Apollon Digital Journal - Issue XIV - 2022

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What’s in a Name? ap-ol-lon’ Our name at Apollon is derived from the Greek and Roman deity, Apollo, while the spelling more closely follows the Greek transliteration. Apollo is the god of music, poetry, art, light, and knowledge, making him one of the most complex deities in the

Pantheon. In tribute to his multifaceted existence, our journal utilizes various media to create and reproduce knowledge within the humanities and to encourage critical thinking through multidisciplinary inquiry. With Apollo as patron to our musings and his Muses as inspiration for

our content, Apollon seeks to provide our readers with thought-provoking, innovative ideas that explore the depth and breadth of humanistic inquiry.

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Our Mission At Apollon, we strive to publish superior examples of undergraduate humanities research from a variety of disciplines as well as intellectual approaches.

Our goal is to engage students in every stage of the process, beginning with student-faculty collaboration in generating undergraduate scholarship and finishing with the release of a polished digital journal. Apollon strives to take advantage of the unique opportunity of venturing into the digital humanities by engaging with image, text, sound, video, and a variety of presentation platforms in the process of showcasing the many species of undergraduate research.

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Acknowledgements Please take a moment to acknowledge our student editors, faculty advisors, and those who submitted for Apollon XII. We appreciate all of the hard work that has been put into this edition. Additionally, we would like to thank the Humanities Institute for their undying

support. Of course, we’d also like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to review and support undergraduate scholarship. Thank you to everyone who made this journal possible.

For more information on the people and organizations

listed above, please visit www.apollonejournal.org

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Table of Contents “Bread, Banquets, and Capons: The Cosmopolitan Culinary Condition of Rome” By: Kueh Jinhao Ryan, Yale-NUS Singapore

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“Smoke and Mirrors: Reading the Rhetoric of Ted Cruz” By: Lillian Robles, UCLA

p. 15

“Simone de Beauvoir and the Other Woman” By: Hui Wong, University of British Colombia

p. 21

“Stones that Speak” By: Aldona Casey, College of the Holy Cross

p. 29

“The Power We Speak: Language, Anti-Black Racism, and Black Resistance” By: Kelsey Da Silva, Carleton University

p. 35

“The Martial and Marital Entwined: Femininity and the Military World in Shakespeare’s Othello” By: Riley Sutherland, University of South Carolina

p. 45

“Emerald Atlantic: Motivations in Irish-American Diasporic Violence” By: Winslow MacDonald, Columbia University

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“The Taboos of Family Romances: In Search of the Distorted Feminine Image” By: Esther Jane Ben Ami, University of Rochester

p. 63

“Seventeenth-Century Dutch Animal Imagery Challenging Anthropocentrism: Paulus Potter’s Punishment of a Hunter” By: Sofya Vorobeva, University of Tyumen

p. 71

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Bread, Banquets, and Capon: The Cosmopolitan Culinary Condition of Rome By: Kueh Jinhao Ryan

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Introduction At its peak, Rome was an urban city very much like cosmopolitan cities of today, featuring a rich intermingling of various cultures and religions that thrived on economic strength and growth.

Scholars agree that the city contained approximately a million urban residents, with the city having an estimated consumption of more than 150,000 tons of grain per annum.[1] This, however, begs a following question. What was the quality of food for everyday Romans actually like? In most understandings of “ancient” civilizations, the rich ate better in both form and function—balanced and copious diets that contained a variety of nutritious food, whereas the poor ate the cheapest food available for sustenance.

elites of modern 21st century cosmopolitan societies.

The Roman Food Pyramid

Ordinary Roman citizens ate a nutritiously balanced diet of meat, seafood, fruits, spices and grains on a regular basis, supported by large-scale import and distribution of food handouts from the Emperor.[2] The basic roman diet comprised of a main cereal portion (frumentum), supplemented with flavorful side-dishes (pulmentum or salsamentum) such as legumes, vegetables and proteins such as cheese, fish and meat.[3] The earliest Roman staple was porridge (puls) made of boiled emmer wheat, but this was gradually replaced by bread as trade grew. Meat was also available for the poor, who however often consumed less desirable parts of animals through This article seeks to explore the culinary condition the form of blood puddings, regional sausages of the masses and elites in Rome by comparing it (falisci, lucanicae), meatballs (isicia), or stews at to post-industrial societies. It finds that ordinary food stalls and taverns. Roman cuisine was Roman citizens enjoyed a diet that was holistic, flavorful as well, with spices and seasonings such as nutritious, and well-seasoned. Diets were similar olive oil, wine, vinegar, herbs and spices (pepper, in nutritional composition to the elite class, cumin, coriander) commonly used in cooking.[4] consuming food that were high in calories, diverse In 123 BC, Roman quaestor Gaius Gracchus in choice, and flavored with spices. It presents introduced the first food-related welfare handout, evidence that supports a more complex culinary with the state distributing subsidized grain to the to condition when compared to 19-20th century the urban populace, eventually expanding to economies, with Roman food culture going include olive oil, meat and wine after Severan beyond simply fulfilling nutritional necessity. times.[5] Rome’s culinary condition was more alike to 21st century cosmopolitan societies, where elites This base level of welfare handouts freed up distinguished themselves culinarily through the disposable income for ordinary Romans to aesthetic value of consumables, pursuing food purchase ingredients that could supplement their that exuded a “sense of distinction” through its diets. Roman legionaries would only have to use copiousness or scarcity. To illustrate this trope, 10-20% of his salary to purchase additional wheat this paper will first expound on the diets of for one’s subsistence and an unskilled laborer’s everyday Romans, comparing the diets with annual cost of feeding a family (of four) was around ordinary citizens of post-industrial 19-20th 20-30% of his income.[6] Literary sources suggest century European economies. It will subsequently that urban unskilled laborers earned between 150nuance this trope by exploring the Roman intra225 denarii between the first century BCE and class culinary difference through a Bordieuan CE,[7] with such wages sufficient for everyday lens, analyzing the elite’s sociological behavior citizens to purchase exotic spices such as black surrounding food and demonstrate how Rome’s pepper priced at 4 denarii a libra. culinary condition was instead more similar to the

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Researchers also find that Roman quarry workers remains of Hellenistic Greece suggest a taller were able to consume fish, shellfish, vegetables, mean height of 172cm, whereas Western fruits and meat,[8] where Cato’s agricultural Europeans (Spaniards, Italians, and Austroslaves were fed a diet of an estimated 3500kcal.

Hungarians) throughout the 18th and 19th Archaeobotanical analysis of Herculaneum’s century had a mean height of around 158septic tanks supports the literary evidence on 162cm,[12] with modern studies supporting the how most ordinary individuals were able to notion that height is closely correlated to consume a flavorful and wholesome diet, where nutrition—especially with the intake of hightanks linked to non-elite areas—shops, taverns quality proteins such as pork, fish, wheat and and rental apartments—find traces of black milk.[13] Such evidence suggests that ancient peppercorn together with the remains of seafood Romans were perhaps more nutritionally well-off, (fish, mollusks, shellfish), meat (chicken, sheep, consuming a more wholesome diet that pigs), fresh fruits, and other spices such as encouraged physiological growth. Rome thus coriander and poppy seeds.[9] These findings perhaps achieved parity in food security and substantiate how commoners consumed a rich quality for the masses, surpassing 19th-20th and varied diet despite their socioeconomic class. Century European economies without the advantages accrued from modernization and the Industrial Revolution.

"Roman Food at the British Museum – Roman “Factory” Farming Cheesy" by vintagedept is The nutritionally-dense and diverse marked with CC Roman diet was only possible through the BY 2.0. existence of complex and specialized marketoriented farms that produced livestock in large capacities, generating surplus for the masses.

Domestically, the Romans were involved in a wide variety of farming practices that allowed for a rich and varied diet. Farms were technologically intensive and featured specialized farming, viticulture, arboriculture, and market Comparing consumption information to postgardening.[14] We see the presence of both industrial revolution cities, everyday Romans ate agrarian and aquaculture practices, where better than their 19th-20th century counterparts. entrepreneurs invested in specialized villas or British farm laborers during the industrial latifundias—large, centrally-managed agricultural revolution spent 75% of their income on food enterprises—that grew wine, olives, animals and (71% on bread) whilst miners similarly allocated marine culture.[15] Along the sea, there are 58% (40% on bread) of their income towards recorded presence of maritime villas which were such purchases.[10] Other studies find that involved in oyster, tuna and even fish farming.[16] between 1787-1912, calorie consumption varied One such famous individual is that of eques from 1685kcal to 2768kcal depending on one’s Sergius Orata—who leased Lake Lucriunus in wage level (See Appendix 1), with most Campania from the Roman state for oyster households suffering from some degree of farming and eventually became one of the nutrient deficiency with the exception of pioneers progressive maritime farming in the protein.[11] Further evidence from skeletal Roman empire.[17]

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On land, villas could range up to 2000m2 in size, and spices from all across the world. The empire an inclination of the scale and intensity of received lettuce from Cappadocia, garum from production.[18] The most prominent cash crops Mauretania, game from Tunisia, edible flowers included olive oil and wine which were growing from Egypt, and also imported figs from extensively for both consumption and export.

Africa.[24] One of the most impressive spices For villas, Cato suggested that his ideal farmland includes the import of black pepper from the size was 100 iugera (62.5 acres),[19] with certain Indo-Roman trade. Spices were imported in bulk, latifundium measuring 1,000 or more iugera,[20] allowing such exotic goods to be available at a Concomitant to these large estates were a range cheaper price, servicing a much broader segment of agricultural management texts devoted of the population than anticipated.[25] According entirely to the maximisation of production to Pliny, the empire imported 50 million sesterces efficiency—Cato’s De Agricultura, Columella’s of pepper annually.[26] The distribution of staple De re Rustica and Varro’s Rerum Rusticarum, foods thus freed up income, allowing everyday with Roman’s food technology comparable to citizens to purchase affordable “luxury” spices and the agricultural practices of leading midvegetables that were imported. The confluence of nineteenth century Europe. large-scale domestic production and massive logistical structures thus allowed for food to be If we compare food production sizes, we see that produced and imported on an industrial scale, the Romans did it bigger and better than other creating surplus that enabled a variety of food to ancient civilizations, and even 19-20th industrial be affordable for the masses and encouraging a societies. Columella’s benchmark for the holistic and varied diet. minimum production of a well-cultivated vineyard is almost exactly the same as the The Habitus of Consumption average viticultural productivity of 19th-century France, with Columella’s estimates of a normal Thus far we have seen how the Roman commoner yield matching French figures for early 1950s.[21] had a similar nutritional diet composition to the In agriculture production, Britain’s 1885 rich, requiring us to draw a more nuanced analysis agricultural records show that 71% of farms were to illustrate the differences between classes, in under 50 acres,[22] smaller than Cato’s ideal terms of food consumption. To aid us in this villa size of 62.5 acres. Further, an endeavor, modern sociologist Pierre Bourdieu archeozoological comparison of cattle sizes writes on how food has become an identifier and similarly show that Roman cattle sizes were signifier of one’s class. Bourdieu’s concept of class sometimes similar, if not larger than cattle from habitus aptly explains this, where the “the the industrial era.[23] In the Bronze and Iron aesthetic sensibility that orients actors’ everyday Ages, European cattle were small, averaging at choices in matters of food, clothing, sports, art, 110cm. Following the Roman conquest, cattle and music […] serves as a vehicle through which sizes increased to 120cm-140cm depending on they symbolize their social similarity with and the location of the farm. In comparison, German their social difference from one another”.[27] cattle circa 1900 fell between 135-142cm, whilst Members of the dominant class lead a lifestyle cattle from many other European regions ranged that prided on form over function, through a from 121-126cm. “sense of distinction” via social, cultural, and economic capital, where conversely, members of To supplement domestic production, the the working class develop a “taste for necessity”— developed Roman global trade and expansive characterized by a lifestyle of function over empire allowed for an inflow of meat, vegetable, form.[28]

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The main difference between the diets of the rich Banquets or “Buffets” and the poor is therefore not in nutritional value (function) but in aesthetic form. As previously Banquets were a potent symbol of culture where the discussed, the common citizen had a diet that Romans had a large practice of feasting for the included handouts—wine, bread, olive oil— entertainment of the people during celebratory and supplemented by access to cheese, fresh religious occasions.[33] Aemilius Paullus’ famously vegetables, fruits, vegetable protein and meat in organized a banquet to celebrate his victory over the form of off-cuts. Horace and Marital record the Macedonians in 167 BCE, where he was noted how chickpeas, lentils, and fava beans were to say “the man who knows how to conquer in war frequently served both at home and at inexpensive can also arrange a banquet (conuiuium) and food stalls in the city.[29] The rich similarly often organize games”.[34] Banquets had a diplomatic consumed such vegetable protein, accompanied function of advertising Rome’s power— with choice cuts of meat such as pork, beef and demonstrating an individual and empire’s lamb. Fish was also consumed by both classes, organizational skills and showing cultural albeit for the lower class this was in the form of understanding before an assembly of surrounding preserved fish sauce or garum, whereas the rich powers. It signaled economic capital, where only in the form of fresh fish. Fresh fish commanded civilizations that had additional surplus were able large sums in the imperial period, with Seneca to carry out such feasts, whilst assisting elites in recording up to 5,000 sesterce for one mullet and reproducing cultural capital through the recurrence Pliny up to 8,000 sesterce.[30] On occasion, the of banquets. aristocratic class was also known to consume exotic meats—wild game, song birds, dormice and flamingo.[31] Foie Gras was also referenced to by Pliny the Elder, where a goose is force-fed to fatten the liver before removing the liver and further enlarging it by soaking the organ in honey-sweetened milk.[32] Thus, although both classes had a diet with similar compositions, the rich had a wider variety of dishes and access to fresh food that was unmatched by commoners.

The difference thus lies in the aesthetic value of consumables rather than the function, where the Roman elites—similar to modern cosmopolitan elites—often used a “sense of distinction” with food as a medium to distinguish themselves from the lower classes, with food now becoming a marker "Funerals Grave relief showing the deceased and his of class through social, cultural, and economic widow in a funeral feast where they are depicted in a capital. This form over function came in two godlike manner Roman 1st century CE WM McLeod manifestations: 1) Banquets and 2) Needless 720X480" by mharrsch is marked with CC BY-NC-SA Exoticism of Food.

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Banquets not only had political function, but a social one as well. Philanthropy (Philanthropia) was expected of Roman elites, where they had to maintain large networks of social connections and entertain visitors who came to the city with recommendations from friends. This usually involved feeding and entertaining these large crowds, where certain norms dictating these gatherings. For example, when dining with intimate friends, the capacity should not exceed nine people for it was believed that the occasion would be unruly, going from convivium (lifesharing) to convitium (vice-sharing).[35] During these banquets, aesthetic form was also important, where the way food was served and appeared carried salience. Slaves were trained in proper serving and carving techniques, with such a role famously elucidated by Carver the Carver in Trimalchio’s dinner.[36] Apicius, one of the authorities on food, also gave instructions on how food should be served, recommending an expensive silver platter for plating.[37]

banquet.[40] Trimalchio’s lack of finesse in form was thus scoffed by Petronius, where the former slave lacked cultural capital of a true “elite”. We thus can see how banquets were utilized within the elite milieu to reproduce social capital whilst demonstrating economic and exclusive cultural capital.

Capons and Ortolans

Next, we see the presence of the needless exoticism of food, where elites ate items as a status symbol rather than for function. In Rome, the aristocratic class was known to consume exotic meats—wild game, song birds, dormice and flamingo, where these exotic meat were priced for its opulence and fetishized by elites not due to its taste, but rather its limited supply and high price. We see parallels to modern day consumption of exotic meat and its ancillary moral concerns, with some examples shark fins, ortolans and pangolin meat. The rarity of these animals often stem from its illegal status and immoral preparation techniques—which in In Petronius Satyricon featuring Trimalchio—a turn makes these dishes even more exotic. One former slave who has turned rich and is famed for contentious example is modern Foie Gras, with the hosting elaborate, ostentatious banquets—is dish often drawing criticism from its gavage known to interrupt Seleucus and Habinnas midpreparation technique—goose or ducks force-fed conversation to ask: “But what did they give you with a 15-inch tube to facilitate indigestion, to eat?”,[38] referring to another party Seleucus unnaturally fattening the livers directly which and Habinnas were coming from. This is meant ensures a desirable texture. Another example is that to satirically illustrate how for elites, what one of ortolans, a practice that has been banned but is consumed was of over-inflated concern. Petronius still popular on the black market.[41] In Rome, the further ridicules Trimalchio’s lack of Lex Faunia was introduced in 162 BC to forbid sophistication and finesse in the realm of food citizens from eating fattened hens in an attempt to and wine, where despite having the wealth to save grain. Roman farmers then found a way spend on such lavishness, he draws out contrasts around this through caponisation—the castration of between the money spent on the food and the cockerels which allowed the animals to put on insipid end result [39]. One common example was weight and grow twice their normal size,[42] with how elites determined a host’s social hierarchy the consumption and practice of fattened pullets depending on whether oysters were served at a subsequently banned.[43]

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Roman and modern civilizations share similar approaches in morally questionable modifications of the animal to produce more “delicious” meats and ancillary pushbacks stemming from animal morality. First, in both civilizations there is an interest and intricate understanding of animal biology, where farmers went beyond simply feeding the livestock, and experimented various ways to produce animals specific for exotic consumption—producing animals that were plumper or with fattier livers than the one’s produced by conventional means. Secondly, we similarly see how authorities attempted to clamp down on such “excessively cruel” practices. In Rome, we see the introduction of laws[44] in an attempt to curb such behaviors, with these laws attempting to control frivolous consumption, consumption expenditure and banned certain foods such as fattened pullets and dormice [45].

The banning of shark fins and ortolans are similar modern examples, where these laws sought or are still seeking to ban the overconsumption of these delicacies due to ethical and animal-welfare concerns. Thus, we see similarity between Roman and modern elites in their desire to distinct themselves through needless exoticism of certain food, where such delicacies allow them to convey a “sense of distinction” and demonstrate economic capital and an exclusive cultural capital.

Juvenal – Sociologist in Antiquity In Rome, excessiveness and frivolous spending on banquets and exotic food concomitantly drew scrutiny amongst many, with moralizing literature in the form of satire and philosophical work denouncing extravagance as indicative of moral decay. Juvenal’s infamous term “bread and circuses” speaks to the corruptibility of the citizenry via food and games,[46] where Emperors used food and entertainment as one method of issuing rent to prevent the people of Rome from

revolting. The critique focuses on the citizen’s primal desire for such simplistic demands, a commonality found in both elites and locals albeit in different forms. In Horace’s dinner invitation poem addressed to Persicus, Horace talks about the fine wine and food they consume.[47] Juvenal mocks such excessiveness and “softness”, mentioning how gourmet habits would leave one suffering when one’s wealth has been spent and is unable to satisfy one’s desire again,[48] where food has evolved into a symbol of corruption and gaudiness. He also contrasts how Roman predecessors did not engage in such opulence, insinuating how “honorable” leaders of today are “soft”, whereas the original Roman heroes were “tough”, pragmatic and did not concern themselves with these luxuries.[49] Bourdieu’s theory, which illustrates the class condition of modern society, is interestingly also applicable to Roman society, where both modern and ancient literature demonstrate consensus that the main difference between the classes is not in nutritional value but in aesthetic form. Due to the balanced and rich diets of the commoners, the “sense of distinction” for elites were thus focused on form rather than function, with elites pushing for aesthetic extravagance and gaudy exoticness. This was exclusive to elites as only through their wealth could they afford exotic meats and banquets (economic capital), allowing them to create a distinct culture (cultural capital) that is reproduced through a closed social circle (social capital).

Conclusion In conclusion, the everyday citizen in Rome did not only consume for sustenance or “necessity”, but enjoyed a diet that was wholesome, nutritious and well-seasoned, similar in function to the elite class.

Ordinary Romans ate well, driven by welfare handouts and additional surplus due to the large specialized agricultural industry of Rome.

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As such, the Roman culinary condition was perhaps [8] Kron, “Comparative Evidence and the superior to 19-20th century economies, and more Reconstruction of the Ancient Economy.” like 21st century cosmopolitan cities in both form [9] Mayer, “Tanti Non Emo, Sexte, Piper.” and function. This analysis of the Roman culinary [10] Emma Griffin, “Diets, Hunger and Living condition draws similarities between the classStandards During the British Industrial based sociological structures of Rome and modern Revolution*,” Past & Present 239, no. 1 (May 1, contemporaries, prompting one to rethink the 2018): 71–111, intricacies and modernity of class structures, and https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtx061. perhaps prompt a deeper reflection into our [11] Ian Gazeley and Sara Horrell, “Nutrition in the common historical condition.

English Agricultural Labourer’s Household over the Course of the Long Nineteenth Century,” The Endnotes Economic History Review 66, no. 3 (2013): 757– 84, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468[1] Paul Erdkamp, “The Food Supply of the 0289.2012.00672.x.

Capital,” in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient [12] Kron, “Food Production.”

Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 262–77, [13] Jessica M Perkins et al., “Adult Height, https://doiNutrition, and Population Health,” Nutrition org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/10.1017/CCO97811390259Reviews 74, no. 3 (March 2016): 149–65, 73. https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuv105; P. [2] Geoffrey Kron, “Food Production,” in The Grasgruber et al., “The Role of Nutrition and Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy, Genetics as Key Determinants of the Positive ed. Walter Scheidel, Cambridge Companions to the Height Trend,” Economics & Human Biology 15 Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University (December 1, 2014): 81–100, Press, 2012), 156–74, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2014.07.002. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139030199.011. [14] Kron, “Food Production.”

