine.

A Materialist Reading of Abject Art: Performance, Social Reproduction and Capitalism

This materialist reappraisal of ‘abject art’ locates Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection (Kristeva, 1982) within the contradictory spheres of social and biological reproduction that are produced by capitalism. The article argues that abject art is inherently tied to the sphere of social reproduction and consequently it proliferates with economic recessions and downturns, when the sphere of social reproduction is squeezed, controlled or abandoned. Abject art is symptomatic of what Nancy Fraser (2017) describes as capitalism’s ‘crisis tendency,’ and therefore the article utilises Marxist Feminism (Federici, 2012; Fortunati, 1995) and Social Reproduction Theory (Bhattacharya, 2017) to draw out the political economic facets of abject art. In defence of abject art’s efficacy to respond to transforming regimes of capitalist accumulation, I develop a new lineage of abject art in three distinct historical periods. I begin with the 1960s Tokyo avant-garde in the work of Hi Red Centre and their abject proofing of Tokyo, and secondly address the 1970s in an Anglo-American context, with maintenance works by Barbara T. Smith and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Finally, I reconsider the trauma and hedonism of the early 1990s in the work of Karen Finley and collaborators Bob Flanagan and Shree Rose. The article focuses on works that employ performance and the body to interrogate regimes of care, waste, the maternal and desire as facets of social reproduction. In doing so it reclaims abject art as an important aesthetic and political response that is capable of representing our ongoing crises of social reproduction under capitalism.

Reflejos de la educación de la niña-adulta en el teatro contemporáneo: Frágil, del Teatro de los Andes (Bolivia)

Este artículo parte del análisis de una obra emblemática en la representación de la niña en la dramaturgia contemporánea latinoamericana: Frágil, del Teatro de los Andes (Bolivia). El objetivo es desvelar el paradigma sociocultural reflejado en el lenguaje confesional de la protagonista, en relación con los estudios de identidad femenina. Se realiza un análisis intertextual, examinando los intertextos de la pieza (Paola Masino, Boris Vian), y un análisis semiológico, reconociendo en los diálogos de la protagonista la construcción del género. En el texto se percibe cómo la sensibilidad negada, y la simbología que se atribuye a la transición entre mujer niña y mujer adulta -relacionada con la locura o histeria- nace como consecuencia de una educación castradora. Se descubre la materialización y la abyección atribuida a la condición de mujer (Kristeva, 1967; Butler, 1993), y se erige un discurso marginal: la voz de la niña-adulta que habla del peso de una herencia reprimida.

Lebensraum i przestrzeń abjectu. O Białym kamieniu Anny Boleckiej

The article analyzes the category of literary space which is understood here rather as a metaphor of experiencing identity, memory and postmemory than as a spatial term sensu stricto. The author reflects on the novel by Anna Bolecka, Biały kamień [White stone], and more specifically on the hidden tropes of the blurred and denied past memories of Jewish genealogical component of today’s Polishness. The reading of the novel’s poetics demonstrates the importance of female characters that, apart from their function in the plot construction, figuratively signify the lost Jewish mother of today’s, mostly Catholic, Poland. In addition, following the thinking of Julia Kristeva, of special significance are the images of abject art.

애브젝션으로서의 출산 이미지 연구

애브젝션으로서의 출산 이미지 연구

Multivariate Time Series Analysis to Impact Assessment of Nominal Economic Indicators on Federal Government Revenue and Economic Growth in Nigeria

