Blank Page Research Articles

Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia by Y-Dang Troeung

Reviewed by: Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia by Y-Dang Troeung Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi (bio) Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia, by Y-Dang Troeung. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2022. Xxvii + 223 pp. $29.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1439921760. Chapter 1 of Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia opens with a photograph that Y-Dang Troeung encountered in the archive: an image of a smiling Cambodian refugee mother and her young daughter, the latter identified as the "last" refugee of the Canadian government's Special Indochinese Refugee Program, displayed on the front page of the December 4, 1980 issue of the Montreal Gazette. Troeung writes that this is "an account of goodness–of good refugees entering the good refuge" (48). Yet the child in the photograph is not a silenced subject, a blank page upon which the Global North state can write its humanitarian narrative, erasing centuries of Indigenous genocide and racializing logics. For the child, it is revealed, is Troeung, who stubbornly writes back, revealing a much longer genealogy of the Cold War in Cambodia that preceded her family's entry into Canada. "Knit[ting] together" autotheory and literary analysis, Refugee Lifeworlds creates a "complex fabric" that reveals the "texture and temporalities of refugee life as embodied and inherited experience" (5). Because it opens chapter 1, this anecdote of archival encounter ostensibly presents a beginning of sorts. But it is a beginning that is delayed, put on hold, coming after a twenty-page preface that outlines the long durée of US intervention in Cambodia and a forty-five-page introduction that outlines the key terms and interventions of the book. In this way, Refugee Lifeworlds presents a formal alternative to "scholarly approaches that often treat the refugee as a figure who comes into being only through arrival in the asylum state," when "whiteness enters the frame as an adjudicator of the refugee's humanity" (ix). Moreover, this vignette does not follow the expected script of the liberal subject's self-possessing arrival to speech. Instead, Troeung reveals moments of stumbling and reversal, of difficulty and denial. As explained in the Introduction, when Troeung wrote to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2021 [End Page 103] "asking them to take down" photos like these of herself and her family, explaining that she had given them "in a state of mental distress, and that the final article replicated a colonial practice of putting refugee images and information on public display in an exploitative way," the CBC denied the request, citing lack of evidence of a "mental health crisis at the time of the interview" (7–8). This autotheory example–one of many interwoven throughout the text–incisively illustrates the importance of putting critical refugee studies in conversation with critical disability studies: the book's main intervention. Refugee Lifeworlds takes the fact that "a quarter of Cambodia's population died during the genocide, and the remaining three-quarters of the population were physically and mentally debilitated" as a point of departure (12). Engaging critical refugee studies scholars such as Yến Lê Espiritu and Khatharya Um alongside critical disability scholars such as Jasbir Puar and Liat Ben-Moshe, Troeung argues for a shift from "the language of trauma as an individual, knowable impairment to that of disability, understood as both a lived embodiment and system of differential impairment of racialized and gendered bodies" (13). The book curates a "crip Cambodian refugee archive" that enacts a "politics of refusal . . . of imperial, carceral, and white supremacist state violence" (23–24). "Refugee lifeworlds," as an analytic, acknowledges the necropolitical logics of death and destruction that have structured Cambodian subjectivity, even as it asks us to consider what new epistemologies are possible in the wake of genocide. Ultimately, the book underscores the importance of an abolitionist project of "refugee and disability justice for all" (15). Refugee Lifeworlds consists of four body chapters followed by a short autotheory coda. Chapter 1 unpacks "Cambodia's Cold War episteme" which has rendered Cambodia a "minor anecdote" in the colonial imagination, setting up the importance of centering Cambodian narratives (50). The remaining chapters take up...