[3] J. Mira Seo, “Food and Drink, Roman,” in The [15] Emanuel Mayer, “Money Making, ‘Avarice’, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome and Elite Strategies of Distinction in the Roman (Oxford University Press, 2010), World,” in Skilled Labour and Professionalism in http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/ac Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge University ref/9780195170726.001.0001/acrefPress, 2020), 94–126, 9780195170726-e-490. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108878135.004.

[4] Seo. [16] Annalisa Marzano, “The Variety of Villa [5] Erdkamp, “The Food Supply of the Capital.”

Production From Agriculture to Aquaculture,” in [6] Geoffrey Kron, “Comparative Evidence and the Ownership and Exploitation of Land and Natural Reconstruction of the Ancient Economy: GrecoResources in the Roman World (Oxford University Roman Housing and the Level and Distribution of Press, 2015), Wealth and Income,” 2014, 123–46, http://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view https://doi.org/10.4475/744. /10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198728924.001.0001/ac [7] Ernst Emanuel Mayer, “Tanti Non Emo, Sexte, prof-9780198728924-chapter-11.

Piper: Pepper Prices, Roman Consumer Culture, [17] Pliny Nat. Hist 9.168–9; Cic. Hort 67–71 and the Bulk of Indo-Roman Trade,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61, no. 4 (May 24, 2018): 560–89, https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341464.

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[18] Antoni Martín i Oliveras and Víctor Revilla [27] Pierre Bourdieu, Practical Reason: On the Calvo, “The Economy of Laetanian Wine: A Theory of Action, trans. Randall Johnson Conceptual Framework to Analyse an (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), Intensive/Specialized Winegrowing Production http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=2043; Elliot System and Trade (First Century BC to Third B. Weininger, “Pierre Bourdieu on Social Class and Century AD),” in Finding the Limits of the Limes: Symbolic Violence,” Alternative Foundations of Modelling Demography, Economy and Transport Class Analysis 4 (2002): 138. on the Edge of the Roman Empire, ed. Philip [28] Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Verhagen, Jamie Joyce, and Mark R. Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Harvard Groenhuijzen, Computational Social Sciences university press, 1984).

(Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019), [29] Seo, “Food and Drink, Roman.”; 129–64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030Horace Satires 1.6; Martial 5.78 04576-0_8.

[30] Seneca, Epistles, 95.42; Pliny Nat. Hist, 9.67.

[19] G. E. Fussell, “Farming Systems of the [31] Seo. Classical Era,” Technology and Culture 8, no. 1 [32] Pliny Nat. Hist, 10.52 (1967): 16–44, https://doi.org/10.2307/3101523. [33] Beryl Rawson, “Banquets in Ancient Rome: [20] Annalisa Marzano, Roman Villas in Central Participation, Presentation and Perception,” in Italy: A Social and Economic History, Roman Dining on Turtles: Food Feasts and Drinking in Villas in Central Italy (Brill, 2007), History, ed. Diane Kirkby and Tanja Luckins http://brill.com/view/title/14257.

(London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2007), 15–32, [21] Varro, Rust. 2.3.10; Kron, “Food Production.” https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230597303_2.

[22] J. V. Beckett, “The Debate over Farm Sizes in [34] Livy, 45. 32–3 Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England,” [35] Veronika E. Grimm, “On Food and the Body,” Agricultural History 57, no. 3 (1983): 308–25. in A Companion to the Roman Empire (John [23] Geoffrey Kron, “Archaeozoological Evidence Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2006), 354–68, for the Productivity of Roman Livestock Farming,” https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996942.ch19.

MBAH 21 (January 1, 2002): 53–73.

[36] Petronius, 36, 7-8 [24] Phyllis Pray Bober, Art, Culture, and Cuisine: [37] Apicius 4.141 Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy, 1st edition [38] William Arrowsmith, “Luxury and Death in (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); the Satyricon,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities Patrick Faas, Around the Roman Table: Food and and the Classics 5, no. 3 (1966): 304–31.

Feasting in Ancient Rome, trans. Shaun Whiteside [39] Grimm, “On Food and the Body.”

(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), [40] Marzano, “The Variety of Villa Production https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chica From Agriculture to Aquaculture.” go/A/bo3534520.html.

[25] Mayer, “Tanti Non Emo, Sexte, Piper.”

[26] Pliny Nat. Hist 12.28 and 58

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[41] Ortolans are caught and deprived of light, [43] Seo, “Food and Drink, Roman.” causing the bird to gorge on grain and fattening [44] Lex Fannia in 161 bce, Lex Licinia in 103 bce, themselves up. The birds are then drowned, Lex Cornelia of Sulla in 80 bce and lex Julia in and/or rather, marinated in Armagnac before they 1 bce are roasted and consumed whole—head, bones and [45] Seo, “Food and Drink, Roman.” feet included—in one bite. Diners traditionally veil [46] Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81; Erdkamp, “The their face with a napkin before consuming the Food Supply of the Capital.” chicken—a symbolic gesture to mask the shame of [47] Horace 1.5, 1-15 eating the ortolan from the eyes of god.

[48] Juvenal 11, 30-43 [42] Maguelonne Toussaint‐Samat, “The History of[49] Juvenal 11, 90-100 & 120-125 Poultry,” in A History of Food (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2008), 305–30, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305135.ch11.

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Smoke and Mirrors: Reading the Rhetoric of Ted Cruz By: Lillian Robles

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It is well-known that on January 6, 2021, while First, this paper will examine Luhmann’s systems the electoral votes were being certified, an theory for the purpose of a theoretical framework insurrection was unfolding at the U.S. Capitol. for understanding Cruz’s rhetoric. Luhmann can The event was born of a concerted effort to be employed here because his work offers a useful overturn the results of the presidential election. lens that contends with the problem of Probably the most important aspect of this event perspectives: the ways that individual points of was the barrage of misinformation doubting the view prove inescapable in communication, security and results of the election. So, to rendering truth and clarity elusive at best. understand this piece of history that is still Luhmann was a sociologist and key thinker of the unfolding, it is important to understand the 20th century. Ultimately, the problems presented rhetoric, or the verbal tactics, attached to it. In

by Cruz’s rhetoric are problems of perspective. other words, how can a lie about election fraud Luhmann’s work hinges on observation. Put be crafted so effectively? In his speech on that simply, first-order observation is when an observer day, Senator Ted Cruz objected to the counting distinguishes the observed from everything else. of electoral votes, which is largely ceremonial, Second-order observation is the same, except the on the grounds that many Americans believe that observee is another observer, who is, in turn, there was widespread voter fraud and/or a rigged observing. As Luhmann writes,“On the level of election. As the counting of the votes is largely second-order observation, one can thus see ceremonial, the result of the election was already everything: what the observed observer sees, and well-known and official. It was highly unusual what the observed observer does not see.”[1] So, in that this event was made newsworthy, and only this quotation, the second-order observer is able to the widespread misinformation made the routine analyze critically the first-order observer’s act of counting procedure a point of contestation. Note observation. Again, the first-order observer (and this idea; it is a matter of people’s standpoints. their act of observing) is being observed. Looking This paper will examine Cruz’s senate speech closely at Luhmann’s words, this passage is raising an objection to the certification of distinctly difficult to read, for all the repetition. electoral votes through two theoretical lenses: first, Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory and, supplementally, Sara Ahmed’s cultural politics of emotion. Together, these lenses, along with an oped on the subject published in the New York Times, demonstrate the ways in which Cruz obfuscates his own role in the situation as a rhetorical tactic of not only persuasion but political self-preservation.

"Smoke and mirrors" by theilr is marked with CC BYSA 2.0.

"Ted Cruz - Caricature" by DonkeyHotey is marked with CC BY-SA 2.0.

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It gives the sense that there are endless frames to rigged if we vote? Not even to consider the claims be employed-- that is, endless different ways to of illegality and fraud in this election.”[3] In this observe. The constant generation of frames passage, Cruz is more concerned with how other makes it possible to get lost in them or, if you are people view the legitimacy election, than how he Cruz, to hide yourself in them. Indeed, Cruz is views the election. This is, according to Luhmann, more interested in the variety of ways that the second-order observation. These categories by no situation is seen, than how the situation is in means follow hard-and-fast rules. They are merely reality,“All of us are faced with two choices, both different frames that Cruz likely deploys when of which are lousy. One choice is to vote against they fit a goal. For example, Mimi Swartz, the objection, and tens of millions of Americans contributor to the New York Times, is a secondwill see a vote against the objection as a order observer: Swartz observes Cruz’s statement that voter fraud does not matter, is observations. The idea, then, is that Swartz is not real, and should not be taken seriously. And pointing out Cruz’s blind spots. She points to a great many of us do not believe that.”[2] Cruz’s Cruz’s position as a second-order observer: an issue does not seem to be the reality of election observer observing his own observation. Swartz fraud, or a lack of election fraud, but that there writes: “Any decent soul might ask: If you are so are multiple perspectives on the matter, and he smart, how come you are using that fancy does not want to situate himself in one. Instead, education to subvert the Constitution you have he hides himself in the multitude. A frame is a long purported to love? Shouldn’t you have known particular way of looking at something. It is the better? But, of course, Mr. Cruz did know better; perspective: what an observer sees, what they he just didn’t care.”[4] This is how I divide Cruz ignore, what they do not know. Furthermore, into two separate observers: Cruz, the first-order there is necessarily a blind spot in the process of observer, who believes it is important to observing. That is, each observation carries with investigate alleged election fraud, and Cruz the it a specific frame that misses something. The second-order observer who sees himself, knows second-order observer can see another observer’s what he is doing, knows he is wrong, and does not blind spot, though not their own. So, a secondcare. In other words, the first-order observer is on order observer can examine the shortcomings of the ground, in the action, while the second another observation. observer is more bird’s eye view. This is not to suggest that Cruz has some sort of split Now, put Cruz’s speech in the context of psychology, but to provide a theoretical second-order observation. It illustrates how framework fit for describing Cruz’s deception.

Cruz’s speech splits into different observers with Another second-order observer Cruz is or might different frames, and how he uses this to his act as (or another frame he might employ) is the advantage. Ostensibly, Cruz is speaking in one who tries to calculate whether this move will response to supposed election fraud. Regarding be good or bad for his career. The different this, his speech is first-order observation. It also versions of Cruz make it difficult to find a “true” may be said that Cruz is observing what others observation being made. Or perhaps the “true” think and observe about supposed election fraud, intention. There probably is not just one. Each of trying to capitalize on it, and is a second-order these different observations, each different frame, observer. Cruz assesses the situation as follows, has a different perspective with different aims.

“I understand your concerns, but I urge you to This serves to obscure any true intention, which pause and think, what does it say to the nearly gives Cruz strong cover. half the country that believes this election was

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Next, supplement the analysis of Cruz’s speech through the second theorist: Sara Ahmed and her book, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, which explores how emotions shape individual identity, group identity, and hierarchical power.

Although Luhmann provides the central analytical framework used here, Ahmed’s work provides a specific example of a set of perspectives, or frames, that Cruz hides in: emotion. In this text, emotion becomes a sort of rhetoric: an apparent lack of emotion becomes a sign of intelligence,“It is not difficult to see how emotions are bound up with the securing of social hierarchy: emotions become attributes of bodies as a way of transforming what is ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ into bodily traits.”[5] This distinction is one that Cruz sees, uses, and leverages.

Indeed, Cruz specifically distances himself from any sort of emotionality.

“Mr. President, we gather together at a moment of great division, at a moment of great passion.

We have seen and, no doubt, will continue to see a great deal of moralizing from both sides of the aisle, but I would urge to both sides perhaps a bit less certitude and a bit more recognition that we are gathered at a time when democracy is in crisis.”[6]

Cruz uses rhetoric of unfeeling logic. By acknowledging that there is passion, but positioning himself outside of it, Cruz seeks to inhabit the supposed higher plane of which Ahmed speaks. Cruz denigrates “moralizing on both sides,” seeming to intimate that, while others’ arguments are based on emotion, his is based on logic. However, Cruz’s coldness is not a true lack of emotion. Ahmed writes: “Hardness is not the absence of emotion, but a different emotional orientation towards others.”[7] So, Cruz’s speech should not be read as unemotional, nor should a lack of perceived emotion be a sign of superiority. Swartz points out that this simply is untrue: “Mr. Cruz has been able to use his pseudointellectualism and his Ivy League pedigree as a cudgel.”[8] Cruz’s intellectualism, or perceived intellectualism, is nothing more than a weapon to be deployed or not. In fact, it is another frame: a way he presents himself to impact the ways that others see him. It is a frame Cruz can hide in.

Cruz’s emotionality becomes more complex, as he does not manage to remain outside of it entirely.

Already, Ahmed has made clear that lack of emotion is an emotional orientation. It is a notion that is complicated further here,“You may not agree with that assessment, but it is, nonetheless, a reality for nearly half the country.”[9] Here, Cruz is referring to the belief that there was widespread election fraud. Cruz continues to pose as the unemotional intellectual, simply trying to do the right thing. He uses the word “agree” in addressing his opposition (that is, people not trying to subvert the election results). The word “agree” makes it seem as though it is an opinion that is subject to emotion, not reason. Then, he uses the word “reality” to describe those who believe that the election was fraudulent.

By Aca1291 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid =114522093

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To return to Ahmed: “So emotions are not simply something ‘I’ or ‘we’ have. Rather, it is through emotions, or how we respond to objects and others, that surfaces and boundaries are made: the ‘I’ and the ‘we’ are shaped by, and even take the shape of, contact with others.”[10] In other words, emotions form individual or group identity. Emotions draw the boundaries between interiority and exteriority. So, what is Cruz doing here? Cruz is drawing lines. First, there is a “you all” created for the other side, formed by how that side “does not agree.” That line also defines the side of believing the election was fraudulent.

While Cruz gives them the rhetorical upper hand, that coldness is still emotion, so this side, too, is defined by emotion. Cruz is careful in his speech to appear on the side of finding the truth, not any of the two sides. Thus, Cruz elevates the idea that there was fraud, furthering his agenda, while distancing himself and preserving his own reputation.

one sense, he draws extra attention to himself,“I endeavored” emphasizes his individual action in being the champion of justice and truth. However, there is another level in which he draws himself away from those who believe that there was voter fraud. When discussing the “two sides,” Cruz recedes into the background. Thus, he manages to endorse the course of action entirely while separating himself from conspiracy theorists and seditionists.

Finally, there is Luhmann’s notion of paradox and how Cruz’s speech traps the listener in its apparent common sense. Luhmann discusses paradox, for our purposes, as something which is and is not, true and not true at the same time. It is often used to expose fault in common sense. Luhmann argues that one must “deframe” common sense (take it out of its context) and reframe it (put it into a new one). Luhmann writes the following: “The communication of paradoxes fixes attention on the frames of common sense, frames that normally go Next, Cruz’s relationship to the two sides may be unattended. If this is the function, then it will not expanded upon by returning to Luhmann. These surprise us that deframing again needs its own are more ways in which Cruz hides himself in his frames.”[13] Luhmann’s points play out in Cruz’s rhetoric, specifically, the position of the speech,“Astonish the viewers and act in a grammatical subject. Luhmann writes,“The ‘self’ bipartisan sense to say we will have a credible and of the system can appear and disappear as fair tribunal, consider the claims, consider the suggested by circumstances. Language may make facts, consider the evidence, and make a conclusive the speaker more visible if it is required to say ‘I determination whether and to what extent this love’ and not simply ‘amo.’”[11] Luhmann points election complied with the Constitution and with out that language (here acting as a frame), Federal law.”[14] The idea of a paradox is to positions the speaker, or the subject prominently “deframe” common sense. The language in the and inconspicuously. From this, how Cruz hides above quotation is precisely what everybody is himself in his rhetoric becomes apparent. Cruz in supposed to want: bipartisan cooperation, fairness, his speech says,“So I endeavored to look for door and objectivity. It may be common sense to No. 3, a third option, and for that I looked to double- and triple-check the legitimacy of an history, to the precedent of the 1876 election, the election so important. That is, it may be common Hayes-Tilden election, where this Congress sense if taken wildly out of context, which Cruz appointed an electoral commission to examine does expertly. As in this passage, he plays the voice claims of voter fraud.”[12] Here, Cruz speaks of of reason, when his actions would have the impact two options: ignoring complaints of fraud or of undermining the results of an election,“And discounting the election due to them. Thus far, what I would urge of this body is that we do the Cruz has brought himself out, away from partisan same. fighting to seem rational rather than emotional. In

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That we have pointed electoral commission to Endnotes conduct a 10-day emergency audit, consider the [1] Niklass Luhmann and William Rasch. Theories evidence, and resolve the claims.”[15] In another of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of sense, the idea that, here, a bipartisan Modernity. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, investigation into possible election fraud is a bad 1st ed., 2002), 115. thing (which it certainly is) creates a sort of [2] Ted Cruz. 117th Congress, 1st session, report paradox. Cruz makes it a paradox by framing his 167, p. 3. 2021. proposal as a good thing. It must be deframed by [3] Cruz, 3. removing Cruz’s frame and adding a new one, [4] Mimi Swartz. “Never Forget What Ted Cruz the actual context. In more practical terms, what Did.” New York Times (New York, NY, Jan. 13, Cruz does constitutes what Luhmann defines as a 2021). paradox because it uses the wrong frame for the [5] Sarah Ahmed. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. situation, though it deploys common sense, so it (New York: Routledge, 2nd ed. 2014), 3. seems like the right frame, the right perspective.

[6] Cruz, 3.

The different observers that constitute Cruz in [7] Ahmed, 4. this moment employ these different frames that [8] Swartz. help to understand the paradox. A paradox is a [9] Cruz, 3. matter of frames, and so is Cruz’s performance.

[10] Ahmed, 10.

Using one frame he is doing something horrible, [11] Luhmann, Rasch, 86. in another it is something patriotic. In one, he is [12] Cruz, 3. completely without emotion and in another as [13] Luhmann, Rasch, 81.

Ahmed writes, the situation is entirely emotional. [14] Cruz, 3.

The multitude of possible frames can make it [15] Cruz, 3. difficult to track down and pinpoint the truth.

Cruz exploits the fact that the frames are endless to make the situation work for him. In the case of paradox, as Luhmann writes, to create a paradox is to necessitate constant deframing and reframing, which is the perfect way to shirk the truth in favor of abundant misdirection.

What is not clear is if Cruz thought this speech had any chance of overturning the result of the election, or if he just thought it a good career move.

Unfortunately, the intention is impossible to know.

All that can be known are the consequences The speech specifically places any semblance of objectivity, or possibility of accountability for Cruz into doubt. This is not to say that one cannot know what happened, or who is at fault, as that part is clear. However, Cruz’s speech becomes a case-study for how to employ smoke and mirrors and how to use rhetoric to obfuscate your own actions.

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Simone de Beauvior and the Other Woman By: Hui Wong

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Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex asks: qualities shift depending on their proximity to a “What is a woman?”[1] Equally, however, the European male subject. Finally, this paper offers a question might be: Who is de Beauvoir’s revised conception of woman as the Other, “woman”? For de Beauvoir, woman, the titular proposing that de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex be “second sex,” is “second” to man insofar as she is taken up as a methodology for providing an account understood in relation to man, is dependent on of otherness, rather than a concrete and totalizing man, and serves man. In de Beauvoir’s words, category. “woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity [from man].”[2] Being “only the negative” is understood in relation to man as the positive. “Man” stands for the positive and the neutral, the gender through which human beings in general are understood and is thus the universal subject to woman as the “Other.” It is “Man” who stands for mankind. While de Beauvoir’s analysis is a useful framework and method for providing accounts of marginalized oppression, her categories of subject and Other are mired with ambiguous boundaries that are ultimately untenable as universal, discrete categories. This limitation in the theory becomes "A Woman-Bangkok, clear when the distinction is reconsidered in light cityifangels"bySailing'Footprints:RealtoReel'(Ronnash of racialized others who challenge the purported ore)is markedwithCCBY-NC-ND2.0. universality of de Beauvoir’s formulation. This paper argues that given these challenges, de At the beginning of The Second Sex, de Beauvoir, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is most useful insofar as it is a method for accounting for experiences of asks: “What is a woman?”[4] For de Beauvoir, the otherness. Black women are gendered differently significance of this question largely lies in her asking it—“[a] man would never set out to write a from the Black man and racialized differently book on the peculiar situation of the human from the White woman through race, occupying male.”[5] “Situation” is regarded as the facticity of an ambiguous position. one’s material conditions that constrain existential This paper first briefly elucidates how de Beauvoir freedom. De Beauvoir suggests that the situation of the human male has historically been regarded as comes to regard woman as the Other by placing the universal situation; therefore, a man would emphasis on Woman as a historically separate never question his “peculiar situation” because his category that implies a distinct and totalizing struggle from that of race, class, etc. In relation to situation has never been peculiar. A woman, on the other hand, “finds herself living in a world where (or juxtaposed against) “race,” this account is men compel her to assume the status of the problematic. As Amey Adkins suggests, Frantz Fanon’s analysis of Black otherness in Black Skin, Other.”[6] Woman’s situation is dictated by male subjectivity, which has pervaded institutions to White Masks “reveals a pattern of analysis systemically regard woman as the Other, uncannily similar to de Beauvoir’s The Second naturalizing an inability for woman to transcend Sex.”[3] Given this similarity, might it not be too her situation. Two questions then arise: how did much to suggest that de Beauvoir already implicitly relies on racial categories for her notion these categories emerge, and how are they maintained? of the Other? Otherness is a category whose

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At the beginning of The Second Sex, de Beauvoir, truth.[9] Crucially, this leads de Beauvoir to asks: “What is a woman?”[4] For de Beauvoir, the conclude that because women have always existed significance of this question largely lies in her in relation to men and have been unable to form asking it—“[a] man would never set out to write a themselves into a collective separate from their book on the peculiar situation of the human oppressor, they are destined to be unable to resist male.”[5] “Situation” is regarded as the facticity of men’s oppression as other groups are able. But one’s material conditions that constrain existential another part of woman’s Otherness and her lack of freedom. De Beauvoir suggests that the situation of resistance hinges on her own complicity, which the human male has historically been regarded as relates to how the status of the Other is the universal situation; therefore, a man would maintained. never question his “peculiar situation” because his situation has never been peculiar. A woman, on theA key component of woman’s inability to resist other hand, “finds herself living in a world where stems from patriarchal institutions that naturalize men compel her to assume the status of the oppression, systems that “that some [women] find Other.”[6] Woman’s situation is dictated by male to their advantage because of ‘economic interests subjectivity, which has pervaded institutions to and social condition’.”[10] Because some women systemically regard woman as the Other, supposedly find advantages in being the Other, naturalizing an inability for woman to transcend men declare that “she has desired the destiny they her situation. Two questions then arise: how did have imposed on her.”[11] For de Beauvoir, then, these categories emerge, and how are they woman is consequently in a double bind; women maintained? are limited by their situation and have been naturalized into believing that they desire it. One First, de Beauvoir suggests that the “division of the can also conclude that woman is her situation, that sexes is a biological fact,” a “primordial” she is woman insofar as she participates in her relationship.[7] For de Beauvoir, it is because the oppression. Judith Butler reads de Beauvoir’s divide between man and woman is biological that “view of gender as an incessant project, a daily act its development is unlike those deriving from class of reconstitution and interpretation.”[12] De or racial lines. The chief difference is that other Beauvoir identifies such roles as “housekeeping oppressed groups “have often been originally and maternity” to be falsely desirable, burdens independent […] [b]ut a historical event has with “poetic veils” that keep women in her position resulted in the subjugation of the weaker by the as Other.[13] These roles have been imposed on stronger”; de Beauvoir points to “[t]he scattering women through “oppressive systems” with of the Jews, the introduction of slavery into “complicated material origins.”[14] America” to demarcate the unique category of woman as the Other.[8] In the first instance, woman are different from racial and religious groups in that other groups have existed as their own collective without reliance on those who later became their oppressors. Further, de Beauvoir notes that although the proletarian class is similar to women in that “neither ever formed a minority or a separate collective unit of mankind,” they are still different because “proletarians have not always existed, whereas there have always been women” as a biological, indeed, an ontological

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Does de Beauvoir’s formulation speak to the condition of all women? The Second Sex reads as if it is universal: Woman as the Other is a categorization starting from a “primordial” beginning, and her final call for liberation asks to “abolish the slavery of half of humanity.”[15] I argue, however, that this category is ambiguous, and that de Beauvoir implicitly assumes a specific kind of woman in her formulation of the Other, revealed through de Beauvoir’s own positioning of woman with reference to other marginalized groups. De Beauvoir writes that “there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of the Negro,”[16] and that there is no biological precedence for innate characteristics “such as those ascribed to woman, the Jew, or the Negro” (emphasis added).[17] She implicitly characterizes race as a separate category from gender; the critical “or” that hangs between each group distinguishes them. Consequently, the subject is not simply the “Man” who has subjugated these other groups, but “White Man.” By recognizing Black people and women as two discrete categories, a distinct problem emerges: what of racialized women?

the Other, the upshot is that it also reveals the universal subject who others as a White man.