Nigeria has all it takes to become Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy and a key contributor in the global economy as a result of her agricultural and natural resource endowment. Unfortunately, these resources are not sufficiently and efficiently utilized, resulting to some negative economic implications such as underdeveloped economy in world ranking, high unemployment status, poor standard of living, abject poverty, devaluating currency, lack of technological innovations and unstable economy among others. This paper investigates the impact of the Oil and Non-Oil producing sectors to Federal Government Revenue and Economic Growth in Nigeria, using the concept of multivariate time series vector autoregressive (VAR) model. The basic concepts and techniques of multivariate time series modelling and analysis such as Granger Causality tests; Lag Length Selection based on Information Criteria; Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron Unit Root tests; Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (kpss) Trend & Level Stationarity tests; Sectoral Contributions to Federal Government Revenue, Economic Growth and Growth Rates using Line & Bar Graphs are discussed in detail. The study applied a model for predicting annual Federal Government Revenue and Economic Growth at any time using their respective historical monetary values together with the historical monetary values of the other economic indicators. The empirical findings in this paper revealed that the Federal Government Revenue and Economic Growth are predictable using their historical values together with the historical values of the other indicators. Furtherance to the statistically significant contribution of both the Oil and Non-Oil producing sectors, it is imperative to diversify the Nigerian economy in order to boost Federal Government Revenue, improve the standard of living, alleviate poverty, create employment opportunities and accelerate a long-run sustainable Economic Growth and stability.

Welcome to Minneapolis (or, Then Came the Last Days of May)

Burn Baby Burn In the final hours of May 28, ongoing demonstrations sparked by Floyd’s murder escalated when the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building was gutted in an act of arson Walz ordered the full mobilization of the Minnesota National Guard with a minimum of 2,000 soldiers set to occupy the Twin Cities Metro area – by the end of May 30, the number of Guardsmen had risen to over 5,000 –and Walz announced if necessary the Pentagon mobilized US Army military police as reinforcements [ ]the press conferences hammered home the consequences that would befall the protestors once the “dos” veered into the “dont’s”: citations, arrests, jail time, and even the worse if the issue was pressed [ ]the local TV stations were partner to an all-day civics lesson undergirded with a dose of abject terror

Embodied Intersectionalities of Urban Citizenship: Water, Infrastructure, and Gender in the Global South

Scholars have demonstrated that citizenship is tied to water provision in megacities of the Global South where water crises are extensive and the urban poor often do not have access to public water supplies. Drawing from critical feminist scholarship, this article argues for the importance of analyzing the connections between embodied intersectionalities of sociospatial differences (in this instance, gender, class, and migrant status) and materialities (of water and water infrastructure) and their relational effects on urban citizenship. Empirical research from the largest informal settlement in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as well as surrounding affluent neighborhoods, demonstrates that differences in water insecurity and precarity not only reinforce heightened senses of exclusion among the urban poor but affect their lived citizenship practices, community mobilizations, and intersectional claims-making to urban citizenship, recognition, and belonging through water. Spatial and temporal dimensions of materialities of water and infrastructure intersect with embodiments of gender, class, and migrant status unevenly in the urban waterscape to create differentiated urban citizens in spaces of abjection and dispossession. The article argues that an everyday embodied perspective on intersectionalities of urban citizenship enriches the scholarship on the water–citizenship nexus.

Kadavranın Donuk Metamorfozunda İzler Bakış ve Müstehcen-Bakış

Kadavranın yaşam ve ölüm arasındaki anlamsız, tanımsız ve belirsiz konumuna odaklanan bu metin; karşılıklı ilişkiyle belirlenen gündelik yaşamın içindeki ben, öteki, ben-olmayan ilişkisini temel almaktadır. Ölü bedenin bozulma ve çürüme evresi, bir yandan kaçınılan bir iğrençliği açığa çıkarırken diğer yandan da bozulmanın, içte olanın-dışa taşmasının tuhaf çekiciliği kendisiyle karşı karşıya kalan kişinin bakışını avlamaktadır. Toplumda ben ve öteki arasında bir kontrol mekanizması olarak açığa çıkan izler-bakış, kadavra/ben’in yabancısı/canavarımsı olanla olan karşılaşmasında müstehcen-bakışa evrilmektedir. Julia Kristeva’nın, Abject (İğrenç) kavramının ben ve öteki, ben ve ben’i dışlayan kadavra anlayışı üzerinden ilerleyen düşünsel süreç, İvana Bašić’in “Abject Art” çalışmalarından örneklemelerle sürdürülecektir. Bu noktada esas amaç iğrencin yaşamdaki karşılığının ölüm ve sanatla olan ilişkisinin ne denli müstehcenlik yarattığı ve kendine yabancılaşmış olan insanın mevcut sınırları aşmasında benzer etkiyi yarattığının sergilenmesidir. Ölüm ve çürümenin getirdiği donuk metamorfoz hali, Bašić’in çalışmalarındaki kaygan ve sümüksü dokunun insan-canavar arası bir metamorfoz geçişini sergilemesiyle eş hale gelmekte ve tanımsız ve anlamsız olan yaşamın içine tehditkâr biçimde yerleşmektedir.