A Break in the Clouds

Sierra cement. That's what the weatherman called it. Thick, heavy, wet snow, falling all over the valley non-stop for days. Not the kind we're used to around here. Not that light Uinta powder that piles up like angel food cake—what our license plates call “The Greatest Snow on Earth”— but the kind of snow that weighs everything down; breaks branches, breaks shovels, breaks backs (or at least throws them out). It's great for snowballs, my kids tell me, but it has been so cold that no one wants to go out.We shovel, of course, because that's what you do if you don't want ice to build up on your driveway, and for the first few days we can keep up—but then, one morning we look out the window to find another several inches of new snow, and no sign of it stopping. Sure, something like a rumor of sun has risen in the unseen distance, but everything is gray, the ceiling of the world hangs low, the air muffled. On day one it was beautiful, but now it feels relentless, a bit isolating, a hint of menace in the creeping cold—like the great wild has put us all on notice, lest we forget who's really in charge. And now there's no use in shoveling at all, no use doing anything but wait.But then, just like that, the blizzard stops. The dark blanket of sky lifts, and neighbors emerge from their garages like hope. There's the scrape of shovels, the rumble of someone's little snow blower. Everywhere are shimmering drifts, and large clumps of snow fall from branches, as if the trees are shaking themselves free. Someone's dog bounds into the yard. Someone rolls by in their car, brave but unsteady. It's only been a few days, and I know it sounds like a cliché, but every time a storm lifts, it feels like some kind of rebirth—and I'm taken by the surprise and delight of so much life revealing itself around me.It's all not unlike my experience with the writing life, which can be beautiful, sublime even, but also quiet, cold, and sometimes suffocatingly lonely. We have all found ourselves buried in work, overcome by the relentless demands of the blank page, cut off enough to forget, even if for just a moment, that we aren't alone. But working at a literary magazine means that quite often the clouds of work part and the sun comes out, and we get to celebrate what our literary neighbors have been working on.Pat and I have enjoyed reading the many outstanding essays that have come across our desks these past several months, and we are happy to present some of them here, including the winner of our most recent Michael Steinberg Memorial Essay contest, “The Rest is History,” by Peggy Shinner, and several contest finalists as well. We'd also like to point readers to our website, fourthgenre.org, where you can find book reviews, craft essays, interviews, archival content, and the winner of our 2022 Multi-Media Essay contest, “Out of Body,” by Madeline Curtis.As always, thank you for reading.

Түркі халықтары ынтымақтастығы кейбір мәселелерінің Түркия деректері мен тарихнамасындағы көрінісі (ХІХ ғ. соңы – ХХ ғ. бірінші ширегі

The end of the 19th - the first quarter of the 20th centuries is characterized by a heavy burden in the history of the Turkic peoples: the policy of spiritual colonization of Tsarist Russia was in full swing, the Jadid and Turkic movements were gaining strength, the Turkic peoples strengthened their solidarity within the framework of these ideas, as a result of two revolutions, the entire structure 90М.Ш. Эгамбердиев, А.М. Азмұханова Turkic Studies Journal 3 (2023) 72-91of Russia’s imperialist policy changed, the Bolshevik policy of atheism, famine and repression was implemented. This period has been comprehensively studied in domestic historiography and its «blank pages» continue to be revealed today. However, this historical period has not yet been studied in the sources and historiography of Turkey, which is a fraternal country. The main sources of the chronological period we have chosen are preserved in the archives of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman state libraries and the rare collections of the National Library in Ankara. Studies and historiographical bases connected with the problems of the Turkic peoples’ cooperation were considered from two perspectives. The main purpose of the article is a comprehensive analysis of the Turkic peoples’ cooperation since the end of the 19th – first quarter of the 20th centuries in Turkish sources and historiography. To achieve this goal, Turkish sources and materials stored in the archives were classified by comparative analysis, and on this basis the problems of Jadid movement, Turkism and Islam, Muslim issues, national identity, and political-cultural struggle based on the principle of historicism were analyzed.

Novel Clues about Marie Jeanne Riccoboni's Childhood: Newly Uncovered Lettres de Cachet Reveal Maternal Dérèglement de Mœurs

Abstract: Marie Jeanne Riccoboni (1713-1792), one of the foremost proto-feminist women writers of Enlightenment France, has offered conflicting and enigmatic information about her childhood. While her desire for privacy regarding her own biography can be understood and respected, when (new) personal details elucidate her published oeuvre, both her fiction and her correspondence, they hold a particular fascination for readers and scholars alike. This essay will shed light on a notoriously blank page of Riccoboni's life, her childhood, through two newly uncovered lettres de cachet pertaining to her mother Marie Marguerite Dujac and her grandfather Jean Baptiste Dujac. An analysis of these documentsas lettres de cachet through the lens of royal and paternal authority as well as female agency, will provide new context for Riccoboni's biography regarding her relationship with her mother and her childhood, as well as offer important clues for some essential elements of her fiction, including her proto-feminism.