However, it is unnecessary to look to Crenshaw or later intersectional feminist scholars to arrive at these conclusions; de Beauvoir’s contemporary Frantz Fanon, who locates Black men as the Other, helps to provide an understanding of the intertwined notions of otherness in race and gender, showing that de Beauvoir’s analysis is better taken up as a methodology for providing an account of varying experiences of otherness than a definitive categorization.

In an in-depth comparison of Black Skin, White Masks and The Second Sex, Amey Adkins places de Beauvoir and Fanon in dialogue with each other. Adkins provides key insight into a critical moment, showing how the two thinkers influenced each other, and how French existentialist tradition left its mark on influential postcolonial and gender studies discourse. The crucial similarity is that the two existentialists find their freedom repressed by their situation: “Beauvoir realizes this situation for women who are split in their subjectivities by the image of woman. But […] we see that Fanon The “or” that distinguishes categories recognizes this same structure via the modality of reveals either that de Beauvoir’s woman is the race.”[19] In The Second Sex, women are “split in Other as a White woman or that racialized women their subjectivities” because of a patriarchal experience their otherness sometimes as a woman, hegemony that suppresses their subjectivity, oversometimes as a racialized body—depending on her determining their personhood. For Fanon, a similar situation. This is as dubious as it sound—such suppression arises from the color of his skin: he intersectional feminist scholars as Kimberlé suggests that “[t]here are times when the black man Crenshaw have argued that Black women can is locked into his body,”[20] which echoes de “experience discrimination as Black women—not Beauvoir when she writes that man “regards the the sum of race and sex discrimination, but body of woman as a hindrance, a prison.”[21] [distinctly] as Black women.”[18] Thus, de Indeed, one may notice similarities rather than Beauvoir’s categories are revealed to be appealing differences in de Beauvoir and Fanon’s accounts of to a particular universality of Whiteness: the the otherness of Black (men) and (White) women. universal man who stands as the subject is revealed to be White; the woman as the Other who Yet similarities in de Beauvoir and Fanon’s texts do can be differentiated from the struggles of not completely elide their differences. Rather, the racialized others is revealed to be a White woman. thinkers reveal that the crux of their similarity relies While de Beauvoir’s categories, now shown to on an alterity in relation to the White man. Fanon have racial implications in their subjects, have reinforces the proposition that the universal subject consequences for the categorization of woman as has a race, de Beauvoir that s/he has a gender.

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But these similarities can only carry a critique of de Beauvoir’s account of woman as the Other so far. To suggest that de Beauvoir’s category does not work because it is exactly like all other “others” simply shifts categorization from a hegemonic woman Other to a hegemonic nonWhite non-male Other. It may be generative to seek differences between Fanon and de Beauvoir’s accounts, question what each category leaves out in their analyses, and thus attempt to rewrite de Beauvoir’s notion of women as the Other.

marks that both writers pursued a similar method for an account of their specific otherness to the White man.

Reading de Beauvoir and Fanon dialectically allows for challenges to discrete categories of otherness while retaining their approach as a useful method. De Beauvoir understands race differently from Fanon, and this difference reveals a challenge to de Beauvoir’s woman as the Other.

Conversely, Fanon’s perspective on women also challenges these categories while affirming certain qualities, especially the fact that the experience of Fanon’s account of the relationship between a Black woman cannot be articulated purely in de White and Black men challenges de Beauvoir’s Beauvoir’s terms. Key to reading women in Fanon notion that race and gender are distinct due to is recognizing that Fanon does not give an account historical precedence. In Black Skin, White of Black people’s otherness, but that of Black men.

Masks, Fanon appropriates Hegel’s master-slave Fanon references Black and White women in his dialectic to suggest that “[o]ne day the White text, a treatment Adkins characterizes as Master, without conflict, recognized the Negro “blatantly, even unapologetically, sexist.”[26] For slave.”[22] Fanon’s account of the Black slave’s Adkins, however, this sexism affirms de Beauvoir’s continuing oppression does not correspond to categorization: “Fanon determines women [...] in what, for de Beauvoir, seems to be a key point of the very way that de Beauvoir so aptly difference between the oppression of Black slaves problematizes in The Second Sex.”[27] This and women—that Black slaves “have often been affirmation proves the efficacy of de Beauvoir’s originally independent […] [b]ut a historical method, not her categories. I put forward another event has resulted in the subjugation of the interpretation that notes differences in Fanon’s weaker by the stronger.”[23] For Fanon, this tone toward Black women and White women, historical imagination of Black people as a differences that add to the ambiguity of woman as collective is meaningless in the praxis of the Other. liberation: “the Negro knows nothing of the cost of freedom, for he has not fought for it.”[24] De Fanon deals with Black women and White Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, speaks of women’s women in two chapters devoted to their passivity as such: “woman may fail to lay claim to relationships with White men and Black men the status of subject because she lacks definite respectively. Fanon is disgusted by the resources, because she feels the necessary bond autobiography of a Black woman named Mayotte that ties her to man regardless of reciprocity.”[25] Capécia: Fanon resents that she supposedly “asks Thus, comparative similarity reveals difference; nothing, demands nothing, except a bit of both Fanon and de Beauvoir view their otherness whiteness in her life.”[28] He is derisive of as passive, and de Beauvoir’s appeal to the Mayotte because he believes Black women only historical collective independence of Black want White men: “What they must have is people as a key point of difference does not seem whiteness at any price.”[29] Fanon has to hold. De Beauvoir suggests that Black people purportedly known “a great number of girls from rely on remembering their individuality to seek Martinique, students in France, who admitted to liberation, but Fanon replies that the memory [him] with complete candor […] that they would has since faded. The similarity, however, also find it impossible to marry black men.”[30]

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What is insightful is not so much what Fanon That Fanon’s tone toward Black women seems to believes Black women to be; rather, it is that oscillate between sexism and jealousy demonstrates Fanon does not view Black women within the the insufficiency of de Beauvoir’s categorization of struggle of Black men. Indeed, by implying that woman as the Other. Fanon also explores the Black women hold onto their sexuality as a means relationship between White women and Black men, to approximate Whiteness and get closer to the a relationship that further confuses de Beauvoir’s universal subject, he reveals that he sees Black definitive categories. Fanon’s exploration is women’s sexuality as an extra layer of otherness especially pertinent if de Beauvoir’s woman is adding to the need for “the black man to overcome understood to be White herself. For Fanon, the site his feeling of insignificance.”[31] It is then not so of Black man–White woman relations are clear that with racialized bodies, the category of seemingly one in which Black men can regain woman as the Other holds; relations between subjectivity: “Negroes have only one thought from Black women and Black men seem, for Fanon, to the moment they land in Europe: to gratify their be that of two Others who struggle differently in appetite for white women,” and they “tend to marry approximation to the universal White male in Europe not so much out of love as for the subject. satisfaction of being the master of a European woman.”[32] The racial and gender politics are evident: on the one hand, de Beauvoir is right.

Fanon relegates woman’s role to nothing but an object to master; on the other hand, it is specifically the European woman who is satisfying to “master” because outside the intimate relationship, it is Whiteness that holds power. Fanon recounts another experience with a White woman: a White woman’s son, upon seeing Fanon, shouts “[l]ook at the nigger!” and “throws himself into his mother’s arms: Mama, the nigger’s going to eat me up”; the mother responds: “Take no notice, sir, he does not "woman" by Alessandro Vannucci is marked with know that you are as civilized as we.”[33] Fanon’s CC BY-NC 2.0. accounts of the Black man’s relationship with the White woman is itself riddled with ambiguity. She is at once an object to be dominated, but it is the taboo of dominating the White subject that is desirable; thus, through Fanon, the White woman retains subjectivity in her race and the Black man in his gender and sexuality. The White woman and Black man are held in ambiguous relation, not in an absolute mode of subject/Other, a mode de Beauvoir’s categories fail to reconcile. However, their analyses, insofar as they are similar in recounting the multiplicity of struggles that stem "Colorfully Dressed Woman" by D-Stanley is from being othered by a universal subject, marked with CC BY 2.0. demonstrate their strength as a methodology for accounts of marginalized experience.

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De Beauvoir’s woman as the Other is an unstable The kind of acts constituting women’s oppression category for a number of reasons. First, de for which de Beauvoir gives an account are not Beauvoir’s woman as trapped in a “primordial” obviously the same acts that constitute racialized relationship does not appear to hold as much women’s oppression (as hinted at through consequence as de Beauvoir originally Fanon’s reading of Mayotte Capécia), nor even that articulates—for Fanon, the historical I of working-class European women. Nonetheless, ndependence of a collective group does not the notion that oppression is constituted through figure importantly into seeking liberation. instituted acts is useful. Thus reading de Beauvoir Second, Black women’s existence problematizes as a method for providing an account of these acts the notion of woman as the Other. Black women can be critical for liberatory politics. occupy an ambiguous position, at odds with the Black man through gender and the White woman The experiences of racialized women do not seem through race, as well as being othered by the to fit into de Beauvoir’s notion of woman as the universal subject in a combination of ways. If de Other. Thus, this paper proposes that de Beauvoir’s Beauvoir and Fanon’s categories of the Other are category of the Other (as well as Fanon’s) is best discrete, the Black woman is incomprehensibly understood as a method that provides an account the other Other, the other of pure negativity. of how lived experience constitutes oppression in Further, the kind of acts that constitute White acts, rather than a discrete category. That is, all on women’s oppressive situation are different from the margins are the Other; there is no that of women globally. In a footnote, de Beauvoir universalizing framework, but the method with writes that “[t]he history of the woman in the which de Beauvoir approaches what she believes is East, in India, and in China, was one of long and woman’s universal struggle can be taken up instead immutable slavery. From the Middle Ages to as a means through which a multiplicity of groups today, we will center this study on France, where may be given a voice. Returning to Kimberlé the situation is typical.”[34] If France is typical, Crenshaw, intersectional feminism recognizes the what, for de Beauvoir, is an atypical situation? need to “include an analysis of race if it hopes to express the aspirations of non-white women.”[35] De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex still remains useful in this project if it is taken up as a method for giving voice(s) to the margins, not as an ontological category of Other, and that we need not look further than de Beauvoir’s contemporaries to begin intersectional analyses.

"Inde India Portrait woman femme" by etrenard is marked with CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Endnotes [1] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 13.

[21] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 15.

[2] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, [22] Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 169. trans. H.M. Parshley (New York: Knopf, 1953), [23] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 17.

15.

[24] Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 172.

[3] Amey Victoria Adkins, “Black/Feminist [25] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 20.

Futures: Reading Beauvoir in Black Skin, [26] Adkins, “Black/Feminist Futures,” 701.

White Masks,” South Atlantic Quarterly 112, [27] Ibid, 709 no. 4 (2013): 698, https://doi[28] Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 29. org.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/10.1215/00382 [29] Ibid, 34.

876-2345243.

[30] Ibid, 33.

[4] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 13.

[31] Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 35.

[5] Ibid, 14-15.

[32] Ibid, 50.

[6] Ibid, 27.

[33] Ibid, 86.

[7] Ibid, 19.

[34] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, [8] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 17. trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malo-vany[9] Ibid, 18.

Chevallier (New York: Random House, 2009), [10] Meryl Altman, Beauvoir in Time 89, quoted in Stephanie Rivera Berruz, “At the (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2020), 166, Crossroads: Latina Identity and Simone de Value Inquiry Book Series Online E-Book.

Beauvoir's The Second Sex,” Hypatia 31, no. 2 [11] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 677.

(2016): 322, [12] Judith Butler, “Sex and Gender in https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12226.

Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex,” Yale [35] Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the French Studies, no. 72 (1986): 40, Intersection,” 166. doi:10.2307/2930225.

[13] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 677.

[14] Butler, “Sex and Gender,” 41.

[15] Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 687.

[16] Ibid, 22.

[17] Ibid, 13.

[18] Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, no.1 (1989): 149.

[19] Adkins, “Black/Feminist Futures,” 719.

[20] Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (London Pluto Press, 2008), 175.

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Stones that Speak By: Aldona Casey

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Water Dropper: Poet Li Bai Sleeping Near Pine, Plum and Bamboo is a sculpture made of multicolored fluorite that depicts a man lounging on a large wine jug. The wine jug is cleverly positioned, so that the ink is like the wine being poured out, a witty nod to Li Bai (who was a fan of the drink). This draws a connection between the wine, and the real ink, perhaps both were essential to the creative process! The man, Daoist poet Li Bai, takes up most of the composition and is positioned slightly to the left. Behind the man rises a small background that contains a pine tree which is located just above his head, plum blossoms grazing his torso, and bamboo shoots sprouting at his feet. Overall, the piece is quite intricate for its small size, only standing at about 3 1/4 inches tall and 4 1/4 inches wide. That being said, there are some areas that look slightly unpolished, like the sleeves of the robe and the plum Water Dropper: Poet Li Bai Sleeping Near Pine, Plum blossoms. In contrast, other areas shine with and Bamboo, 18th Century, Accession Number: delicacy, like the lustrous pitcher and the polished 1938.60 [1]. facial features which present a smooth stone texture.

The artist carved this sculpture using one chunk of fluorite that was naturally variegated, having areas that are colored white, a pink toned purple, and a light blue. There are also beige and off-white striations, which can be seen on the robe, and thin veins that are dark in some areas and light in other Made in the 18th century, Water Dropper: Poet Li areas. Despite being naturally occurring, the color of Bai Sleeping Near Pine, Plum and Bamboo is a the fluorite is very striking especially because of the small fluorite sculpture with a cavity and opening bright purple/pink, paired with the baby blue and so it could be used as a water dropper in ink milky whites. The colors make the piece look almost making. The piece reinforces the well-known fact artificial. The artist took great care in utilizing the that calligraphy and ink were vital to Chinese naturally occurring color, delineating the figure with culture and were considered one of the highest the mauve fluorite, and contrasting this with a blue forms of art. This piece shows a sensitivity to and white jug, mauve pine tree, and blue foliage. The material and color that is indicative of a culture jug has translucent white swirling designs on it, deeply in tune with the natural world, Daoist which mirror an organic form, like seafoam or a principles, and its ancient past. The attention to cloud. The man has been stylistically flattened as detail, ingenuity, and beauty highlight Chinese well; made more two-dimensional than life. The face craftsmanship, but what is really conveyed is the is rounded, and his facial features, like the nose and spirit of the stone; a life within the rock that lips, do not protrude as much as they would in a Chinese sculptors were listening to and reveling in. more realistic rendering. Despite the varying colors, Colored, semi-precious stones have a level of this is all the same rock, and the unification of the sentience and spirituality within them, similar to material creates a harmonious piece. that of the taotie, the symbolic forces of Nature, and they were treated as such.

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Peanuts and jujube dates, 18th Century [3].

In the Chinese tradition of hardstone carving, the material was never a passive participant, but rather was an active, even demanding, force that had a clear voice. Semi-precious hard stones come in a striking range of color and have the possibility to be multicolored. Often this variegation can only be discovered after it is carved into and can prove to be a large challenge or nuisance for an artist with a specific vision. However, Chinese artists anticipated, and embraced, the spontaneity of the material, and welcomed “mistakes” within the This stone was quite literally perfect for the subject stone. These artists allowed the stone to guide matter, as if during its formation it was destined to their creations,“The Chinese carver... seems as a depict dates and peanuts, and it was the artist who general rule to have kept foremost in his mind the revealed its potential. Applying this idea of piece of material he intended to carve...did deliberateness and sensitivity to Water Dropper, he...encounter variations invisible at its outset, he new meanings form within the piece. The mauve might modify even radically his original design.” color works to connect all the mauve elements, in [1] In a way, it was not the artist manipulating the this case the coloration connects Li Bai and the pine stone, it was truly the stone guiding the artist. This tree. Pine trees, one of the “three friends of winter” reflects a broader reverence and understanding of do not die in winter and are a symbol of selfNature and even connects back to the Daoist discipline, steadfastness, and endurance[4]. By principles of flow and wu wei, which is known as using the variegated stone, the artist was able to effortless action, a noble portion of Daoism. These color correlate the pine trees and Li Bai, meaning to artists, however, were not completely passive and draw comparisons between their strong, enduring submissive, but instead worked with the natures, or perhaps the commissioner of this piece hardstone’s “imperfections” to “turn a potential wanted to transfer these characteristics over to flaw into a desirable highlight.”[2] The dynamic himself. Moreover, the essence of the stone was not between the stone and the carver works as a lost in the carving. Its rare coloration instantly collaboration, rather than the artist controlling or grabs the attention of the viewer, far before the trees exploiting the material. This relationship goes or figure. beyond respect, and more accurately reflects the spirit of man and stone cooperating to create Variegated hardstone sculpture exudes something beautiful. In Peanuts and jujube dates individuality and highlights the spectacular (pictured below), an 18th century Chinese wonders of Nature. Though jade can come with sculpture, the potential of the stone's natural some variation, overall it is a uniform, green features is fully realized to create an exquisite, material. In contrast, hardstone supersedes jade in almost hyper-realistic, still life. The dates were its variety of color combinations: “While nephrite depicted using the deep, translucent, naturally jade is generally uniform in color with little occurring brown of the stone which mimics the soft variation, many hardstones, such as agate, wet texture of the dates. The peanuts stand out in chalcedony, rock crystal, and lapis lazuli, are contrast, with their matte, rough texture, and life- variegated.[5]” like beige color.