Writing the Human “I”: Liminal Spaces of Mundane Abjection

This article suggests a theoretical lens of “mundane abjection” as a new conceptualization of liminality as a methodologically and humanistically transformative concept. Thinking with Julia Kristeva’s post-structural conception of the subject as “always in-process,” this article traverses the inherent and transformative element of abjection in relation to the perceived ontological challenges of methodological liminalities. It posits liminality as a potentiating conceptual space for new ontologies in relation to the human “I.” Throughout, the performance, that is the occurrence, of mundane abjection is illustrated as a critical, revelatory and necessary process within this ontological transformation of methodology and the human “I.”

The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism by Rajani Sudan

The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism by Rajani Sudan

The Incandescence of Photography: On Abjection, Fulguration, and the Corpse

The Incandescence of Photography: On Abjection, Fulguration, and the Corpse

Affective Medievalism: Love, Abjection and Discontent by Thomas A. Prendergast and Stephanie Trigg

Affective Medievalism: Love, Abjection and Discontent by Thomas A. Prendergast and Stephanie Trigg

How Long? How Far?

One’s social identity is constituted in and through the act of naming. A name simultaneously interpellates the addressee and confines their resistance to the name’s religious, social, gender or racial oppression to the manoeuvring space warranted by that particular delimitation (e.g. gay, black, disabled). Since the 1960s rise of identity politics, several strategies have emerged in response to the closure of naming: the re-appropriation of injurious names; self-naming; and abject art, a form of public outrage at the increasingly invisible violence perpetuated by consumerist, class and gender interpellations – demands placed on the recessive realm of being which resides beyond naming. Taking its cue from abject art, this article queries the possibility of an epigenetic effect of naming. Epigenetics refers to the dynamic alterations in the way DNA information is transcribed from generation to generation, its chief claim being that cultural and social behaviour has a lasting effect on an organism’s biological make-up (Pembrey et al 2006). In pondering the trans-temporal performativity of naming in a realm made increasingly significant by organ transplantation – the realm of the intercorporeal – the article asks: can the long-forgotten effect of past naming practices (from Ish’s naming of animals to the subsumption of slave labour under the slave owner’s name) resurface in the inter-corpus, in the communal abject, in the khora – the mise en abyme of time, place and matter? (Derrida 1995)

Narratividade, corporalidade e realismo de choque em Mooca, São Paulo e Um céu de estrelas

O drama realista Um céu de estrelas (1996), de Tata Amaral, é analisado a partir da estruturação do seu relato, com especial atenção a aspectos de montagem, cenário e movimentação. A análise fílmica propõe-se a operar a leitura do curta-metragem Mooca, São Paulo (1996), de Francisco César Filho, sequência inicial do primeiro. Este artigo investiga como o conjunto estabeleceu a construção dos corpos numa condição que os faz oscilar entre repouso e explosão, erotismo e abjeção, espaço público e privado, naturalismo dramático e distanciamento crítico. Aponta-se, assim, a contribuição desses materiais ao contraditório realismo contemporâneo do final do século XX no cinema brasileiro.