Correction to: Impact granular media for intruders with different geometries: force and rheology

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake due to the PDF file conversion and a blank page incorporated at the last page. The original version PDF file has been replaced by the corrected version PDF file.

Policing the blank page movement: Insights from policing students, as a cohort of representatives of Generation Z

Abstract Police decisions to arrest and disperse protestors, displaying anti monarch rhetoric during the funeral cortege of Queen Elizabeth ii, has questioned the right to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act 1998. This presents a potential problem around public perception of police impartiality. This paper utilises an online questionnaire, with the aim of establishing views of youths aged 18 to 23 years old, as a sample of Generation Z, around police actions at the scene. It reviews whether restrictions towards freedom of speech, have negatively impacted upon perceptions of police impartiality. The hypothesis is that the participants will perceive freedom of speech as highly important, with restrictions to this right, damaging the concept of police impartiality. Findings highlight how participants acknowledge the importance of freedom of speech for democracy. However, there was doubt shown around whether police actions which appeared to restrict this right, impacted upon police impartiality.

FROM LA VIUDA TO LETTERS FROM CUBA: FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE IN MARÍA IRENE FORNÉS’ THEATER.

María Irene Fornés (1930-2018) developed a theatrical career inextricably linked to Off-Off-Broadway for more than forty years. One of her most celebrated techniques for writing springs from the chance operation of opening a text, choosing a phrase, sentence or paragraph, and writing it on the blank page to act as inspiration. In fact, her theater abounds with pieces from many varied sources, multiple references as well as objects found in thrift shops. La Viuda, written in Spanish and published in Havana in 1961, was her first play. In 2000, the curtain falls on her theatrical career with the premiere of Letters from Cuba, her last published play. Texts from both the opening and closing landmarks of this most distinguished playwright draw inspiration from different sets of family correspondence. The coincidence in using personal letters as found objects allows for an analysis that will deal with the adaptation from private written texts to a theatrical medium as a signature feature of her theater, concentrating on how they trigger the conception of the play and how they also condition the performance. The article will analyze the adaptation of letters on the stage by considering both formal and thematic aspects, such as references to time and space, the theatrical actions displayed by different characters, the set and stage design, as well as the tone of each piece

The Analysis of Quality Information on The Website of South Bengkulu, Bengkulu Province

The information and communication technology (ICT) development today has created a website, an effective information medium that connects to the Internet network so that it can be accessed at any time. Not want to miss, government organizations are also utilizing website technology as one of their services in providing information to the public. However, the information contained on the website should have a good quality so that the information conveyed can be useful. This study aims to measure the quality of information on South Bengkulu Regency websites based on dimensions of the information quality concept. Observation of four websites in South Bengkulu Regency was conducted along with an in-depth interview with each manager. The results obtained that the information available on these websites has met the good information quality, although there are some deficiencies such as the existence of links that refer to a blank page, some unlisted information dating, and the lack of network quality assurance to ensure the availability of information.