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From Left to Right: Water dropper in the shape of a crane, 18th Century [6] / Vase with Bird and Flowers, Qing Dynasty [7] / Snuff Bottle, 18th –early 19th Century [8]

Pictured above are three pieces from the It is not just about the stone, but Nature itself, Metropolitan Museum of Art which shows the because it was formed by Nature. Thus, the stone has versatility of these stones, not in simple color an active presence, a voice, and holds within it the either, but translucency, finish, pattern, opacity, spirit of Nature, which guides the artist. and variegation. Water dropper in the shape of a crane and Vase with bird and flowers have a subtle Within hardstone carving, the stone collaborates ombre variegation, whereas Snuff Bottle has an with the artist, exhibiting a level of spirit, sentience abrupt, bold swirl of deep brown against a white even, that lives within the stone, especially rare and background, which is more similar to Water colored ones. In an article on Southeast Asian Dropper. A reclining figure is not necessarily a beliefs, it was reported that “Among the Kelabit, as revolutionary subject matter, but the type of stone well as among other peoples in Sarawak...people it was created out of gives the piece a sense of collect and keep small stones that are oddly shaped personality and individuality. Unable to be or coloured...such stones may, it is believed, be replicated, its uniqueness transcends individuality: inhabited by spirits[10].” Notice the importance placed on shape and color in relation to spiritual Almost any bronze, however fine...or painting, potential, and the latter most certainly applies to the however delicately executed, can, if an adequate Water Dropper. craftsman be available for the purpose, be imitated so closely that only an expert sensitive to the infinitesimal differences...can distinguish one from the other. In the Chinese carvings in partially colored hardstones, however, Nature also has had a hand, and often the craftsman has but followed, sometimes with incredible perspicacity, her directing finger and for a stone whose colors are irregularly disposed, there is small chance that a precise duplicate can be found.[9] Scholars Rock 18th Century [11]

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A belief widely held in “mainland Chinese Near Pine, Plum and Bamboo, the material was a culture” was that stones were considered to have chunk of raw material. Hardstones and jade were a “vital life force” within them, which could be “excavated from mountains and picked up in tapped into[12]. The notion of a life force riverbeds.[15]” The time this sculpture was made, especially in such abiotic, “dead” material shows a the 1700s, is not ancient, yet many advancements supreme sense of unity with, and for respect with in mining technology had not been made, so this Nature. Pictured above is a scholar's rock, dated piece was either found or man-mined[16]. A story from the same time as the Water Dropper. that epitomizes the influence of stone is about Mi Though the stone itself was not manipulated, it Fu, an eccentric artist and Chinese governor during was elevated to “art” by this stone, despite its the Song Dynasty[17]. Mi Fu became so absorbed different coloration, shape, and purpose, is in stone collecting that he neglected his duties as similar to the water dropper through spirit and governor of Lienshuei. Subsequently, he was materiality. Scholar rocks were believed to criticized by his superior, at which point Fu began symbolize earth, even the cosmos, and could have producing stones from his robe, saying “How can been used for meditation purposes, or for one help loving it?[18]” The debacle became inspiration to scholars. The idea that rocks held vehement when Fu showed his superior a stone within them more than rock would also explain “the color of the sky,” at which point his superior why artisans treated rare and colored stones with grabbed the blue rock from him, exclaiming “I love “a sympathy [for] the substances they it too” as Fu desperately tried to get “his treasure manipulated.[13]” The Art Institute of Chicago back.[19]” It was only after a beautiful blue stone went a step further claiming that Chinese culture was shown that Fu’s superior understood the held the belief that “The purest essence of the beauty of stone. However satirized, Fu was a real energy of the heaven-earth world coalesces into man who loved collecting unique stones and rock.[14]” Thus the subject matter of Water dedicated his life to art. It is a completely viable, Dropper: Poet Li Bai Sleeping Near Pine, Plum and likely, claim that the owner of this water and Bamboo fades into the background, and dropper had a similar love, if not respect, for this rather than being a sculpture on stone, it becomes piece. a stone with sculpture. The variegation suggests The natural beauty of semi-precious individuality, the colors are inviting and vibrant, harstone combined with Chinese craftsmanship, and the red-brown striations give the piece an patience, and creativity make for beautifully ancient, earthy feel. This understanding thoughtful, at times playful works of art. But the completely changes the possibilities of how this practice of stone carving and collecting reveals a piece was used. Instead of the sculpture being a belief that energy, perhaps even spirit or sentience, decorative piece in a calligraphy set, we could is held within stones, especially those of unique theorize that the spirit, energy, and life force of color or improbable form. Thus Water Dropper: the rock was meant to inspire creativity everytime Poet Li Bai Sleeping Near Pine, Plum and Bamboo the owner used it, or, perhaps, was meant to becomes elevated from an extravagant yet useful grant a steady hand, rouse a pleasant demeanor, calligraphy tool, to a treasured object, manifesting or grant determination. both a connection to a revered poet as well as its The power of stone collecting, which own life force. warrants taking note of, has an appeal that moves on from aesthetic and into the spiritual realm while revealing the importance of color. The viewer is presented with the final art piece, the polished vision, yet before it became Poet Li Bai Sleeping

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Endnotes

[12] Janowski, Monica. 116.

[13] W. L. Hildburgh. 186.

[1] W. L. Hildburgh. 1942. “Chinese Utilizations of [14] Spirit Stones of China: The Ian and Susan Parti-Coloured Hardstones.” The Burlington Wilson Collection of Chinese Stones, Paintings, and Magazine for Connoisseurs 81 (473): 189.

Related Scholars' Objects. Edited by Stephen Little. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago in association ue&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.868670&site=edswith University of California Press, 1999. Pp. 112. live&scope=site [15]Cartwright, Mark. "Jade in Ancient China."

[2] Sun, Jason. “Chinese Hardstone Carvings.” In World History Encyclopedia. Last modified June Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The 29, 2017.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1088/jadehttp://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hard/hd_ha in-ancient-china/. rd.htm (June 2016) [16]https://www.generalkinematics.com/blog/a[3] brief-history-of-mining-and-the-advancement-ofhttps://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/searchmining-technology/ /44155 [17] Beurdeley, Michel. 1966. The Chinese Collector [4] http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/objectthrough the Centuries, from the Han to the 20th package/three-friends-pine-bamboo-andCentury [Translated by Diana Imber]. C. E. Tuttle plum/43777 Co. [5] Sun, Jason. “Chinese Hardstone Carvings.” In https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The ue&db=cat06787a&AN=chc.b1238892&site=edsMetropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. live&scope=site. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hard/hd_ha [18] Beurdeley, Michel. 1966. The Chinese Collector rd.htm (June 2016) through the Centuries, from the Han to the 20th [6]https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hard/hd Century [Translated by Diana Imber]. C. E. Tuttle _hard.htm#:~:text=By%20traditional%20Chinese Co. %20definition%2C%20hardstones,precious%20and https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr %20semiue&db=cat06787a&AN=chc.b1238892&site=edsprecious%20stones.&text=Hardstone%20carving% live&scope=site.

20is%20one%20of%20the%20oldest%20arts%20in [19] Ibid %20China.

[7] Ibid [8] Ibid [9] W. L. Hildburgh. 1942. “Chinese Utilizations of Parti-Colored Hardstones.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 81 (473): 190. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr ue&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.868670&site=edslive&scope=site [10] Janowski, Monica. “Stones Alive!: An Exploration of the Relationship between Humans and Stone in Southeast Asia.” Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 176, no. 1 (2020): 114.

[11] probably 18th century. Scholar's Rock, front. sculpture. Place: Harvard Art Museums, Department of Asia, https://hvrd.art/o/201687.

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The Power We Speak: Language, Anti-Black Racism & Black Resistance By: Kelsey Da Silva

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Introduction

It has only been within recent decades that the role language plays in socialization have begun to be Whatever the modality, whether verbal, written, examined more closely and acknowledged within body-language, or even the release of various mainstream society. Black[3] populations, especially chemicals and pheromones, communication is those who have experienced the colonizing or universal between all living things. Humans civilizing process represent a particularly interesting naturally congregate and gravitate towards one paradigm. For many colonized people, learning or another for more than just survival, rather for speaking one’s ancestral language is an important companionship and celebration, primarily through form of cultural preservation, resistance, and language. It is from these congregations, each with decolonization. However, many Black persons, from their distinct methods of communication, language, various diasporas, residing in western countries do that cultures are born. not have such an ability. They instead are forced to speak of their struggles and oppression through the People often underestimate the significance of language of their colonizers. As Frantz Fanon put it, language, both in the abstract and in regard to “All colonized people...position themselves in individual languages. Each language, and the relation to the civilizing language.”[4] variety that exists within them, is imbued with culture and history inseparable to its existence.

As described by Frantz Fanon in his chapter Linguists have since come to learn that the primary “The Black Man and Language” in a colonial relation, languages one speaks can have a direct influence on language has been and continues to be used to how one thinks and in turn perceives the world oppress Black people. Deprived of an alternative around them. This can depend on the depth of language, Black people have subverted the language description for certain concepts, such as colors, of their oppressors, making it their own as a source feelings, time, and direction or even the structure of empowerment. To demonstrate this multifaceted of the language itself. Many North American intersection, a general introduction to the emergence Indigenous languages for example are verb-based, of creole languages and African American Vernacular compared to Latin/Germanic-based languages that English (AAVE) must be examined. Linguistic are noun-based. Such Indigenous languages allow microaggressions, including but not exclusive to the for a worldview in which everything is more use of pidgin and ulterior connotations of certain animate and fluid.[1] Conversely, languages that words when used towards Black people, and the have gendered nouns can also greatly impact and practice of racial code-switching will then be perpetuate unconscious gender bias. A study found discussed. Followed by the exploration of the ways that native speakers regularly use adjectives self-affirmative language has been used as a source of associated with masculine or feminine empowerment and decolonization for Black characteristics in describing nouns that are the populations, including analysis of the contentious corresponding ‘gender’: such as describing the modern use of the ‘n-word’. As the content and masculine noun of “vino,” Italian for wine, as experiences outlined here are not unique to any one “strong and full-bodied” while describing the country or even region, the relationship between feminine noun of “birra,” beer as,“light and Blackness and language is discussed in the abstract. bubbly.”[2] Considering the role language can play English will however be the primary colonial in societal conceptions of gender, it is especially language in question when discussing specific racial important to examine the significance of language intersections, such as AAVE. for racialized persons.

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Background of Creole & African American Vernacular English (AAVE) Unlike other languages that evolved organically over the course of several generations, often as a result of splitting culture groups, the creation of Creole languages is a direct result of European encroachment and colonization, the bringing together of multiple differing cultures.[5] In this way, Creole is the only language family in which the birth of specific iterations can be more or less pinpointed.[6] Historians and linguists, for example, know that there was no Haitian Creole prior to 1690 and likewise with Hawaiian Creole before 1880; yet within a generation of those dates, each respective language existed.[7]

of its origins in English.[12] However, the neoAnglicist position diverges in explanation of AAVE’s development by asserting that the language is now very distinct to modern European and American vernacular forms of speech: …as the African American community solidified, it innovated specific features' and that 'contemporary AAVE is the result of evolution, by its own unique, internal logic'. Labov (1998:119) characterizes the most recent position as follows: 'The general conclusion that is emerging from studies of the history of AAVE is that many important features of the modern dialect are creations of the twentieth century and not an inheritance of the nineteenth'.[13]

While never definitively proven, it is commonly agreed upon that Creoles originated as pidgin.[14] Pidgin is a simplified form of language, generally used as a means to communicate when there is a presumed or legitimate language barrier; native to no one, it is always used as a secondary language.[15] Slaves and general laborers, who were often from "Ebon Heath - Typographic Mobile Print" by different culture groups themselves, would have urbanartcore.eu is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0. needed some way to communicate with one another as well as with the ruling white colonizers.

Creolization occurs with the expansion of The origins of African-American Vernacular vocabulary, syntax, grammar, etc. Once the language English (AAVE) and Black English (BE) have been becomes native to the community it exists in, it is divided into three main academic theories: the then considered a new language.[16] Creoles most Anglicist, the Creolist, and the neo-Anglicist.[8] closely resemble the European language of the The Anglicist hypothesis argues that AAVE region’s primary colonial-presence; such developed from British-based dialects, sharing resemblance is largely superficial due to dramatic benchmark similarities with white Southern grammar and phonetic changes, similar to the way vernacular.[9] This position maintains that AAVE English and German share linguistic origins but developed as early generations of American-born differ in significant ways.[17] This is further proven slaves, “learned the regional and social varieties of with explanation of how Creole language rule surrounding European American speakers.”[10] systems were created. With traditional languageThe Creolist hypothesis came about in the 1960’s learning, children naturally pick up rules that more and 70’s and asserts that the roots of AAVE derived or less align with those of their elders. However, from a variety of Creole-English as a result of studies have found that first generation Creoleexpansive African diaspora.[11] Finally, the neospeakers “produced rules for which there was no Anglicist theory agrees with the origins of the evidence in the previous generation's speech.”[18] primary Anglicist hypothesis

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Due to their distinguished descent from European (BE). The languages are viewed as inferior by the languages, Creoles were viewed very negatively dominant culture with stereotypes of ignorance and until the past century or so, regarded as a laziness associated with its speakers.[25] In the bastardization of the European parent language. same way many within Fanon’s home community [19] Fanon mentions how in his home of the disliked Creole, but also viewed it as a sign of French Antilles, Creole was only used by the solidarity and authenticity, studies on AAVE reveal bourgeoisie in speaking to servants.[20] just such contradictory nuances. Some studies have Schoolchildren were taught to view the language found that Black people do hold AAVE in high with contempt and some families forbade its use at regard, while others have shown that standard home. French writer Michel Leiris, on the subject English (SE) is preferred over BE.[26] Research of Creole, viewed the popularity of the language as conducted in the 1990’s did however notice that as the result of illiteracy and poverty and would thus Black families or individuals integrate more into the “become a relic of the past” once access to middle-class mainstream American culture, they are education became widespread.[21] Further more likely to view those who exclusively use AAVE revealing its association with those of a “lesser” in a negative light.[27] Despite the common belief, social status, poor and uneducated Black people AAVE/BE is not in fact defined by its reliance on who do not strive to meet white standards, that slang; like any other language, colloquial slang society does not respect. Leiris’ prediction has comes and goes, varying from decade to decade.[28] proven incorrect with many Creoles becoming an Use of BE within literature speaks well to the point indispensable aspect of the cultural identities that it, “is not simply a matter of street corner within their respective communities. Rather, argot.”[29] French Martinique cultural critic and philosopher Edouard Glissant viewed creolization as,“an unending, fluid process that cannot be reduced or essentialized.”[22] Creole both reflects and subverts the power relations of the colonial situation.

In recent years, the process of Creolization has also been compared to globalization in that there is increasing emphasis on a sort of international society whose norms and values are informed by a conglomerate of varying cultures.[23] Glissant goes so far to say that,“since no one has been spared creolization, no one can assert ‘purity’ of origins as a pretext for domination.”[24] This presents a very significant argument against inequality and norm supremacy as well as providing a poignant interpretation of the effects of increasing globalization and cultural-mixing (particularly in settler-states created and sustained by substantial immigration such as the United States and Canada).

Many of the previously dominant views and connotations surrounding Creole, are now found within perceptions of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also referred to as Black English

"Ebon Heath - Typography Installation" by urbanartcore.eu is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0.

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The origins of AAVE and BE have been divided into Linguistic Microaggressions & Codethree main academic theories: the Anglicist, the Switching: Creolist, and the neo-Anglicist.[30] The Anglicist hypothesis argues that AAVE developed from Fanon opens the first chapter of Black Skin, White British-based dialects, sharing benchmark Masks with the assertion that studying language is similarities with white Southern vernacular.[31] essential in understanding one element of “the black This position maintains that AAVE developed as man’s dimension of being-for-others,” because “to early generations of American-born slaves, “learned speak is to exist absolutely for the other.”[37] Fanon the regional and social varieties of surrounding goes on to discuss how there are two dimensions to European American speakers.”[32] The Creolist the Black man, that of when he is with other Black hypothesis came about in the 1960’s and 70’s and people, and that of when he is with white people.[38] asserts that the roots of AAVE derived from a This idea of multiple ‘dimensions’ or sides to oneself, variety of Creole-English as a result of expansive particularly in the context of language, Fanon African diaspora.[33] Finally, the neo-Anglicist describes is now commonly referred to as ‘codetheory agrees with the origins of the primary switching.’ Code-switching is a concept rooted in Anglicist hypothesis of its origins in English.[34] linguistics, originally referring to multilingual people However, the neo-Anglicist position diverges in that can easily switch from one language to another explanation of AAVE’s development by asserting in a single conversation.[39] However, it has since that the language is now very distinct to modern become a common term within racial discourses, European and American vernacular forms of specifically that of Black communities.[40] speech: Speech is an important signifier in the development …as the African American community solidified, it of one’s perception of another person as it can signal innovated specific features' and that 'contemporary status and prestige.[41] This means that reliance on AAVE is the result of evolution, by its own unique, stereotypical cues for validation of initial internal logic'. Labov (1998:119) characterizes the impressions is of course, but unfortunately, still most recent position as follows: 'The general common.[42] Black individuals thus often feel the conclusion that is emerging from studies of the need to censor parts of their speech, indeed history of AAVE is that many important features of themselves, or switch to “[their] white voice” to be the modern dialect are creations of the twentieth accepted and feel safe in non-Black-dominant century and not an inheritance of the spaces.[43] Fanon recalls such feelings when he first nineteenth'.[35] went to France, as well when reflecting on fellow Antilleans returning from France; men who are then As the latter two theories are relatively younger, faced with the dilemma of maintaining their newly there is little consensus on the origins of AAVE and founded superiority complex, rejecting Creole, and its subsequent development, however one can see being ostracized by their own people or returning to the many parallels between it and creolization. so-called ‘savagery’ and live in non-white There is also a wide variety of terms used to inferiority.[44] This distinction further demonstrates describe this same language -AAVE, BE, African the connection between perceived racial difference American English (AAE), Ebonics, among others, and alliances based on the way one speaks. which has been said to undermine its legitimacy Interestingly, one study found that Black subjects and recognition as an independent language.[36] held negative views towards those who did not know how or when to switch from AAVE to standard English.[45]

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One can easily make the comparison of how Creole was perceived during Fanon’s time (and even now to varying degrees) as being akin to how AfricanAmerican Vernacular English (AAVE) is perceived in the present, as lesser forms of speech, even among Black populations themselves depending on the context. It should be noted that everyone, regardless of race, alters their speech in various situations.[46] The difference in perceptions based on speech however is much more significant for racialized individuals because of aforementioned stereotypes already working against their favor.

between adults. However, new ways of talking to or referring to a Black person’s verbal fluency have nevertheless surfaced, maintaining the same racist connotations outlined by Fanon. Race theorist Tim Wise suggests that there has been a subtle shift to a “form of racism that allows for and even celebrates the achievements of individual persons of color, but only because those individuals have ‘transcended’ their race.[47] Within this same line of thought, Fanon comments that “There is nothing more sensational than a black man speaking correctly, for he is appropriating the white world.”[48] Barack Obama presents a perfect example for this sensationalism Fanon refers to. While praised for his oratory, the constant surveillance and scrutiny of Barack Obama during his political career does well to highlight the extent to which “Black Language…. [is] constantly policed by White and other Americans in the public sphere.”[49] A study of the word ‘articulate’ regarding Obama, revealed how one’s innocuous praise can be another’s glaring insult when used in reference to a Black individual due to subtext of the ‘exceptional negro’ and white bewilderment.[50] The following quote describes the reason for these presumed connotations well:

Even with the ‘protection’ of being able to codeswitch, Black people nonetheless face countless linguistic microaggressions stemming from deepseated, historical, and paternalistically racial supremacist norms. Further on in the chapter, Fanon brings up the use of pidgin by white people when speaking to Black individuals, speaking as if they are addressing children. With its use, there is the inherent assumption that Black people are incapable of ‘complex’ communication, expression and thought, immediately dismissing any form of personal and political autonomy. As racial inequality has improved (in some ways more than others), the use of pidgin has become less common and seen as socially unacceptable prior to the establishment of an actual language barrier

“Black folks’ assumption is this: If one needs to consistently point out that an individual Black person is “good,” “clean,” “bright,” “nice looking,” “handsome,” “calm,” and “crisp,” it suggests that White private opinions about Blacks, in general, hold that they are usually the opposite— “bad,” “dirty,” “dumb,” “mean-looking,” “ugly,” “angry,” and “rough.”[51] The same way pidgin is viewed as something primarily used with children, many view the use of ‘articulate’ in the same context as innocent, because children are continuously learning and therefore not expected to be able to communicate well.[52] When used with adults however, both are viewed as passive aggressive and insulting.[53] Fanon goes as far to say that the use of pidgin with an adult is to keep them in ‘check’ in their place of subjection.[54]

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of multi-cultural influence after independence from said empires.

The use and push for normalization of AAVE shares similar symbolism, particularly within settler-states such as the United States and Canada. With the use of AAVE there is inherent acknowledgement of current and historical struggles, of Black strength in overcoming adversity. This belief is central to a Black identity in which Black people Resistance, Empowerment & Decolonization view,“themselves as ‘humanly and culturally rich survivors.’”[56] This self-affirming symbolism is best Black people have a uniquely complicated demonstrated through the contentious case study of relationship with colonialism. As like any other modern usage of the n-word by Black people. As one colonized group, their Indigenous ways of life were of the, if not the, only English words censored in stripped from them through European exploitation such a way, explanation as to the racist history of the and assimilation, with the added trauma of word that has led to such censorship by non-Black extensive, intergenerational slavery. Yet, the vast people would likely be redundant, nor would doing majority of Black people descended from those so serve the broader point of this discussion. original colonized populations do not reside on the same land of initial colonial contact. Distinction To many, the common use of the n-word by some between forcibly displaced, slave-descended Black people seems contradictory given its extreme persons and the willing European settlers that history, even with dropping the hard ‘er’ for an colonized North America has been made in recent open-ended ‘a’ sound.[57] Those who reject its use years, notably mentioned by Metis scholar Chelsea within the Black community sometimes view its use Vowel in her book Indigenous Writes. However, as a symptom of internalized anti-Black racism, the path towards self-reclamation and thereby contributing to identities based on selfdecolonization for Black populations nonetheless hatred.[58] These worries however directly remains a complex abstraction. contradict the word’s prolonged social association of survival that has been found to have originated As previously mentioned, many colonized Black during the time of slavery, with its usage in this way populations were completely stripped of their

by Black persons as far back as the early 1800’s.[59] ancestral and cultural language, leaving them in Use of the n-word between Black persons can speak perpetual limbo of having to express themselves to solidarity, or even endearment, between one through the language of their colonizers. But as another or the community at large for continued any colonized group, Black people have found perseverance through diaspora and systemic racial alternative methods of resistance and injustice.[60] Compared to other terms of selfempowerment, however narrow the confines of reference used by Black populations, the n-word their oppression restricts such forms of expression. word conveys a more historically layered meaning to In their decades leading up to and since colonial identity as a Black person living in the West.[61] independence, many countries within Africa and Words constantly go in and out of popular use, Central America embraced their traditional Creoles, however the n-word has maintained a stronghold turning a source of contempt and self-hatred into within Black lexicons for its flexibility in subverting one of cultural pride, self-affirmation, and old meanings and producing new ones that empowerment.[55] What a more poignant symbol universally speak to Black identity, consciousness, of decolonization than nationalizing the language resistance, and empowerment.[62] that diverged from the colonizers through a process

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By reclaiming languages and words that were once used to oppress and incur self-hatred, subjected groups diminish the power they and the ruling class has over them, essentially finding empowerment from the pain of subjection.[63] This is the real reason negative connotations were given to Creole and AAVE, because cultural pride and Black empowerment poses an inherent threat to the western status quo that values white bodies over all else. As American writer Rosaline LippiGreen put it: “[Black English] is tangible and irrefutable evidence that there is a distinct, healthy, functioning African American culture which is not white, and which does not want to be white. This is a state of affairs that is unacceptable to many” (italics mine).[64] As such, the push to minimize use of AAVE is now seen as a push for assimilation and erasure of Black culture that has become fiercely protected by its members.[65] In the words of Fanon, Black people are asserting themselves as just that, Black, and making themselves known, regardless of white recognition or approval.[66]

empowerment, and sign of solidarity through the use of AAVE and modified n-word.

Even in its brevity, this paper has shown the extensive importance in considering the intersection between race and language, particularly in one’s personal and professional capacities as non-Black individuals. Whether such comments or thoughts are subconscious, due a lack of awareness or forethought of racial nuances, or intentional, the impact is the same.[67] In Fanon’s own eloquent words “it is precisely this absence of will...the ease of which they classify, imprison him at an uncivilized and primitive level that is insulting.”[68] This is why it is imperative to actively recognize the ways one’s privileges and power may be reflected or perpetuated through language, words can have infinitely different meanings and implications depending on how they are said and to who. Passive support is simply not enough in the fight against racism, one must be actively anti-racist; a part of this is recognizing the varying ways anti-blackness in particular is perpetuated, even in communities of color.

Conclusion Endnotes With the background of Frantz Fanon’s primary chapter ‘The Black Man and Language’ in his [1] Little Bear, Leroy. “Jagged Worldviews extraordinary book Black Skin, White Masks, a Colliding.” Government of Alberta, 2000.,1-2 cursory exploration, and analysis of the relationship [2] “How Languages Shape The Way We Think between language and Black populations has been Language Advantage.” Accessed April 17, 2021. completed. Both within the abstract of general use https://languageadvantage.ca/how-languagesin subjection and specific examples in the case of shape-the-way-we-think/.

Creole and African American Vernacular English [3] Since the mid-19th century, much of white (AAVE) by Black individuals and communities. The society and academia has primarily used the term history and theorized roots of these two respective ‘African-American’, however, in recent years I have languages as the result of multi-cultural influence observed a dramatic (albeit informal) change to the and settler-colonialism was first discussed to use of ‘Black’ as an alternative due to preference, provide a referential background. Linguistic acknowledgement that not all Black people are microaggressions based on racist presumptions of descended from Africa and to normalize the idea Black inferiority and incompetence were that Black is not a negative term. As a non-Black demonstrated with the examples of pidgin and person, I will thus defer to what I have seen and modern scrutiny of Black linguistic mannerisms. heard from Black people themselves.

Finally, it was discussed how Black populations, [4] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Language.” largely deprived of their original ancestral In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed. New York, NY: languages, have subverted white norms, and made Grove Press, 2008., 2 the languages of the colonizers into their own, as a [5] Bickerton, Derek. Roots of Language. Ann sort of linguistic resistance, source of Arbor: Karoma Publishers, 1981., 2

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[6] Ibid., 1 [31] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[8] Wolfram, Walt. “Reexamining the Development [33] Ibid. of African American English: Evidence from [34] Ibid., 285 Isolated Communities.” Language 79, no. 2 (2003): [35] Ibid.

284 [36] Wassink, Alicia Beckford, and Anne Curzan.

[9] Ibid.

“Addressing Ideologies Around African American [10] Ibid.

English.” Journal of English Linguistics 32, no. 3 [11] Ibid.

(September 2004): 177 [12] Ibid.

[37] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Language.”

[13] Ibid., 285 In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed. New York, NY: [14] Ibid.

Grove Press, 2008., 1 [15] “Oxford Languages and Google - English | [38] Ibid.

Oxford Languages.” Accessed April 17, 2021.

[39] McWilliams, A. T. “Sorry to Bother You, Black https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/. Americans and the Power and Peril of Code[16] Bickerton, Derek. Roots of Language. Ann Switching.” the Guardian, July 25, 2018.

Arbor: Karoma Publishers, 1981., 2 http://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/25/so [17] Ibid. rry-to-bother-you-white-voice-code-switching.

[18] Ibid., 6 [40] Ibid.

[19] Stewart, Charles, ed. Creolization: History, [41] Doss, Richard C., and Alan M. Gross. “The Ethnography, Theory. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Effects of Black English and Code-Switching on Coast Press, 2007., 1 Intraracial Perceptions.” Journal of Black [20] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Psychology 20, no. 3 (August 1994): 283 Language.” In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed.

[42] McWilliams, A. T. “Sorry to Bother You, Black New York, NY: Grove Press, 2008., 4 Americans and the Power and Peril of Code[21] Ibid., 11 Switching.” the Guardian, July 25, 2018.

[22] Stewart, Charles, ed. Creolization: History, [43] Ibid.

Ethnography, Theory. Walnut Creek, CA: Left [44] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Coast Press, 2007., 3 Language.” In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed.

[23] Ibid.

New York, NY: Grove Press, 2008., 4-9 [24] Ibid.

[45] Doss, Richard C., and Alan M. Gross. “The [25] Koch, Lisa M., Alan M. Gross, and Russell Effects of Black English and Code-Switching on Kolts. “Attitudes Toward Black English and Code Intraracial Perceptions.” Journal of Black Switching.” Journal of Black Psychology 27, no. 1 Psychology 20, no. 3 (August 1994): 283 (February 2001): 30-31 [46] Koch, Lisa M., Alan M. Gross, and Russell [26] Ibid., 30 Kolts. “Attitudes Toward Black English and Code [27] Ibid.

Switching.” Journal of Black Psychology 27, no. 1 [28] McWhorter, John H. The Word on the Street: (February 2001): 31 Fact and Fable about American English. New [47] Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman.

York: Plenum Trade, 1998., 130 Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, [29] Ibid. and Race in the U. S. Oxford; New York: Oxford [30] Wolfram, Walt. “Reexamining the University Press, 2012., 33 Development of African American English: [48] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Evidence from Isolated Communities.” Language Language.” In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed.

79, no. 2 (2003): 284 New York, NY: Grove Press, 2008., 19

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[49] Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman.

[63] Fasehun, Osa. “Reclaiming Words: The Struggle Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, to Find Empowerment from Pain.” The Bowdoin and Race in the U. S. Oxford; New York: Oxford Orient. October 20, 2017.

University Press, 2012., 34 https://bowdoinorient.com/2017/10/20/reclaiming[50] Ibid., 34-35 words/.

[51] Ibid., 34 [64] Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman.

[52] Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman.

Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U. S. Oxford; New York: Oxford and Race in the U. S. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012., 53 University Press, 2012., 42 [65] Koch, Lisa M., Alan M. Gross, and Russell Kolts.

[53] Ibid., 34 “Attitudes Toward Black English and Code [54] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Language.” Switching.” Journal of Black Psychology 27, no. 1 In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed. New York, NY: (February 2001): 30-31 Grove Press, 2008., 17 [66] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Language.”

[55] Stewart, Charles, ed. Creolization: History, In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed. New York, NY: Ethnography, Theory. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Grove Press, 2008., 95 Press, 2007., 1-2 [67] Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman.

[56] Rahman, Jacquelyn. “The N Word: Its History Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Use in the African American Community.” and Race in the U. S. Oxford; New York: Oxford Journal of English Linguistics 40, no. 2 (June 2012): University Press, 2012., 35 163 [68] Fanon, Frantz. “The Black Man and Language.”

[57] Ibid., 138 In Black Skin, White Masks, 1st ed. New York, NY: [58] Ibid., 142 Grove Press, 2008., 15 [59] Ibid., 146 [60] Ibid., 155 [61] Ibid., 147 [62] Ibid., 165

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The Martial and Marital Entwined: Femininity and the Military World in Shakespeare’s Othello

By: Riley Sutherland

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Shakespeare’s Othello is familiar to literary reveals more than admiration. Instead, Desdemona, scholars and high school students alike: the “with a greedy ear Devour[s] up” Othello’s stories: eponymous Venetian general, falsely led to believe she has a tremendous appetite for adventure, his wife is an adulteress, kills her and, upon perhaps having read of women like Joan of Arc, but realizing his error, himself. Some scholars analyze she cannot personally experience adventure so long Othello’s fall by adopting a military lens. For as her father forces her to be “still and quiet.”[5] Not example, C. F. Burgess argues that “Othello’s without Othello. She thus falls in love not just with military background is a major factor in the Othello but also with the idea of sharing his disaster which overwhelms him”: accustomed to experiences as a military wife. Her husband is defusing two-sided confrontations by relying on shocked when he receives summons to Cyprus and fixed chains of command, Othello is confounded she declares, “let me go with him”; with these lines, by more complex social conflicts. As a general, he Desdemona seizes a life of greater mobility than naturally turns to his next-in-command, Iago, Venice offered.[6] which proves a fatal error. Other writers, like Lisa Jardine, analyze the place with gender studies.

They argue that Desdemona and Emilia die as victims of patriarchal dynamics and unfulfillable sexual standards. This paper aims to synthesize approaches by evaluating the intersections of femininity and militarism in Othello. It argues that Desdemona and Emilia experienced a double subordination; Othello and Iago commanded them as both husbands and as superior officers. The women perish because they are unable to fulfill these dual—and sometimes conflicting—martial and marital obligations. Bianca, however, represents an alternative form of womanhood. She survives the play by operating at the periphery of the military world.[1] Shakespeare could reasonably expect his audiences to know more about women’s true relationships to When we first encounter Desdemona, she is the military than the naïve Desdemona. Thousands escaping from the cloistered life that her father, of women joined soldiers—in fact, often Brabantio, expects for her. After learning Othello outnumbering them—in sixteenth-century has married his daughter, Brabantio expresses European armies. Many were indigent; they disbelief: he runs to her room and realizes she is washed and sewed for men in exchange for pay or indeed gone, then laments the loss of a “maid so rations to support themselves and their kids. tender, fair and happy . . . . never bold, of spirit so still and quiet.”[2] He perceives Desdemona as a These wives often had to plunder clothes and food timid, cloistered young noble woman. Othello from civilian populations. Some military manuals paints a different picture. She became enamored suggested officers should hire sex workers for their of him only after hearing of “the battles, sieges, enlisted men, though Venetian officers threatened fortunes, that I have passed.”[3] Ostensibly, to slit the nose of any such woman who came near Desdemona is drawn to Othello’s strength and troops. The women who lived with the army courage; Othello himself accepts this notion and operated in a liminal space between civilian he tells Brabantio, “she loved me for the dangers I womanhood and military needs, sculpting a had pass’d.”[4] Shakespeare’s language, however, uniquely pragmatic femininity.[7]

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As a noblewoman, Desdemona might have expected to raise children and manage servants.

But Emilia introduces her to the distinct obligations of military wifehood. As the army wife of an ensign, she may have needed to bend standard gender norms to serve her husband properly, from plundering to making “her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch,” or using sex to strategically advance his prospects.[8] Desdemona reacts with horror at the apparent depravity of Emilia’s world. Emilia responds by reassuring her that all is relative: “why the wrong is but a wrong i’the world: and having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it a right.”[9] In the world of the military, women served their husbands in both marital and martial capacities; defining proper from improper womanhood was a constant process of negotiating between the two roles.

as, “my fair warrior!”[13] But she soon internalizes the role, and her increasing confidence reflects in her speech patterns. Upon first landing in Cyprus, she directs requests to Othello by asking questions (when pressing a meeting with Cassio, “shall’t be shortly?”) or implying a degree of deference (“I prithee, call him back”).[14] After some time with the army, Desdemona begins relying instead upon positive orders, like her general-husband: “let Cassio be received.”[15] Othello’s men recognize her power, sensing that “her appetite shall play the god.”[16] Nevertheless, they affirm her command. For example, Cassio turns not to Othello but to Desdemona seeking a restored rank; in exchange, he declares, he will never be “any thing but your true servant.”[17] By interfering in issues of military appointment and receiving officers’ loyalty in exchange, Desdemona believes she is acting as Othello’s partner. He, however, is easily convinced she is trying to outrank him.

In both marital and martial roles, however, Emilia knows she is subordinated. Like any wife, she must The ensign Iago scorns his low rank and fears Emilia follow Iago’s commands. But because she is a is unfaithful; he projects these insecurities onto woman of the army, she must also abide by officers’ Othello, who in turn questions Desdemona’s fidelity orders or risk court-martial and expulsion. and his ability as a general. It is significant that the Although military life offered Emilia greater men first question their wives’ faithfulness, then mobility than the noble Desdemona, this double military command: their vulnerability relates to the subordination places tremendous pressure on her idea of double subordination. Iago and Othello to follow orders, even if they violate her own ethics. control their wives not only as husbands but also as Accordingly, when the “wayward” Iago orders her military commanders. Thus, if Desdemona and to steal Desdemona’s handkerchief, she hesitates, Emilia slept with other men, they would be asking “what will you do with‘t[?]”[10] Realizing it committing acts not only of infidelity but also will be employed against Desdemona, she begs insubordination.

Iago not to use it “for some purpose of import” that will make her “poor lady . . .run mad.”[11] Even Iago and Othello see their wives’ alleged lack of with compunction, she must follow orders and turn allegiance not only as threatening but also as highly over the handkerchief. In Emilia’s hands, the white possible. Because armies so often traveled with sex napkin, speckled with red embroidery, resembles a workers, civilians sometimes generalized negative blood-stained flag of surrender flown after a reputations to all women of the army. Influenced by protracted internal battle.[12] public perception—indeed, especially sensitive to it as a foreigner constantly trying to prove his Desdemona ignores Emilia’s experience and commitment to Italy—and desperate to hold on to refuses to recognize her husband as her his command, Othello is thus especially gullible commander; instead, she sees him as a partner and when Iago suggests that Desdemona has slept with mirrors his military leadership. Othello playfully Cassio.[18] teases his wife about her military role, greeting her

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In the military world, Othello responds to his wife’s for him hither; let him confess a truth.” “Down, purported infidelity not as her husband but as her strumpet!,” Othello cries.[25] Unable to command commanding officer. His punishment peaks in act her as a general and a husband, he reduces her IV, scene II, when Othello turns to corporal image to that of a prostitute in an attempt to justify punishment: he strikes Desdemona. As a witness, her punishment. He then smothers her.[26] Lodovico is shocked: he sees a husband strike his loving wife and instructs Othello to “make her amends.”[19] Othello, however, is so blinded by fury and insecurity that he cannot see his wife as anything more than an unruly, subordinate member of the army and thus questions why Lodovico disapproves of his response. He nonetheless calls Desdemona back, declaring “she can turn, and turn, and yet go on, and turn again . . . she’s obedient, as you say, obedient, very obedient.”[20] The bizarre proceedings resemble an officer drilling his young recruits; because Otelo y Desdémona - Antonio Munoz Degrain Desdemona refused to accept the unique WikiGallery constraints of Emilia’s military wifehood, Othello reduces her to just another foot soldier under his command.

While Desdemona dies because she refuses to be subordinated, Emilia perishes for the opposite Yet still, Desdemona refuses to accept double reason: she accepts the need to follow orders but subordination. Instead, she disavows Othello’s cannot when her multiple masters’ commands dominance not just as a commander but also as a conflict. As a wife, Emilia must listen to Iago; as a husband. When Emilia asks her about Othello, or servant, to Desdemona; and as a member of the “my Lord” (since Othello allots rations for Emilia, military, to Othello. Iago’s plot, however, causes all she too identifies him as her “Lord”), Desdemona three of her masters’ orders to interfere with each bristles, snipping “who is thy lord? . . . I have other. We first see her conflicting loyalties regarding none.”[21] In a last, desperate stand, Desdemona tries to postpone her death by once again mirroring Desdemona’s handkerchief. Iago begs Emilia to steal the precious handkerchief. After successfully giving Othello’s actions as a commander. When Othello the napkin to her husband, Emilia later has to lie to lurks over her, planning to kill for her alleged relations with Cassio, she commands, “send for the comfort her mistress: “where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?,” Desdemona asks. “I know man and ask him!”[22] Her order is a perfect not, madam,” is her meek reply.[27] parallel to Othello’s at the beginning of the play; when Brabantio accuses Othello of casting a spell She once again violates Desdemona’s confidence on Desdemona to win her affection, the general when Othello asks her to serve as an informant, orders, “send for the lady . . . and let her speak of me before her father.”[23] Both husband and wife reporting on his wife’s relationship with Cassio. issue demands, creating informal trials. They want Emilia tries to defend her mistress but nonetheless to arbitrate matters with evidence before impartial feels uncomfortable about breaking Desdemona’s judges, much like Othello would be accustomed to trust by providing the general with intelligence about her. Emilia can justify any depredation she sees as in a world governed by courts-martial. But in the end, Desdemona is not a commander: she is a wife. necessary to serve her master; however, she bursts under an inability to serve multiple masters when Othello thus ignores her commands, warning her, “thou art to die.”[24] Once again, she orders, “send they start ordering her on different paths.

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She finally chooses a single loyalty, to her fellow army woman Desdemona, and rails Othello for killing his pure wife before revealing Iago’s role in the plot. Iago, like Othello, kills his wife and justifies her death by declaring her a “strumpet.”

In her final moments, Emilia lies in bed beside her mistress, singing a song beloved by Desdemona.

Although Desdemona rebelled against s ubordination while Emilia abided by it, they die demonstrating a sisterhood forged by an insufferable double subordination.[28]

her customer, so she defines the terms of their relationship. Moreover, Bianca operates at the periphery of the military world. She did not earn rations nor travel with the army, so they lived entirely free from the martial laws that governed Desdemona and Emilia.

Mobile and free from military command, Bianca felt more capable of directly confronting those who slander her name. After Cassio declares Bianca a mere “fitchew” and tries to give her the handkerchief, she cries, “let the devil and his dam While Iago and Othello use charges of promiscuity haunt you!”[34] Later, Emilia tries to separate to destroy their wives, living as a sex worker herself from the sex workers Iago associates her somewhat paradoxically saves Bianca from their with by denouncing Bianca as a “strumpet.” Bianca fate. We first meet Bianca when she approaches unflinchingly responds, “I am no strumpet; but of Cassio. “What make you from home?” the soldier life as honest as you that thus abuse me.”[35] As a asks. “I was coming to your house.”[29] With these doubly subordinated wife, Emilia brushes aside lines, Cassio establishes Bianca as a woman who Iago’s charges of infidelity, refusing to address operates outside of the military world. Moreover, them. Desdemona, trying to protect her reputation, as a sex worker, Bianca has complete command tries to mobilize support from Emilia and Iago. Only over her own space and movements. – escapes Bianca immediately responds to charges of rule of military and martial barriers.[30] promiscuity by confronting the aggressor herself— and by turning the charges around on Emilia by She similarly controls her relationships to the men arguing for their common personhood. of Cyprus. When Cassio offers her the handkerchief, she demands to know, “whence Because she is free to travel in and out of the came this?” and assumes he took it from a different military world, define her own relationships, and woman. Unlike Desdemona and Emilia, she openly retaliate against her attackers, Bianca’s refuses to accept the “minx’s token,” declaring, status makes her the only woman to survive the “I’ll take no work on’t.”[31] Ultimately, the napkin play. And although Iago tries to use Bianca, a sex is a symbol of loyalty. worker, as a scapegoat, he is not entirely successful.

Indeed, while Desdemona unsuccessfully begged Because Venetian officers punished men who hired for a trial by asking Othello to question Cassio, prostitutes, Bianaca would have no choice but to Bianca does receive a trial. She is taken away to “tell keep Cassio at a distance. She, however, also has another’s tale.” When she leaves, we can be the luxury of refusing it because she experiences confident she will have at least some opportunity to neither marital nor martial subordination. We are make her voice heard. And she disappears for the led to believe that she hopes to marry Cassio; rest of the play. Her absence is significant: indeed, she is fond of him, referring to “my dear Desdemona and Emilia’s bodies, as well as and the Cassio,” and the soldier himself believes she wants a finality of their deaths, are staunch reminders of long-term relationship.[33] If true (and not merely their inability to escape the confines of the military one of Iago’s lies), perhaps Bianca believes uniting world. Bianca, however, once more fades back into with Cassio would offer her longer-term financial the very periphery that shielded her from stability than life as a courtesan. Nonetheless, he is tragedy.[36]

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Endnotes

[7] Mary Elizabeth Ailes, “Camp Followers, Sutlers, and Soldiers’ Wives: Women in Early Modern Armies (c.

[1] C. F. Burgess, “Othello’s Occupation,” Shakespeare 1450–c.1650),” in A Companion to Women’s Military Quarterly 26, no. 2 (1975): 208–13 (quotation on 209); History, ed. Barton Hacker and Margaret Vining (Boston: Lisa Jardine, “‘Why Should He Call Her Whore?’: Brill, 2012), 61–84; Barton Hacker, “Women and Military Defamation and Desdemona’s Case,” in Reading Institutions in Early Modern Europe: A Reconnaissance,” Shakespeare Historically, ed. Jardine (London: Signs 6, no. 4 (1981): 643–71.