Barry Jenkins, Meet D. W. Griffith, and: Portrait of a Lynched Boy

Barry Jenkins, Meet D. W. Griffith, and: Portrait of a Lynched Boy Murleve Roberts (bio) Barry Jenkins, Meet D. W. Griffith after Tyehimba Jess I am a man, I am a man, Yet and as the Loved One, as the Chosen One of God, I can never drop the phrase at that. I am bruised. I am black; But as the righteous do, I have risen: I am a man, reborn to spread Word, to spread Truth, a Black man, “Stained by the wretched mark of Cain,” Not that I’m unjustly proud of my achievements. as you would like to say. I am but passionate, But I refuse to drip with blood; and my passion is worth your millions— My life is dyed with love, my Passion is worth your Dreams. with a prism of kisses crowning my skin, And I’m sweet on the Cinema, on the screen with a summer of promise sewn to my soul, on what I have made Great, towering over you and your smallness— with Love, I love the power and the place; overwhelming love for my life I love the excitement, the entertainment; and her life I love the game of loss and gain; and their life I love the way and everything we’ve lost— I can express the Right thing: Every love story reigning marigold and rouge, how I right the human race in Every forget-me-not searing, sea breeze dream— how others follow, As a person supported by those, Dreams, how I have inspired. I’m uprooted and bolstered at once. And I love not giving up. Pioneering both my thriving and My Plight— though it’s hard—it can be crippling: It’s easy to hate you, the way things disappear, the way I disappear, sand between But I dye myself with Love. the webs of your fingers, I slip my thinking hands into my pockets which have never tried to hold on. and I tie myself with humility and blank pages, Still, I must remember, I have been successful. the blank pages I Blacken til they’re Red with awards, til they’re Me, a master of each subtle art— me, humbled again with the thinking in my hands and the hopes that I love knowing, in my heart, I have been successful. So if you forget me, it’s enough if you remember To bury me. My ideas: Bury me in negatives, the faces I made gentle in the shadow-stained theatre, Bury me in my life’s work the tears I wrung to cello-sweet sonatas, Never forget what I have left for you, the Masculinity I softened into the acceptance of Life. You Hollywood Dream. If you forget me, Black and white pages Remember to wipe away my ink tears That’s us: Black and White. and tell me, I see you’re angry, In moonlight, you look Blue. but that’s us. In moonlight, your tears do, too. Remember to Let me sleep, peaceful, with my Father. Let me sleep knowing I’ve undone one knot. [End Page 336] Portrait of a Lynched Boy The thin, cotton shirt slips down his shoulder,Baring ebony-sheet skin, thick and knottedLike the tan, jute rope tight around his neck.I can see the line engraved to the left of his spine,A seam sewn by a sloping bodyRun out of air.But on blackness, blue and bruised don’t show.Instead, he looks asleep:Thick-lashed eyes and Tuscan-red lipsCalmly suspended in the center of space. The cold, autumn air brushes my cheeks,Tries to muss my hair,And succeeds in shifting his limp body,Spinning him just slightly,Making him jive and twist and dance—Neck relaxed against its prison,Feet pointed for pirouette,Hands empty and innocentLike a baby born to a white wedlock:A thing that they value. His name has faded like the indigo denim at his knee,Fallen and crumpled andLost in the leaves between us,And the buzz slipping past my ear is a reminder:It was flies that led me. [End Page 337] Murleve Roberts Murleve Roberts is a writer from...

Williams, Helen. Laurence Sterne and the Eighteenth-Century Book

Williams, Helen. <i>Laurence Sterne and the Eighteenth-Century Book</i>

Adaptinking Tristram, or the Wunderkammer in the Flesh

The recent trend of literary tattoos, particularly popular in the English-speaking world, represents a new way of disseminating writers’ portraits, emblematic motifs, and textual fragments, on the body and online. Laurence Sterne’s already highly visual, highly quotable work is no exception. Based on a surprising encounter, this essay takes its cue from Tristram Shandy as an aesthetic object and explores how human skin can read like a blank page on which to reinscribe Sternean ink and its endless mobility.

The Digital Dickens Notes Project

The Digital Dickens Notes Project

Taylor Swift, remediating the self, and nostalgic girlhood in tween music fandom

As traditional album sales decline, music artists have turned to deluxe editions and store exclusives to entice their fan bases into buying not just physical copies but multiple copies of the same record. In attempting to engage with a young and increasingly digital audience—many of whom do not even own devices on which to play physical copies of music—Taylor Swift has chosen to use emotional rhetoric to transpose her aura into a desire for the tangible. Swift brings fans along with her on a journey into her own past, reigniting interest in earlier forms of media and capitalizing on a tween ideal of bedroom culture. In creating deluxe versions of her album Lover (2019) with scanned copies of her teen diary entries alongside blank journal pages for fans, Swift encourages a melding of fan and star in a moment of adolescent expression. With this production, Swift attempts to create physical objects of emotion, to reinforce girl culture as brand, and to bring value back to the nondigital album. Swift creates purposeful space in her own narrative for fans to insert themselves and plug in their understanding of her star text, further aligning herself and the fan in a sort of metafandom.

Practical Steps to Writing a Scientific Manuscript.

Writing a scientific manuscript can be a very intimidating process for new writers. However, writing a scientific research article can be broken down into discrete steps to make the process more digestible. Radiology manuscripts have common conventions that differ from research in technical and other medical fields. The practical steps summarized within describe what to do before you start writing, successful writing strategies, and common writing styles. Templates for producing an abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion are outlined, along with tips to collect references and produce high quality figures. All writers can benefit from an outside writing perspective, and the practical steps described should ease the transition from a blank page to a finished manuscript.