Routledge, 1996), 18–33. Additional military [8] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 108. interpretations of Shakespeare that guided my reading of [9] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 109.

Othello include Kristina Straub, “The Soldier in the [10] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 68–69 (quotation Theater: Military Masculinity and the Emergence of a at 68).

Scottish Macbeth,” Eighteenth Century 58, no. 4 (2017): [11] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 69.

429–47; Ken Jacobsen, “Iago’s Art of War: The [12] Ailes, “Camp Followers, Sutlers, and Soldiers’ Wives.”

‘Machiavellian Moment’ in Othello,” Modern Philology [13] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 38.

106, no. 3 (Feb. 2009): 497–529; Dong Ha Seo, “Military [14] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 59–60.

Culture of Shakespeare’s England,” PhD diss. (University [15] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 78. of Birmingham, 2011), 216–30. For additional gendered [16] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 54. approaches that shaped my understanding of Othello, see: [17] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 58.

Elizabeth Mazzola, “Going Rogue: Bianca at Large” [18] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 61–66, 42.

Critical Survey 27, no. 1 (2015): 36–59; Edward Pechter, [19] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 90.

“Why Should We Call Her Whore? Bianca in Othello,” in [20] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 91.

Shakespeare and the Twentieth Century: The Selected [21] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 96.

Proceedings of the International Shakespeare Association [22] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 111.

World Congress, Los Angeles, 1996, ed. Jonathan Bate, [23] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 22.

Jill L. Levenson, and Dieter Mehl (Newark: University of [24] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 112.

Delaware Press, 1998), 364–76; Tiffany Lowden [25] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 112.

Messerschmidt, “From Maiden to Whore and Back Again: [26] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 96, 112, 22.

A Survey of Prostitution in the Works of William [27] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 75; for a different Shakespeare,” MA thesis (University of South Florida, interpretation of Emilia’s subordination to men relative to 2009), 41–46; Eamon Grennan, “The Women’s Voices in Desdemona’s, see Lisa Jardine, “‘Why Should He Call Her Othello: Speech, Song, Silence,” Shakespeare Quarterly Whore?,’” 24–29.

38, no. 3 (1987): 275–92.

[28] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 92, 118.

[2] William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Edward Pechter, [29] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 80.

2nd Norton Critical ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and [30] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 87. Scholars Company, 2017), 17. debate whether Bianca should be interpreted as a sex [3] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 22. worker. Because Cassio refers to Bianca as a “customer,” [4] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 23. and the list of actors denotes her as a “courtesan,” I will [5] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 23, 21. assume that she is, indeed, a sex worker. For a dissenting [6] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 27. Desdemona’s opinion, see Edward Pechter, “Why Should We Call Her confinement relates to her existence within the private Whore?,” 365–70. household in Venice. Jack D’Amico further examines [31] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 81. private interior spaces in Shakespeare, ultimately deciding [32] Elizabeth Mazzola elaborates upon the subject of they functioned as places to display wealth and, Bianca’s physical mobility and how it represents her consequently, imperial battlegrounds. Desdemona’s relative independence. “Going Rogue,” 36–59; strength, he argues, is her ability to turn the bedroom into Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 87. a public space, including when she champions Cassio’s [33] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 107, 86–87. case. But the same lack of distinction between public and [34] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 87. private hurts her in the brothel scene. D’Amico, [35] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 109.

Shakespeare and Italy (Gainesville: University Press of [36] Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Pechter, 109.

Florida, 2001), 73–78; for more on the importance of physical mobility, see Mazolla, “Going Rogue.”

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Emerald Atlantic: Motivations in Irish-American Diasporic Violence By: Winslow MacDonald

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War in the Diaspora Civil wars and emigration are closely related concepts; wars force relocation, while refugee populations beyond a state’s borders can influence a conflict within its original borders. As Idean Salehyan writes in his “Rebels without Borders: State Boundaries, Transnational Opposition, and Civil Conflict,” from Sikhs in Pakistan to Contras in Costa Rica, “modern insurgencies are not limited to the geographic area of the state.”[1] Safe beyond the reach of their government enemy, “diaspora communities often provide funding and resources to opposition parties within their origin state, including violent factions.”[2] Scholars have examined the consequences of diasporic support for civil wars, arguing, like Salehyan, that “ rebellions are more likely to emerge and endure”[3] according to the capacity and proximity of rebel organizations beyond the state’s territory.

Examining the variance in motivation and activity of Irish-American diasporic groups participating in the Anglo-Irish conflict offers an appropriate example to understand the factors impelling violence within the diaspora. Over nearly two centuries, Irish-Americans have organized to provide political and military support to the cause of Irish nationalism within the U.S. In identifying the commonalities and distinctions between IrishAmerican nationalist groups, the nature of a group’s domestic agenda emerges as a salient determinant for its likelihood to use violence in an adopted country. Before the onset of mass Irish immigration in the 1840s, the Irish fought the British alongside other powers as mercenaries and as immigrants in adopted countries; this pattern changed as Irish immigrant populations reached a critical mass. The likelihood of Irish immigrants to commit violent nationalistic acts outside of the homeland is a function of said violence’s reconcilability with political circumstances within the diaspora, rather than a product of traditional

factors of war onset: economic shocks, poverty, or ethnic grievances. Military experience and material capacity, while capable of affecting the nature of violence, have little effect on a diasporic organization’s decision to use violence or not.

Origins of Irish Discontent Since the Tudor Conquest of Ireland and the establishment of settler-colonialism in the north of the island, such as the Plantation of Ulster in 1609,[4] Irish separatist fervor has fomented and, several times, erupted. Irish armed rebellion against English rule has occurred multiple times: the Nine Years’ War of 1594, failed Rebellions in 1641, 1798, and 1848, and the 1921 Irish War of Independence, which resulted in mixed success, including the partition of North Ireland and the Irish Free State and the Irish Civil War.[5] The persistence of conflict between Ireland and Great Britain, Irish solicitation of foreign support for their cause, and oppressive British Penal Laws (including the expulsion of Catholic soldiers from the island and countless other oppressive, anti-Catholic measures),[6] established a rich tradition of Irish service in the militaries of foreign governments preceding the Irish Diaspora.

Dubbed the “Flight of the Wild Geese,” ethnically Irish regiments began the tradition of foreign military service beginning with the Army of Flanders under a Catholic Spanish King in the Eighty Years’ War. In 1607, fearing “a period of rigorous repression and savagery based on religious bigotry,”[7] Irish Earls who had fled to continental Europe organized Irish regiments in Spain, the Netherlands, and France, with the intention “to return one day to take their own country back from the English invaders.”[8] As the English and Spanish continued to fight over the following centuries, various units of Irish ‘Wild Geese,’ including the Spanish Hibernia, Ultonia, and Irlanda Regiments or Pope Pius IX’s Irish Battalion of St. Patrick,[9] fought with distinction.

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In the late eighteenth century, Irish units fighting under the Spanish and French flags fought against the British during the American War of Independence; 600 men of the Hibernia Regiment assaulted the British installation at Pensacola, Florida in 1780.[10] As mercenaries motivated by economic factors and the opportunity to take up arms against the British (Catholics were barred firearm ownership under the Penal Laws),[11] the Flight of the Wild Geese stands as a stark historic example of Irishmen using internationalist methods to combat British oppression.

Brother’s motivations and those of the American faction of the Irish National Land League, domestic political agendas, and to a lesser extent military capacity and experience, determine the likelihood of organizational violence. Departing from traditional understandings of civil war onset, diasporic violence is not the result of economic and social grievances, nor the cohesiveness of ethnic consciousness.

It is crucial to distinguish between the internationalist methods of the Wild Geese before the 1840s and cross-diasporic, Irish-American support for Irish separatism. As Hennessy argues in his The Wild Geese: The Irish Soldier in Exile, though the Irish mercenaries had noble political and religious separatist motivations and won glories on the battlefield, “the irrefutable but frequently forgotten fact remains: they started to tread the path of glory while they were still the minions of a dethroned British sovereign.”[12] While the Wild Geese and descendant Irish-American groups both endorsed violence for achieving Irish independence, "The Fenian Brotherhood." by Villanova University they differed in meaningful ways. The Wild Geese Digital Library fighting in France were not fleeing Ireland permanently, indeed, they left behind their wives and children.[13] Conversely, violent separatist The Fenian Brotherhood & Violent groups in the nineteenth-century U.S., such as the Diasporic Action Fenian Brotherhood, had unique Irish-American diasporic identities. While the Wild Geese fought The Fenian Raids are the best example of militant the British within the context of international Irish-American support for Irish separatism. From European conflict (i.e. involving the Spanish and its establishment in 1858, the Fenian Brotherhood French), Irish diasporic organizations in the U.S. engaged in and materially supported Irish violence consolidated Irish-American resources to be used in various revolutionary schemes, with the ultimate as Irish-Americans within the diaspora. objective of achieving an independent Irish Contrasting the ideological and methodological developments and commitments of Irish-American Republic. Two events, the Irish Potato Famine and the Irish Rebellion of 1848, were of tremendous ethnic organizations offers a compelling lens bearing on the Brotherhood’s conception. The 1845 through which to understand Irish-American famine and inadequate British mitigation efforts nationalism and willingness to commit exacerbated preexisting Irish separatist fervor to international violence in the name of their ancestral homeland. In a comparison of the Fenian incite the ineffectual Irish Rebellion.[14]

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Furthermore, the Famine opened the floodgates for diasporic emigration from Ireland outside of Europe, massively increasing a practice that had begun with the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in the 1810s.[15] Whereas previous Irish immigrants to the U.S. had been primarily male and majority-Protestant Ulster, the famine displaced entire families of Catholics. In the U.S., Irish immigrants experienced church burnings, labor discrimination, and worse.[16]

Hereward Senior, the state’s punishment “aroused much resentment among Irish-Americans,” who “were beginning to acquire grievances against American society.”[22] Although the San Patricios’ defection was not explicitly Irish-nationalist, their history illuminates factors impelling later Irish immigrants to make a cost-benefit analysis regarding committing transnational violence.

Despite the high likelihood of U.S. triumph over Mexico, and indeed the high price to be paid for defection (proved by the 54 hangings), the San Patricios elected to crystallize around ethnic homogeneity if it meant a chance to ameliorate their religious, social, and economic deprivation.

Invoking linguistic, cultural, and religious distinctions, nativist Protestant Americans perpetuated the notion of an ethnic distinction between Irish immigrants and Americans. In a wartime context, Nativist discrimination eroded The American Fenian Brotherhood, emerging in the the infantile national bond between immigrants context of failed Irish ‘insular’ separatism in Europe, and their adopted country. Hundreds of Irish-born continued social and religious discrimination in the U.S.troops defected to the “San Patricio” Brigade U.S., and perpetual poverty, expressed political during the Mexican-American War: pushed by recalcitrance in their call to invade British Canada. mistreatment at the hands of Protestant officers, The Fenians hoped to rally diasporic support, lack of Roman Catholic chaplains, and alleged coordinating with Fenians in Ireland to translate an “compulsoryProtestant church parades”[17] and invasion of Canada into “the liberation of attracted by the prospect of at last living under a Ireland.”[23] Canada was still a British dominion “Catholic power” or enticing offers of 320 acres in and Irish soldiers fought in Canadian militias, but as Mexico to those who deserted.[18] The fascinating the Fenians expected Irish emigrant support from history of the San Patricios exhibits several relevant Irish-Americans and Irish-Canadians in their raids, themes about economic and ethnoreligious factors and as the raids violated both Canadian sovereignty in rebellion prevalent in the scholarship of Collier and American neutrality,[24] I define the Fenians as and Hoeffler, especially the nuanced diasporic actors committing interstate and domestic interconnectedness of ethnic, religious, and violence. economic grievances in instigating rebellion.[19] Further, it reflects the work of Cederman et al. in After decades of fundraising and organizational demonstrating how social exclusion, recent ethnic challenges, the American Fenians raided the violence, a non-ethnically-neutral state actor, and a Canadian border multiple times from 1866 to 1871. demographic’s mobilizing capacity influence the Tasked with avoiding American agents before cost-benefit analysis of defection.[20] Irish combating Canadian militias, the Fenians were able immigrants were socially and economically to launch several large-scale assaults on various subordinated to white Protestant Americans while Canadian locations, incurring significant casualties the U.S. military, a state apparatus, was an agent without retaining territory. In April 1866, nearly a for anti-Catholic religious exclusion. When the U.S. thousand heavily-armed Fenian militants eventually captured 80 of the San Patricios, 54 threatened Campobello Island, in New Brunswick, were hanged for treason and 26 (who had luckily from the Maine border. The attack was stymied by deserted before the American Declaration of War) the warnings of U.S. General George Meade and the were flogged and branded with a D, for intervention of a British warship; though the “deserter.”[21] According to Fenian scholar Fenians failed, their energy was not spent.

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On June 1, 1866, 1,500 Fenians crossed the Niagara economy: “too many smallholdings” and “insecurity River.[25] The day after, they engaged Canadian of tenure,”[28] as well as a catastrophic decline in militiamen and British regulars at Ridgeway (near potato production in 1879. Tenants in Ireland Fort Erie, Canada West, now Ontario, Canada). The organized for agrarian reform, inciting anti-landlord Fenians won several mini-victories and inflicted sentiment and then, crucially, an “Appeal to the Irish more casualties (10 killed, 37 wounded) in the Battle Race for the Sustainment of the Irish National Land than they sustained (7 wounded, 2 killed) but, with Movement,” bringing the issue to the U.S.[29] the threat of American gunboats preventing Suggesting that American immigrants were reinforcement and mass congregation of thousands themselves victims of the Irish land system, the of Canadian militiamen, the Fenians again retreated League’s leader Charles Parnell traveled to the U.S. to the U.S.[26] Fenian attacks in Canada East with the avowed mission “to solicit money from the several days later, on June 7, again resulted in Irish in America and to mobilize American public temporary Fenian victories followed by the opinion against British rule in Ireland.”[30] surrender of outnumbered Fenians. Similar ill-fated American support for the Land League extended to Fenian raids in Quebec and Manitoba between famine relief and political agitation but did not entail 1870-1871 resulted in fewer casualties on both sides violence within the diaspora or Ireland.[31] As and again prompted Fenian surrender, as well as espoused by Parnell’s deputy Michael Davitt, armed the arrest of their leaders by U.S. troops for revolution against Britain, whether occurring on the violation of U.S. neutrality.[27] Ultimately political Canadian frontier or Ireland itself, was ultimately a and military failures, the Fenian Raids represent the futile endeavor. Davitt asserted that the League only significant extra-imperial violence between wanted to “unite the people of Ireland in a peaceful Irish separatists and British military forces.

Cover image from: A Greater Ireland The Land League and Transatlantic Nationalism in Gilded Age America Ely M. Janis

Non-Violent Diasporic Action American support for the Irish National Land L eague represented Irish-American non-violent support for Irish nationalism. The Land League emerged in Ireland in 1879, in the wake of the 1848 Rebellion and concurrent with international labor movements. The League hoped to address

mass agitation for their right to the land,” arguing that “our appeals to arms, our desires to gratify revenge, and exiting of the impulses and sentiments were vain and useless.”[32] Ultimately, the Land League sought to establish first “peasant proprietorship in Ireland”[33] and then national independence.

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By 1881, the Land League enjoyed significant success in the U.S., with the establishment of over 792 American branches and successful fundraising efforts.[34] In marrying industrial labor and nationalist movements, the League established a broad-based coalition of conservative and liberal Irish-American interests, ultimately contributing to the League’s short American lifespan. In Ireland, the League divided on the question of land nationalization, but the greatest blow to the organization’s future in the U.S. was dealt when members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood assassinated the Chief Secretary of Ireland, Lord Cavendish, and his undersecretary Thomas Burke.

Irish-Americans in Boston offered a $5,000 reward for the capture of the assassins, and liberal nationalists in the U.S. widely condemned the murders and led to a “conservative backlash against radicalism.”[35] As the Land League began to falter in the U.S., the question of land nationalization became more divisive. Davitt, arriving in the U.S. to compete with Parnell and advocate for broader land reform, further exacerbated fissures among Irish-American nationalists. These divisions, expanded on later, proved the death knell of the organization in the U.S. Beginning in 1882, the number of active Land League branches in the U.S. plummeted, with radical and conservative nationalists “disenchanted by its shifts away”[36] from its original principles of international social reconstruction defecting from the League. In April 1883 in Philadelphia, the American Land League formally disbanded.[37] Following its organization’s demise in 1883, the Land League splintered into more ideologically homogeneous groups. Some Americans continued to support the Irish National League and nationalism “shorn of its social element,”[38] while most continued their activism in the industrial and labor movements. It would take until the 1916 Easter Rising for Irish-Americans to once again demonstrate their support of Irish nationalism with vivacity.

Poverty Alone ≠ Violence While it is tempting to consider economic factors in the disparate use of violence by the Fenians and American Land League, especially because of the latter’s preeminent focus on labor and industrial issues, the economic compositions of the two organizations’ respective memberships were rather similar. Furthermore, the existence of violent prolabor, pro-Irish nationalism organizations, such as the Molly Maguires in the Pennsylvania anthracite region, suggests that adherence to a pro-labor, antiindustrial ideology alone cannot stimulate violent diasporic support. Economic conditions may have impelled the emergence and intensity of IrishAmerican diasporic organizations like the Fenians or Land League, but cannot singularly determine an organization’s likelihood to resort to violence. As Meagher argues, the low economic status of Irish immigrants across the U.S. in the nineteenth century “may have reinforced their attachments to their ethnic group,” as “limited possibilities for individual [economic] advancement….rested largely in the advancement of their entire group.”[39] Though poor economic conditions may explain a resurgence in Irish-American ethnic consciousness in connection with support for the Land League’s objectives, the same pattern is reflected in decadesearlier Fenian recruitment, rendering the possibility of poor economic conditions facilitating violent cross-diasporic support unlikely. Further examination of the socio-economic composition of the Fenians and LandLeague reaffirms this principle.

Both the Fenians and American Land League gained their largest popular support from economically disadvantaged Irish-American immigrants. The Fenians “recruited very heavily among the Famine migrants” as well as “urban tradesmen and laborers.”[40] David Brundage claims in his Irish Nationalists in America that with as many as 50,000 “mainly working-class members” and over 200,000 supporters, the Fenians constitute not only the “first mass-based Irish nationalist movement in American history.”[41]

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Similarly, radical Irish nationalists supporting instrumentalized when politically and economically international social reforms in the 1880s and 1890s advantageous and does not necessarily subside over enjoyed support in “small mill towns and mining generations. As Meagher’s study is communities”[42] in the U.S. The Irish Landtransgenerational, accounting for confounding Leaguer Michael Davitt explicitly bound the cause variables, its application to understanding the of Irish land reform with extant or potential Irish- function of ethnic consciousness in the Fenian American economic decline, declaring to an Brotherhood and Land League is appropriate. audience in Leadville, Colorado, that “you have no aristocracy yet….but rich Americans may desire to Meagher charts Worcester’s Irish population’s perpetuate their families and introduce the doctrine relative ethnic isolation over time, finding that of primogeniture on American soil.”[43] The Land American-born Irish consistently maintained League emerged and prospered in both Ireland and cultural practices (e.g. marrying late, producing the U.S. because of its mission to elevate the more children than Irish-born immigrants or economic status of the poverty-mired and American Yankees, devotion to Catholicism despite economically-repressed Irish race, just as the prejudice)[46] regardless of external factors, Fenians had asserted decades earlier in their though“environmental conditions” influenced ethnic mission for the “establishment of a thoroughly insularity. From Irish-born immigrants to their U.S.democratic Irish republic….even more sweeping born descendants, Irish-Americans shifted between program of social and economic reform.”[44] an “eagerness to prove themselves good Americans Ultimately then, as the Fenians and the American and reconcile their differences with their native stock Land League both recruited from and enjoyed Protestant Yankee neighbors” and “sullen and massive popular support from the working class belligerent ethnocentric isolation.”[47] This bipolar through invoking economic reform and Irish social ethnic consciousness, Meagher argues, was the elevation in the U.S. and abroad, the socioproduct of political coalitions and their cooperation, economic conditions of the organizations cannot or lack thereof: when the Yankees and Irish relied on explain why the Fenians resorted to violence, while one another for political election and/or patronage, the Land League explicitly rejected militance.

Irish nationalism and ethnic distinction were minimized.

The Island of Ethnic-Consciousness Conversely, as Swedes and French Canadians Anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment remained entered Worcester in the late 1880s and competed pervasive throughout the lifespans of both the for Irish jobs and political control, the Yankee-Irish Fenian Brotherhood and the LandLeague. From the coalition faltered.[48] For a period, Worcester’s Irish Know-Nothings to the American Protective population lingered in ethnic isolation and political Association, Protestant Americans sustained reclusion. Across the U.S. and in Worcester, the organizational prejudice throughout the 19th Irish-American population by the 1880s was mostly century that existed “independent of [the Irish] second-generation immigrants. They expressed their historic quarrel with Great Britain.[45] In the political ideology through ethnic mouthpieces, following examinations of Irish-American ethnic advocating for specifically Irish-American objectives. identification shifts in the latter half of the 19th Through established immigrant self-help century, nativist anti-Irish and anti-Catholic organizations, namely the Ancient Order of the sentiment is constant. In his 1985 study of ethnic Hibernians, Worcester’s Irish called for Irish consciousness among Irish-Americans in representation on the school board, parochial Worcester, MA over time, Timothy Meagher argues education, and Irish history in the curriculum, rather that ethnic consciousness is a function of a group’s than Irish independence. socio-political environment; ethnic identity is

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As Worcester’s Irish-American population faced ended.[53] As Senior argues, while “many of the political exclusion and resurgent anti-Catholic, Fenian rank and file must have belonged to agrarian nativist prejudice in the 1890s, “heightened ethnic secret societies and been involved in quasi-guerilla consciousness” became an object in “the Irish drive actions against Irish landlords,”[54] the American for political recognition.”[49] Meagher continues Civil War was a crucial development in the creation to argue that Worcester’s Irish ethnic revival of a “formidable force of trained men.”[55] In the dissolved “when changing political and social period between its conception in 1858 until the 1861 circumstances altered the conditions which had outbreak of the Civil War, Irish immigrants inspired it in the first place.”[50] Unable to achieve organized Irish militias, some under overt desired political recognition while ethnically nationalist control, including the O’Mahony Guards, isolated, Worcester’s Irish jettisoned ethnic the Phoenix Brigade, and Corcoran’s Brigade.[56] In consciousness, opting instead to ally with French- the American Civil War, some of these militias were Canadian immigrants on the principles of converted into ‘ethnic regiments’ that identified with American patriotism and mutual Catholicism.[51] their home country and promoted nationalism, including the 69th Volunteer Infantry.[57] Thomas As Timothy Meagher reveals in his examination of Meagher, of the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848 Worcester’s transgenerational Irish immigrant was exiled to Tasmania before his escape to the U.S., populations, ethnic consciousness and isolationism led the Irish Brigade during the conflict. If served political functions. He demonstrates how ideological or geographic division caused the Irish to “environmental conditions” in Worcester, such as organize along ethnic lines for both the Union and the politically disruptive arrival of new ethnic Confederate armies and “at first dissolved the groups, “were far more important than generation Fenian military organization into the forces of the or class differences in explaining variations in the contending armies,”[58] the American Civil War intensity of Irish ethnic consciousness.”[52] was only a temporary inhibition. After the conflict’s American Fenians and supporters of the Land close in 1865, Fenians from across the United States League both doubtlessly strongly identified with (including the formerly Confederate or ‘neutral’ their Irish heritage. Applying Meagher’s analysis states Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky) formed that ethnic consciousness is epiphenomenal of ranks with men from New York, Michigan, and New environmental conditions or political ambitions to England as battle-hardened units under the the Fenians and Land League allows us to command of experienced officers.[59] eliminate the existence or magnitude of IrishAmerican ethnic consciousness as a determinant While in Ireland, the Land League commonly of violent diasporic support. resorted to agrarian violence, a tactic that some historians have linked to the ultimate disintegration Military Experience and Capacity of the organization in both Ireland and the U.S., since the American Land League explicitly rejected The Fenians were able to execute violence and violence.[60] As a consequence, identifying how partially surmount the collective action problem military experience may have influenced members through their military organizational and material of the American Land League and their perceptions capacities, as well as the recent military experience of violence is a more difficult task. Some of the of their members. Fenian leaders had often League’s non-violence may be ideological, as solicited military aid from foreign governments to emblematized by Davitt’s references to the “vain and catalyze an Irish Revolution since before the useless” militance of the past. The notion that American Civil War. For example, Irishmen reform should not come via violence is difficult to colluded with the Russians to land 2,000 reconcile with the Land League’s use of violence in expatriates and 10,000 guns in Ireland during the Ireland.

Crimean War, a plan that petered out when the war

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Why did the American Land League condemn the movement precluded Irish-Americans from violence of Irish nationalists in the U.S. and Ireland, supporting violent action that could jeopardize their while their Irish affiliates waged agrarian warfare, domestic condition. In comparing the domestic and and, just decades earlier, Irish-Americans had international objectives of the Fenians and Land enthusiastically supported the Fenians? Emerging League, it is clear that Irish-Americans executed decades after the conclusion of the Mexicanviolence only when they conceived of their ambitions American War, 1848 Rebellion, and U.S.Civil War, as reconcilable with the Anglo-American dynamic a lack of military experience, leadership, and and contemporary internationalist movements. mobilization capacity could explain in part why the American Land League rejected violence. The allThe aftermath of the Trent Affair of 1861 and out, traditional warfare waged by the Fenians consequential threats of Anglo-American War or U.S. reflected the American Civil War’s Napoleonic annexation of Canada increased the perceived utility stratagem, rather than the guerilla tactics of later of violent action, as expressed at the Fenian violent nationalists in the U.S., speaks to the Convention.[61] While American military forces did influence of the American Civil War on the Fenians’ intervene against the Fenians multiple times, for repertoire of violence. The existence of example, in sending warships to Campobello and contemporary Irish-American organizations to the arresting Fenian militants for violation of American Fenians, the Molly Maguires or Clan na Gael, that neutrality, U.S. government officials also declined or committed more clandestine violence (e.g. postponed apprehension of the Fenians on multiple assassinations) and lacked the Fenians’ military occasions. Either compelled by impending elections experience and capacity, suggests that these factors in which “the Irish vote was an important cannot alone determine why diasporic groups elect consideration,”[62] local and state officials in the U.S. for violence, but can influence the nature/repertoire opted to prioritize the Irish vote over “British of their violence. Ultimately, one must examine the diplomatic pressure,”[63] permitting Fenian relationship between domestic (i.e. American) and militants to clandestinely militarize and advance to international agendas of Irish-American groups to the Canadian border, even paying for some Fenians’ understand why some opted for violence, and return home with few, if any, consequences for others not. violating American neutrality.[64] If the U.S. government ostensibly upheld neutrality laws, their Domestic Agendas reluctance to act decisively against the Fenians created an environment that was accommodating of, The foremost factor in determining whether Irishif not conducive to, violent nationalist action.

American nationalists opted for violence or nonviolence is the nature of the organization’s domestic International circumstances similarly contributed to agenda. In the case of the Fenians, tense Anglothe Fenians’ use of violence. While Irish nationalists American relations and the spirit of international had long courted international support for their republicanism permitted a greater degree of violent independence from the British, the rise of activity domestically. With improved Anglointernational republicanism and opposition to British American relations and a burgeoning international imperialism led the Fenians to believe they had and labor movement, the Land League subordinated international, non-Irish allies who would permit or radical violent Irish nationalism to the achievement even contribute to their violent activity. As Senior of domestic objectives, namely the amelioration of argues, “a feeling existed among European industrial conditions. While the Land League republicans at this time that they formed an informal facilitated cooperation between Irish-Americans and international brotherhood,” leaving Americans with native Irish, the incompatibility of radical, militant the obligation to aid “republican movements Irish nationalism and the American liberal labor wherever they arose.”[65]

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Further, the Fenians were convinced that “those living under British rule were its natural enemies,”[66] thereby expecting the support of Canadians (especially those of Irish, French, or indigenous ancestry) to support their cause. While the Fenian invasions of Canada ultimately failed, the specter of Anglo-American diplomatic opposition and potential war, contemporary revolutionary republican movements, and opposition to British imperialism led IrishAmericans to perceive violent action against the British imperial zone tenable.

The composition and objectives of the American Land League’s constituencies represented a diverse array of participants and methodologies. Furthering the disintegration of a coherent American Land League ideology was the tendency for members to use the League as a conduit for mustering domestic political support, especially to the Tammany Democratic Machine, despite the League’s mandate to be a “nonpolitical entity as far as American politics were concerned.”[71] Beyond American politics, Irish-Americans representing different demographics coalesced in the Land League: for example, the “involvement in Irish-American The domestic political environment faced by the nationalism by Catholic authorities was American Land League stymied their militance. unprecedented,” especially since they had recently While ethnically exclusive, nationalist Irishdenied burial for Catholic Fenians.[72] Church American groups like Clan na Gael supported projects attempting to establish the Irish as violence, the Land League coalitionism led to its independent yeomen in the United States, such as prosperity and nonviolence. The League became the Irish Catholic Colonization Association of the “undoubtedly the largest Irish-American nationalist United States, directed Irish-American attention to organization in American history”[67] through the domestic improvement.[73] Many lower-class Irishmarriage of nationalism and “labor radicalism,”[68] American radicals, including the Knights of Labor in expanding their ranks while intermingling Irish Chicago, supported Michael Davitt’s call for land nationalism with the interests of other, non-Irish nationalization, a policy “loudly criticized”[74] by the demographics within the U.S. Irish-American Catholic Church. The Jersey Freight Handlers, leaders at the time, including the radical Patrick majority-Irish industrial workers, explained the Ford, also “supported women’s rights, Africanuniversal applicability of the program: “the American rights, and temperance,” opposed both nationalization of the land seems. . . to be the only “British and American imperialism,” and supported means of forever destroying class monopolization of the labor and industrial movements.[69] The the natural source of opportunity to mankind— diversity of interests composing the Land League, land.”[75] Within the League, Church leaders and especially their subordination of Irish interpreted nationalization as communism’s independence to social and economic reform in the harbinger and split from the labor movement faction.

U.S. or Ireland, led to ideological fissures that As argued by Ely Janis in A Greater Ireland, prevented violence as a viable strategy. The risk of “whereas conservatives tended to favor the social U.S. politics dividing the Land League was manifest status quo and sought to achieve inclusion within it, from the organization’s conception, for example, in nationalists enthused about social reform pushed for the forbidding of discussion of American politics at a profound reshaping of American society.”[76] Such meetings of the Boston Branch.[70] Divisions divisions prevented the organizational and social within Irish-Americans’ U.S. interests ultimately cohesiveness requisite for diasporic violence. doomed the League, however, and ideological divisions preceded and precluded any support for If contemporary Irish-American nationalist violence. This led to factionalism and radicalism, organizations, like the secret society Clan na Gael thereby lowering the domestic costs of defecting and the Molly Maguires, exacted or supported from non-violence. violence, they were unable to accumulate popular support for their cause.

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Their perpetuation of violent ethno-isolationist Throughout the 20th century, from the Easter Rising violence differed from the demographic and of 1916 to the Troubles to the present, Irish ideological coalitionism of the Land League, which nationalism remains relevant. Some Irish-Americans explicitly denied Clan or Molly Maguire infiltration have continued to organizationally express their of their organization and convinced its American support for nationalism through organizations like members that they were “performing their duty to NORAID, which ostensibly “supports through their native land by paying money to the peaceful means, the establishment of a democratic League”[77] and not committing violence. [united] Ireland.”[80] While NORAID’s capacity to Encompassing too broad an ideological spectrum to contribute to foreign violence has been scrutinized, endorse land nationalization or Irish independence, its ultimate peaceful objective is refracted through a the Land League could not condone, let alone prism of American acceptability. The U.S. has execute, violence. The tense coalitionism of Irishsimilarly asserted its interest and relevance in AngloAmerican nationalists with ‘real’ Americans and Irish peace through participation in the 1985 Anglo‘real’ Irish persisted into the 20th century when Sinn Irish Peace Agreement: the four American politicians Fein leaders were reluctant to speak of the involved in the process, including Tip O’Neill and organization’s left-wing objectives “to avoid Ted Kennedy, were of renowned Irish-American alienating conservative Irish-American ancestry.[81] Both Irish Unionists and Separatists supporters.”[78] Ultimately, diasporic nationalists continue their attempts to mobilize American Ulster consider their internationalist action in terms of its or Irish-Catholic diasporic communities to finance domestic (i.e. non-Irish) acceptability. their efforts in a centuries-old conflict.[82] Liberated from the surveillance and repression of the origin Conclusion state, diasporic actors are empowered by their existence away from the borders of the homeland.

If distance and time inhibit refugees’ ability to Ultimately, however, the diasporic actors are contribute violently to an insurgency in their motivated and constrained by the adopted country’s homeland, these obstacles are somewhat political and demographic composition: the circumventable. As Salehyan argues, refugees “can feasibility of their committing violence within the and do participate in politics in both their home diaspora is determined by the organization’s and host countries, including through violence, coalitional dynamics. and their humanitarian needs should not obscure this role.”[79] An investigation of the emergence Endnotes of Irish-American nationalist groups in the United States over the nearly two centuries of the Irish 1. Idean Salehyan, Rebels without Borders: Diaspora offers a unique and more transhistorical Transnational Insurgencies in World Politics (Ithaca, lens into the motivations and capacities of diasporic NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 3. groups to influence the course of conflict within 2. Salehyan, Rebels without Borders, 55. their adopted homeland. In comparing the nature 3. Ibid, 235. and composition of two particular Irish-American 4. Niall Ó Dochartaigh, “Reframing Online: Ulster nationalist organizations, the Fenian Brotherhood Loyalists Imagine an American Audience,” Identities and the American Land League, it is clear that 16, no. 1 (2009), diasporic violence by nationalist Irish immigrants is https://doi.org/10.1080/10702890802605851, 116. more a result of domestic (i.e. non-Irish) political 5. Maurice Hennessy, The Wild Geese: The Irish circumstances, rather than poverty, ‘tribal conflict,’ Soldier in Exile (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973), or military-material capacity. https://babel.hathitrust.org, 17.

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6. Hennessy, The Wild Geese, 17.

41. Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America, 89.

7. Ibid, 22.

42. Meagher, “‘Irish All The Time,’” 285.

8. Ibid, 22.

43. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 62.

9. Ibid, 131.

44. Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America, 89.

10. Ibid, 134.

45. Senior, The Last Invasion of Canada, 19.

11. Ibid, 17.

46. Meagher, “‘Irish All The Time,’” 276.

12. Ibid, 36.

47. Ibid. 275.

13. Ibid, 36 48. Ibid, 280.

14. Hereward Senior, The Last Invasion of Canada: the 49. Ibid, 284.

Fenian Raids, 1866-1870 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 50. Ibid, 285.

1991), 16.

51. Ibid, 285.

15. Senior, The Last Invasion of Canada, 14.

52. Ibid, 275.

16. Ibid, 14.

53. Senior, The Last Invasion of Canada, 19.

17. Ibid, 15.

54. Ibid, 22.

18. Ibid, 15.

55. Ibid, 22.

19. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Justice-Seeking and 56. Ibid, 36.

Loot-Seeking in Civil War” (Washington, D.C.: The World 57. Ibid, 18.

Bank, 1999).

58. Ibid, 22.

20. Lars-Erik Cederman, Andreas Wimmer, and Brian 59. Ibid, 66.

Min, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and 60. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 179.

Analysis,” World Politics 62, no. 1 (January 18, 2010), 61. Senior, The Last Invasion of Canada, 40. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0043887109990219.

62. Ibid, 50.

21. Senior, The Last Invasion of Canada, 16.

63. Ibid, 101.

22. Ibid, 16.

64. Ibid, 102.

23. Ibid, 20.

65. Ibid, 18.

24. Ibid, 37.

66. Ibid, 18.

25. Ibid, 88.

67. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 75.

26. Ibid, 88.

68. Meagher, “‘Irish All The Time,’” 280.

27. Ibid, 49.

69. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 116.

28. Ely M. Janis, A Greater Ireland: the Land League 70. Ibid, 74. and Transatlantic Nationalism in Gilded Age America 71. Ibid, 81.

(Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2015), 72. Ibid, 80.

25.

73. Ibid, 85.

29. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 27.

74. Ibid, 187.

30. Ibid, 28.

75. Ibid, 187.

31. Ibid, 51.

76. Ibid 114.

32. Ibid 61.

77. Ibid, 84.

33. Ibid 52.

78. Dochartaigh, “Reframing Online,” 114.

34. Ibid, 73.

79. Salehyan, Rebels without Borders, 65.

35. Ibid, 181-183.

80. “Peace Process,” Irish Northern Aid, June 7, 2007, 36. Ibid, 192. https://web.archive.org/web/20071102160225/http://w 37. Ibid, 196. ww.inac.org.

38. Ibid, 195.

81. Mary McGrory, “Thatcher's Irish Problem,” The 39. Timothy J. Meagher, “‘Irish All The Time:’” Ethnic Washington Post, February 24, 1985, Consciousness Among the Irish in Worcester, https://www.washingtonpost.com.

Massachusetts, 1880-1905,” Journal of Social History 19, 82. Dochartaigh, “Reframing Online,” 122. no. 2 (1985), https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/19.2.273, 276. Content EditorsMay 6, 2022 40. David Thomas Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America: the Politics of Exile, 1798-1998 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 89.

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The Taboos of Family Romances: In Search of the Distorted Feminine Image By: Esther Jane Ben Ami

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The feminine image is a broad conceptualization of CHILDHOOD LOVE DENIED feminine identity and behavior and is thus based in archetypical femininity. Archetypical femininity Grotesque explores the distortion of feminine includes the nurturing quality associated with identity through dysfunctional familial and romantic maternity, the chaotic element of nature and intimacy. The dysfunctions mapped throughout the transformation, and the display of physical beauty novel also illustrates the private and domestic power and sexual appeal. Archetypal femininity, though structures of gender relations and patriarchy, reflect, expansive and necessary to the substance of life, and enforce larger issues such as the power becomes an oppressive tool when rigid expectations imbalances and conflicts within Japanese society and for gendered behavior arise from it. Oppressive cross-culturally. For example, the protagonist’s archetypal femininity demonizes women’s behaviors mother’s subservience within her family results in that deviate from the ideal. Additionally, elements her loss of her sense of self – her subservience also of archetypical femininity that challenge the embodies the marginalized side of cross-cultural opposing masculine archetype are scrutinized. For conflict reflected within a singular home. Other example, considering the traditional conceptions of female characters endure dysfunctional relationships masculinity and femininity, where femininity was with their sexuality and family that manifests an conceptualized as chaotic, naturally disruptive, and incestuous subtext within several of these in need of sorting out by, masculine order, the relationships. The dysfunction within the domestic demonization of the transformation associated with sphere also results in a paradox of extremes between female bodies is rooted in its element of natural and an obsession with superficiality and physicality on uncontrollable change (such as sexual development one end, and a profound lack of emotional sincerity and maternity). Archetypical feminine chaos also on another, both of which are conveyed through the plays a part in defining uncontrollable sexuality as a complex identities and sexualities of Grotesque’s feminine attribute. In cultural traditions known for female characters. their adherence to order, established norms, and discipline, such as the Japanese, rigid expectations Regarding the dysfunctional familial intimacy distort the feminine image. The distorted feminine centering the protagonist’s mother, this family describes both the distortion of individual identity partially portrays the dissolving Japanese family in conformity with the archetype and the perceived structure. In other words, its description of marital distortion of those who deviate from the archetype. dysfunction reflects a contemporary sociological The distorted feminine image unfolds in a issue in Japan: the incompatibility between Japanese connective fabric [1] across three separate texts: culture and outside cultures.

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino (2003), Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa (1996), and An Extraterrestrial by Yumiko Kurahashi (1998). Each text has its different approach to expressing the distorted feminine image and its consequences on individuals, relationships, and the larger society. Moreover, the distorted feminine image engenders a longing for the original source -- a pre-societal space before archetypal femininity enforced gendered expectations of behavior. "womanofthedesert"byrickreddsis marked with CCBY-NC-SA2.0.

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The marriage between the protagonist’s Japanese mother and European father has endured years of strain due to cultural differences. The protagonist recounts both the father’s disapproval of Japanese customs within the household throughout the text and the mother’s severe sense of alienation in Switzerland.[1] Thus, the protagonist’s family represents a breakdown of Japanese family values, incited by a clash between Japanese and Western cultures occurring within the nucleus of the family.

Therefore, xenophobic hostilities and anxieties of cultural erasure, is reflected in the private domestic sphere, distorting individual identity in its most intimate interpersonal context, familial relationships.

expressing that authority to society. And while the protagonist’s mother represented the dominant culture of society (Japanese culture), she could not express that authority within the household because of gender expectations, which, in her culture, prescribe her to be subservient and nonautonomous.

The Sato household dynamic was different:

The protagonist’s mother’s oppression by her Western husband conveys the impact of patriarchal control on individual cultural identity. Therefore, this may be understood as a commentary on the cultural erasure of Japan by Western influences through a gendered lens. Portraying cultural conflict through family dysfunction, effectively gendering the conflict, illuminates one aspect of the distorted feminine image: the distortion of individual identity in conforming to the archetypal quality of subservience, which is invented in the domestic sphere and projects outwards to influence cross-cultural conflict and loss.

In other words, because of Mr. Sato’s ethnicity as Japanese, his position as an authoritarian father transforms his household into a place that parallels the societal sphere. Thus, Grotesque conveys that Japanese society is a patriarchal social structure, and this social hierarchy is both reflected and invented in the domestic sphere. In all, having the social hierarchy of society, which is largely built on rigid gender roles[2] , reflected in the home, allows the domestic sphere to become a space where gendered social norms cultivate children’s personalities. We see this clearly through when all the women of the Sato household cater their identities to meet Mr. Sato’s expectation of traditional gender values.

Grotesque also uses the family structure to reflect the sociocultural problems within Japanese society overall. By comparing the protagonist’s family to her schoolmate Kazue Sato’s ethnically Japanese family, it’s clear the emotional corruption of Japanese society is reflected within the domestic sphere, which results in the distortion of several female characters’ identities. The following paragraph will closely reflect on a scene with the Sato family to prove this point.

Upon being confronted by Mr. Sato about her intentions with Kazue, the protagonist reflects on the compromised structure within her mixed family, explaining that while her father maintained a dominating presence within the household, his position as a foreigner prevented him from

When I saw a person who used rigidity and the absurdity of social conventions as steadfastly as Kazue’s father did, I was impressed. Why? Because Kazue’s father did not really believe in the social values he represented, but he clearly knew that he armed himself with them more or less as a weapon of survival.[2]

The emotional corruption that arises from the domestic sphere’s reconstitution of traditional gender values are highlighted in Mr. Sato’s claim that the values he embodies mean “nothing to him.”

Nevertheless, he imposes them on Kazue, who believes in their sincerity, and is unconcerned with the psychological damage it may inflict on her.

Herein lies the point of emotional corruption of Japanese society, reflected within the domestic sphere: the fight for social survival is so severe, empowering toxicity within gendered relations that is so excessive, it disrupts the unconditional love shared between parents and their children, distorting the intimacy children yearn for in those close relationships.