Essaying the Impasse

Essaying the Impasse

Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing

Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing

Meisterlikud õpipoisid. Jaan Kaplinski ja tema hingesugulane Tomas Tranströmer / Masterful Servants: Jaan Kaplinski and his soulmate Tomas Tranströmer

Luuletajad Jaan Kaplinski (1941–2021) ja Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015), keda lahutas raudne eesriie, kasvasid üles väga erinevates maailmades. Ent siiski said neist hingesugulased. Artiklis osutan, kuidas nende läheduse tuuma iseloomustas sügavalt juurdunud hoiak, mis põhines ökoloogiast inspireeritud maailmatunnetusel. Tugevasti lihtsustades võiks öelda, et oma egosse investeerimise asemel nägid mõlemad luuletajad end millegi suurema teenritena. Nad hindasid mõlemad kõrgelt avatuks jäävat vaadet enestele, oma tööle ja maailmale, millesse nad kuulusid. Kui nende egod viibisid pidevas taandumises, avardus nende vastuvõtlikkus maailma suhtes ning köitvus luuletajatena.&#x0D; ---&#x0D; Separated by the Iron Curtain, Jaan Kaplinski (1941–2021) and Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015) grew up in very different worlds. And yet, they became soulmates. What then informed the core of their kinship? This article aims to show that it was above all a deeply rooted sentiment grounded in an ecologically inspired view that brought the two poets together. To put a complex matter all too simply, Jaan Kaplinski and Tomas Tranströmer saw themselves as servants of something bigger: they shared a profoundly felt sense of “openness,” something which also lies at the heart of their success as poets.&#x0D; In Jaan Kaplinski’s and Tomas Tranströmer’s work and habits of thought, this core sentiment left easily overlooked but nevertheless telling traces. They include, as this article points out, their conversation concerning the translation of an essential term in Eastern thought, namely śūnyatā (emptiness). Tranströmer followed Kaplinski’s unique suggestion, which was meant to capture more of the essence and spirit inherent in the term śūnyatā. As a consequence, in the final version of one of his best-known poems, entitled “Vermeer”, Tranströmer changed to “openness” what in Buddhism is commonly referred to as “emptiness”.&#x0D; Yet probably more significantly, what above all held Kaplinski and Tranströmer captive, as this article also aims to show, is a reversal in our understanding of the ego. Collectively, both poets agreed, we, as human beings, would be well advised to embrace a less intrusive role in the world to which we belong. Importantly, what Kaplinski and Tranströmer advocated does not amount to an impoverishing stance. On the contrary: only when we step away from our previous deeply entrenched positions of human dominance, both poets agreed, a richer world and more sustainable sense of self can come into view. To at least gain a glimpse of the fuller complexity of what brought both poets together, the observations offered in this article are meant to help us understand how, for Kaplinski and Tranströmer, changes in our view of the ego embody “openness”. Instead of increased ego noise, they urged the merit of a more modest ego. Not preoccupied with themselves, their goals and desire to intervene, both poets wrote poems focussed on the diminished ego as a key value. The more we step into the background – Kaplinski and, together with him, Tranströmer believed – the more the world opens up and the more we ultimately flourish.&#x0D; In addition to seeing “openness” surface in their self-effacing view of themselves, and, associated with it, their concentration on a vision of a world beyond human design, this article furthermore draws attention to another equally prominent manifestation of “openness” that brought both poets together: how can language make “openness” appear, they asked? We are invited to consider several intertwined answers Tranströmer and Kaplinski offered. They include embracing the untamed and stepping away from any decorative use of language – “all rhetoric must be left behind,” Tranströmer, echoing Kaplinski, categorically insisted; evoking the self-cancelling of language itself; or moving altogether beyond language: seeking to transcend it by employing a theme, introducing a practice, or setting up a signpost, all meant to point away from language.&#x0D; And finally, in league with “openness”, “silence” also constitutes a shared recurring theme in Kaplinski’s and Tranströmer’s work, as this article suggests. In order to better explain the importance of “silence”, the article draws attention to American composer John Cage. Informed by the altogether different logic of “openness” Cage employed, for him “silence” became the performance, as it were, and the ambient sounds of the concert hall its music. Acting as a particularly compelling embodiment of “openness” – not unlike the blank page of the poet, the unpublished manuscript of the writer, or the white canvas of the painter – “silence” too united Jaan Kaplinski and Tomas Tranströmer, as servants in their masterful quest for “openness”.

From Mask to Flesh and Back: A Semiotic Analysis of the Actor’s Face Between Theatre and Cinema

We aim to focus on the mimic gestures intentionally produced to be “monstrate” to others (expressive gestures), thus attempting to propose a semiotic analysis on the actor’s face. We shall attempt to outline the extent to which, (i) since the rise of cinema, the actor’s face has gained a foreground role as compared to the full-figured body, and (ii) the legacy of the nineteenth-century handbooks of scenic postures was crucial in this context, especially those of Antonio Morrocchesi and Alemanno Morelli. To deal with the actor’s body as an instrument, means to make it a blank page to be used to re-design the character’s body, including the face. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the method of the pedagogue Jacques Lecoq—one of the greatest teachers of contemporary theatre—which consists in the use of a special mask during the training process: the so-called neutral mask.

Reframing Tragedy

Reframing Tragedy

Black Arts of Erasure

Black Arts of Erasure Kinohi Nishikawa (bio) In 2018, Black artist Hank Willis Thomas created a cover for New York Magazine’s fiftieth anniversary. His submission stood out from among the fifty commissioned. Against a black background, the following words are printed in white: ALLLI ES MATTER1 The slogan “All Lives Matter” sprung up as a reaction to the political messaging of the Black Lives Matter movement. Its use sidestepped the explicit antagonism of the pro-police phrase “Blue Lives Matter” and instead sought to cast the idea of Black lives mattering as a kind of chauvinism, the opposite of an inclusive understanding of the issues at hand. Willis turns this use of the phrase on its head. In his work, “All Lives Matter” is shown broadcasting racist sentiment through an appeal to universal humanity. By ignoring actually existing inequalities, the phrase misconstrues advocating for Black life as a special interest rather than as a strategy for survival. This “lie,” or evasion, sits at the crux of “All Lives Matter,” which is what makes Thomas’s act of erasure so brilliant: the removed “V” exposes the racism that would deny the validity of Black Lives Matter in the language of enlightened inclusion. The way Thomas achieves this aesthetic effect bears further comment. It is not that the “V” is removed and the typography rearranged to read “LIES.” Crucial to the design is the blank space left by the removed “V.” Appearing as it does against the black background of New York’s cover, this space might be thought of as filled in with and by blackness. The visual priority we usually assign to white text appearing against a black background is overturned in Thomas’s work, such that the focal point of the piece looks as if it were written over by blackness. In this way, what appears to be an act of erasure could be equally characterized as an act of inscription: the subtraction of one element from the visual field is at one and the same time an addition of another element to the visual field. Thomas makes this point more apparent in the 2019 limited edition screenprint All Li es Matter.2 In this piece, the background of black wove paper is lighter than the digitally enhanced background of the magazine cover. As such, the “V” can be seen in an even darker shade of black, creating a three-way contrast between canvas, white text, and the “V.” Here, the letter is notably void and presence at the same time. Thomas’s art is one example of recent work by Black artists who have explored erasure as a resource for writing. Writing not in the usual way we think of it: an inscription on a blank page, new lines of text in a blank document. That is, writing as the transmission of thoughts or feelings to a medium that would faithfully record them. Thomas and other artists approach writing differently. They do [End Page 296] not take for granted the blankness of the surface or the fit of the medium to record their words. Instead, they reckon with the racism structured into our very writing technologies, epitomized by the associations we bring to the whiteness of the page. For these artists, the right to inscribe is unevenly distributed among people and populations. To address this disparity, erasure becomes a mode of media reflexivity in their art, where writing emerges not as inscription of our mental processes and affective states but as deconstruction of our socialized habits of reading. In this way, erasure becomes erasureture, or mode of Black writing (écriture) whose expression is the constitutive difference of all expression and thus can only be read in adjustments or supplements to the text itself.3 These minor subtractions serve a critical function vis-à-vis whiteness, but they also create space for Black plenitude, an overflow of meaning that comes with being able to see language differently. For instance, Thomas’s reversal of the usual optics of print—black ink on white paper—affords a situation where the iterability of Black lives is protected from the lies of a false universalism. To be sure, elements of erasureture...