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The Sato family becomes a symbol of stability in a [3] Because of her powerfully seductive beauty, the society characterized by rigidity, emotional protagonist expresses resentfulness, contempt, and vacancy, and a lack of authenticity. Although the intimidation toward Yuriko throughout the novel. protagonist’s family’s dysfunction reflects Japanese patriarchy to an extent in its domestic dynamic, it does not fully reflect Japanese society’s power structure, since the protagonist’s father is unable to reproduce the society-domestic parallelism that Mr. Sato does. Instead, the patriarchal dynamic within a mixed family suggests that the distortion of intimacy and identity reflecting and enforcing society’s gendered rigidity exists outside of "Alphonse Mucha - P40 Femme Parmi Les Japanese culture, too.

By suppressing and corrupting the emotional needs of the female characters, physical desire and emotional desire are forcibly disconnected. The intimacy normally expected to be found in familial and romantic bonds is absent; however, sexuality remains a dangerously uncontrollable force.

Grotesque inversely suggests, through this paradox of extremes between physicality and emotion, that the body and soul are meant to be intertwined.

Disrupting the bond between them results in their mutual distortion, and intimate structures are simultaneously areas of emotional emptiness and transgression. For example, Kazue and the protagonist describe Mrs. Sato, completely subservient to the father’s wishes, to be like “one of his daughters”[3], indicating that the role of wife and daughter is transgressively blurred. A more explicit portrayal of transgression and of sex being an uncontrollable force characterizes Yuriko’s – the protagonist’s younger sister – narrative. The protagonist describes Yuriko to be so stunningly beautiful that she is “monstrous”.[4] The protagonist’s hatred towards her younger sister is embedded in Yuriko’s encapsulation of society’s superficiality, in which average-looking people like the protagonist are disadvantaged. “I knew I was far more intelligent than Yuriko,” she says, “and it irked me to no end that I could never impress anyone with my brains. Yuriko, who had nothing going for her but her hauntingly beautiful face, nevertheless made a terrific impression on everyone who came into contact with her.”[5]

Fleurs/Woman Among The Flowers, c.1900." by K.G.23 is marked with CC0 1.0.

However, Yuriko’s looks may cause herself the most suffering. Yuriko claims that she defines her worth solely based on her sexual appeal towards men. She explains, “my ability to meet my lover’s demands is the only way I can feel alive.”[6] Yuriko’s whole life is centered around sex: she was aware of her sexual appeal at the early age of nine and lost her virginity to her uncle at age thirteen. By high school, she became a prostitute. Moreover, her sexual relationships are characterized by an incestuous subtext, displaying how the disruption of familial intimacy leads to the distortion of romantic intimacy in terms of the boundary transgression between the two. Not only does Yuriko have sex with her uncle, her deepest and most long-term relationship is with a character named Johnson, a father figure. “What is certain is that Johnson somehow sustains me,” Yuriko says. “It is perhaps a longing for a father figure? Maybe. Johnson is unable to stop loving me, so in a way he is like a father. My own father, of course, did not love me. Or at least his love for me was thwarted.”[7] On one end of the extreme, Yuriko suffers from the absence of parental love which causes her to become romantically and sexually infatuated with a father-figure on the other end of it.

In all, Yuriko’s fulfillment through sex is a reaction to her family’s and society’s obsession with her physical appearance. Denied love as a child, she becomes obsessively preoccupied with what did give her attention in those formative years.

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Yuriko’s sexual obsession is motivated by childhood The wounded emotion behind the statement, “she’s neglect. Likewise, Mari’s precocious sexuality and hurt me in a way that will never heal” illustrates how transgressive describes young woman who uses the dynamics of the child-parent relationship persists sexual relationship to map out psychological into adult relationships and how the domestic sphere damages. Like Yuriko, not only does the text influences the societal sphere and vice versa. When describe Mari as beautiful, she also becomes Mari’s mother ritually arranges her daughter’s hair, sexually active at an early age, with a man more she also passes down archetypal feminine chaos, than twice her age, who is known as “the translator.” which manifests in sexual appeal, a byproduct of The distortion presented in Hotel Iris concerns conforming to the ideal of beauty. In fixing her hair, feminine and masculine archetypes — on an Mari’s mother communicates both the overweening individual scale. Mari and the translator’s importance of beauty, and the instruction to harness interactions display how gendered archetypes, the feminine chaos the coincides with its cultivation. when imposed on the individual, distorts the Ironically, it is because she is overwhelmed by individual. feminine chaos that Mari seeks to be organized by masculinity, and she specifically seeks this out Before exploring the archetypal significance of through her sexuality. Therefore, because of this Mari’s self-fulfilling sexuality, I will describe the matrilineal heritage of archetypal conformity and neglect and abuse Mari experienced because of her shame, Mari’s relationship with the translator gender. Mari’s mother’s superficial compliments on constitutes her embodiment of chaotic femininity Mari’s beauty while fixing up her hair — a daily regulated by masculine order. ritual — cause Mari to reflect on her history of objectification that is endorsed by her mother. She states how her mother enjoys gloating about the many times when others have complimented Mari’s beauty. A sculptor, for example, tried to make a statue of her when she was a child. However, the sculptor had almost molested Mari. After it is over, Mari says, “I feel as though she’s hurt me in a way that will never heal”[8], referring to how, her mother’s objectification of her beauty conditioned her to become an object of sexual desire and violence. Therefore, Mari experiences an inverse reaction to perceptions of beauty: judgements of her attractiveness are distorted and inverted into feelings of ugliness because she understands that attractive women suffer in her society. Indeed, Mari describes her discomfort while her hair is being done: “the more she tells me how pretty I am, the uglier I feel”.[9] Thus, the hair-styling ritual becomes symbolic of the distorted feminine image passed on from mother to daughter, where Mari’s mother nurtures Mari’s identity fixate on the ideal of beauty, at the expense of her psychological and physical "the other woman" by Chiara Stevani is security. marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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Mari’s first sexual encounter with the translator depicts the regulation of femininity by masculinity.

“I was an affront to order,” Mari narrates. In the scene, Mari expresses a deep yearning to be forgiven – for what is left unanswered in the novel, allowing the archetypal framework to set in. She relates this desire to the dynamic between her and her mother that she’s experienced since childhood, “‘I’m sorry, forgive me.’ They were words I had said over and over to my mother since childhood.

Though I’d had no idea what forgiveness meant, I had cried for it nonetheless. But now, finally, I understood. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to be forgiven.”[10] In other words, Mari portrays the prototypical woman who has, perhaps due to her physical appeal, internalized the distorted feminine image. She is no longer an autonomous individual — her entire identity centers around the feminine chaos she’s internalized and the forgiveness it requires when exercised to its expected potential. Indeed, she is continuously punished (through hair rituals, objectification, etc.) for the archetypal feminine chaos she conditioned to represent.

imaginary space where one can express desires spontaneously and without inhibition. It is characterized by feminine constructs targeted for misogynic debasement, such as the life-giving and transformational aspects of female bodies, which establishes them as a direct antidote to the distortion by the feminine image. Grotesque’s protagonist’s daydreams describe the characters around her, along with the imaginary children conceived in her mind, swimming in a prenatal and pre-societal space.

Considering the novel’s hierarchical social environment, the relative freedom of this imaginative space may alleviate the protagonist from social judgment. The original pre-societal and prenatal aspect imbues it with a (biologically) feminine construct. Therefore, we can interpret the envisioning of a prenatal and pre-societal space as a yearning for the original source.

Thus, Mari seeks the sexual space to act out primal gendered shame, where she embodies the feminine archetype and her partner, the masculine. Mari’s sexual encounter constitutes this space. Taking on these roles allows Mari to be forgiven for her femininity through sexual debasement. This may be why Mari falls more in love with the translator the more he humiliates and punishes her — through the sexual violence she endures she is redeemed.

Art by Elizabeth Tillar

THE ORIGINAL SOURCE

In “An Extraterrestrial,” the original source manifests as the body of the text’s title character. Due Overall, the internalization of the distorted to its lack of autonomy and its hermaphrodite feminine image – typically conveyed through the features, the Alien becomes the destination for which embodiment of a self-denying gender expectation the brother and sister can express their socially or gender archetype – is cultivated in the childhood unacceptable and thus repressed, affections for one and/or domestic space and characterizes these another — a bond anticipating disruption by the fictional women’s dysfunctional adult relationships. sister’s impending marriage – enabling the Alien to This leads to a longing for the original source — a act as a pre-societal space. Furthermore, several pre-societal place void of gendered shame and components determine the Alien as a feminine social expectations. The original source is an symbol.

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First, its emergence into the world: the egg connotes pregnancy. The egg from which the Alien came and the Alien itself is characterized by a vast emptiness. This space allows for repressed desires to be expressed. Thus, the feminineness of the Alien’s manifestation in the narrative lends to the pre-societal potential as well. The egg’s interior holds an endless nothing, another feminine construct since it describes the paradox of the feminine vessel: the perpetual emptiness due to its status as a vessel is paradoxical to its potential to carry something significant (i.e., life).

The story ends with the pair of siblings entering the alien’s vast and endless womb the night before the sister’s wedding. This reverse birth symbolizes the siblings’ mutual longing for the original source, which, through the Alien, represents the harmony of original unity, a pre-societal idea.

CONCLUSIONS

All in all the taboo and/or emotionally corrupted relationships that exist across, and thus connect all three texts, distort the feminine image. Grotesque offers a view into the domestic and interpersonal Thus, the Alien is used as a treasured vessel to dysfunction and rigidity upon which Japanese convey the brother and sister’s taboo relationship, society is based, a dysfunction that affects a paradox join their transgression, and connect their of extremes, which calls for unity and is expressed in (gendered) opposition, harmonious unity: several ways. Yuriko is so beautiful that she becomes "Between me and L lay the nothingness enclosed a monster, and interpersonal bonds are so drained by the fake flesh, our universe, so to speak".[11] of their authentic emotional quality that physical The Alien is, for the brother and sister, their appearance and sexuality become objects of “universe” of free sexual expression. And the obsession. In Grotesque, the distorted feminine Alien’s defining feminine construct of birth image is created within the domestic sphere; it identifies it as a site of transformation. The union projects gendered power dynamics (as seen through of the brother and sister through the alien, along the protagonist’s parents) and emotional corruption with the Alien’s hermaphrodite features, envisions (as seen through the cultivation of Yuriko’s and the the original source as a space of unity between Sato women’s personalities) into the societal sphere opposites. Likewise, the relationship between Mari and reflects those toxicities inwards as domestic, and the Translator in Hotel Iris represents a interpersonal, and individual maladjustment. Hotel similarly sacred place where the contrasting Iris approaches the distorted feminine image more archetypes and internalized shame are expressed transcendentally by having Mari and the translator and symbolically joined through sex. The act out the conflict between feminine and masculine translator's island and house exist as a sexual archetypes through their sexual relationship. We see universe, where Mari is reborn through masculine that Mari’s desire to have masculine order contain order. In short, the vision for original unity in her feminine chaos results from the feminine shame Hotel Iris manifests in the sexual relationship passed down from her mother. The act of passing between two characters, which marks the down supports how the distortion of the feminine destination where their archetypal transformation image has its roots in an inter-generational takes place. In “An Extraterrestrial,” the destination archetypal conflict that is internalized within of original unity is the Alien’s body, shared between individuals. Finally, “An Extraterrestrial”, Like Hotel the siblings as their pre-societal, uninhibitedly Iris and Grotesque, grounds sociological and expressive space that they are reborn into. metaphysical incongruency in gender and sexuality.

“An Extraterrestrial” envisions a utopia where both the paradox of extremes, and, the conflict between archetypal femininity and masculinity are resolved by unity in a perfect sensual universe.

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Endnotes [1] Kirino, Natsuo. Grotesque. Translated by Rebecca Copeland. (Peng Rand, 2008), 42-46.

[2] Kirino, 93.

[3] Kirino, 94.

[4] Kirino, 7.

[5] Kirino, 46-47.

[6] Kirino, 119.

[7] Kirino, 120.

[8] Ogawa, 16.

[9] Ogawa, Yoko. Hotel Iris. Translated by Stephen Snyder. (MAC HIGHER, 2010), 16.

[10] Ogawa, 55.

[11] Kurahashi, Yumiko and Atsuko Sakaki. “An Extraterrestrial .” Chapter. In The Woman with the Flying Head and Other Stories, (Armonk, NY: Routledge, 2015), 22

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Seventeenth-Century Dutch Animal Imagery Challenging Anthropocentrism: Paulus Potter’s Punishment of a Hunter By: Sofya Vorobeva

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INTRODUCTION

The painter, Paulus Potter, specialized in painting animals, especially domestic animals in Dutch In the painting Punishment of a Hunter, the Dutch pastures. Most of his works were animal portraits, seventeenth-century artist Paulus Potter depicted the majority being stable with minimal actions. His animals putting a hunter on trial and enacting a famous The Bull (1647) represents all these key death sentence. Surrounded by smaller allegorical features of his style (fig. 2), including his tendency to and hunting vignettes that show animals and give a human character to his animals and vice humans, the animal court and hunter’s execution versa.[1] by burning appear in two central scenes. In the upper central scene, the guilty hunter appears at the forest’s edge in front of the animal court. His arms are tied behind his back, and two wolves hold the ends of the rope. A bear stands behind the hunter and holds him tightly. Other animals preside in the court, with the lion at the head, while the fox records the proceedings, enacting the death sentence. In the lower scene, the hunter is roasted on a brazier.

Together a bear and a goat stand nearby with spoons, ready to taste the flesh of the guilty. In the cloud of smoke, two hounds hang from the tree and another two are waiting for their turn. Nearby, animals are dancing, celebrating justice over the hunter and his accomplices.

Figure 2 Paulus Potter. The Bull, 1647 Oil on canvas, 235.5 cm x 339 cm Mauritshuis, Den Haag, Netherlands

Figure 1 Paulus Potter. Punishment of a Hunter, c 1647 – 1650 Oil on wood panel, 84. 5 x 120 cm The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Punishment of a Hunter is distinct, both in terms of Potter’s other works and more broadly in Dutch seventeenth-century painting. The structure of the wood panel – fourteen scenes separated by black lines – was unusual for painting at that time and more common for printed engraving spreads. The level of activity on each scene stands out from the usual calm of Potter’s artworks. These two central scenes of trial and retribution raise questions about the conceptual and physical interrelations and commonalities between animals and humans. The smaller vignettes that surround the central scenes add context and moralizing narrative to the entire painting. The narrative and content of the artwork seem extraordinary for the seventeenth century for the contemporary viewer by its content and form.

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This painting turns power relations upside down, questions human superiority over other animals, and reflects on animal subjectivity. Even more remarkable and paradoxical is that this painting of animal consciousness and power was produced in the same era when humanist philosopher, René Descartes, developed his concept of mind-body dualism to define the human and proclaimed animals as reasonless automata. Therefore, the painting decentralizes the human at the origin of Cartesian thought where logos and sensitivity distinguishes humans from animals, well ahead of contemporary animal studies theories.

Hence, in the analysis of Potter’s artwork, this paper will build upon Nathaniel Wolloch’s approach, presented in his paper “Dead Animals and the BeastMachine,” of situating Dutch seventeenth-century paintings within the central philosophical ideas about humans and animals at that time and examine Descartes’ and Montaigne’s ideas in more detail in order to provide a contextualized reading of the painting.[4] Additionally, the contemporary philosophy is applied to analyze the artwork through the prism of questions about anthropocentrism, animal subjectivity, and their status in philosophical concepts.

Piers Beirne and Janine Janssen, in their essay Building upon this body of ideas, Punishment of a “Hunting Worlds Turned Upside Down,” apply a Hunter is interpreted as a satire on cruel hunting and cultural criminology approach to examine the a metaphorical statement that challenges human possible meanings that Potter invested in his mastery over animals and decentralizes humans painting.[2] Beirne and Janssen propose that it from a position of mastery. In arguing for this could be a satire on animal trials, a commentary on interpretation, the research will begin with formal the political situation, or an expression of contempt and iconographic analysis of the painting. Building for animal cruelty. They could not claim that any upon this analysis, the painting’s message is one of these readings are the most accurate because contextualized in the central philosophical ideas they lacked evidence, awareness and knowledge of about human-animal relationships in both Potter’s views.[3] Beirne and Janssen initially seventeenth-century philosophy and in the recently supposed that Potter’s painting condemns animal established field of animal studies. cruelty, but they could not develop this investigation because they believed that these views were not A SATIRE ON HUNTING typical for the seventeenth century.

Comprising of fourteen scenes separated by drawn Instead, this paper concentrates not on the thin frames, the entire painting measures 84.5 x 120 historical context of Potter’s artwork but on cm. It consists of twelve small side-scenes and two messages that people in the seventeenth century larger central ones. For a comparatively small may have perceived in this painting and what canvas, there are numerous figures arranged into insights they may provide to present-day viewers. different scenes. There are four types of images: This approach might be more fruitful since it does allegories, a portrait, hunting scenes, and the central not depend on Potter’s ideas and thoughts. Beirne climatic episodes. This analysis will concentrate on and Janssen’s paper shows a gap in the body of the role of these images in the construction of the research concerning the interpretations of how this painting’s complex message. painting was perceived through different epochs.

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The relationship between the side and central scenes play a key role in creating meaning. While we are first drawn to the central images due to their size, location and the density of figures, the smaller side scenes are essential for interpreting the central ones. The painting’s format resembles that of a polyptych, which often feature larger central panels surrounded by smaller secondary ones (fig. 3).

However, they typically have a chronological order that helps to create narrative structure.[5] In the case of religious polyptychs, this complex structure is implemented in conjunction with highly moralizing religious iconography. Moreover, polyptychs are constructed from separate connected panels, while Punishment of a Hunter is a single wood panel with painted lines that separate scenes.

Figure 3 (Above) Jan van Eyck. The Ghent Altarpiece (open view), 1432 Oil on wood panel, 520 x 375 cm Saint Bavo’s cathedral, Ghent, Belgium.

Figure 4 (Bottom Image) Etienne Dupérac. Verkeerde wereld, c 1560 Printed etching on paper, 37.1 cm x 50.8 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The structure of the painting also resembles the popular European tradition of “World Upside Down” (WUD) broadsheets, in which the world order is depicted in reverse. WUDs are satirical graphic works that ridicule ordinary things or show the oppressed in positions of power (fig. 4). WUDs are often accompanied by text that explains the scenes, an inverted globe or world map, and the title “World Upside Down.”.[6] Punishment of a Hunter employs some of the key features of the WUD to create a similar satirical effect and like the broadsheets, it features separate scenes. Notably, human and animal roles are often reversed in these prints.

Indeed, one possible source for Punishment of a Hunter is the etching Topsy-Turvy World (c. 15801600) by Ioan Galle (fig. 5).[7] It seems to combine both scenes depicted in Potter’s work – a bound hunter appearing before a court in the foreground, and the brazier and dogs hanged in the background.

Hence, the inheritance of the WUD tradition in Potter’s work becomes clear, since it inherits its structure, and the same plot was executed before in Galle’s WUD.

Figure 5 (Above) Ioan Galle. Topsy-Turvy World, c 1580 – 1600 Printed etching on paper, 21 cm x 29.8 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

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The surrounding scenes provide a broader context Two types of hunting scenes appear to the left and for understanding the images of punishment. right sides as well as at the bottom. The first Three upper vignettes set up a moral frame for demonstrates traditional hunting methods, such as interpreting the central images. The upper left hiding in the landscape with a gun or using traps. scene depicts the hunter Saint Hubert kneeling The second type presents the hunt as a battle, not a before a stag, who appears with a crucifix between strategic practice. Cornelis Hofstede de Groot his antlers. After this vision, St. Hubert preached claims that these scenes are caricatures of Peter that one should hunt animals humanely because Paul Rubens’ hunting scenes and this can be they are also creations of God and capable of confirmed by comparing the composition and suffering.[8] The upper right scene, which was plasticity of figures between Potter’s scenes and painted by Cornelis van Poelenburgh, depicts the Rubens’ painting (fig. 6).[10] Indeed, Potter myth of Diana and Actaeon.[9] It tells the story of references Rubens by depicting exotic animals, Actaeon, the hunter who accidentally encountered hunters in turbans, and the use of swords and longDiana, the goddess of the hunt, naked and distance weapons in a close battle, something that enjoying a bath with her nymphs. As punishment no real hunter would use in this way. These scenes for seeing her virtuous body naked, she highlight the damage done to animals and humans. transformed him into a stag. The painting depicts Hounds bite prey – the latter respond by ripping the start of the hunter’s transformation; a figure dogs and hunters apart. In the lion and wolf hunts, with antlers fleeing in panic. At the end of the people pierce the animals with spears and myth, Acteon is killed by his hounds, who fail to pitchforks. On the one hand, these battle hunting recognize him. Between these scenes, Potter scenes, alongside the traditional ones, stress the depicts the portrait of the hunter in refined clothes cruelty of the process, as well as presenting animals with prey and two hounds against a traditional and hunters in more equal positions. Like prey, the Dutch landscape. In this scene, the hunter appears hunters and hounds are also wounded during the as the owner of the land and master of Nature. battle.

However, the two flanking moralizing narratives question his status. The legend of St. Hubert In the central upper scene, Potter depicts the teaches that in Christian cosmology, morally animals putting the hunter on trial. The lion permissible hunting is practiced out of need and presides as judge and other animals serve as officers not out of greed or demonstration of power. Diana and guards. The hunter bows his head before the and Actaeon’s myth show in a metaphorical way lion and receives his judgment. In the background, that the hunter can become a prey one day. These four hounds wait their turn. Below, the sentence is two allegorical images with a portrait of the hunter carried out. The hunter is roasted on a brazier while in between raise the tenuousness of animal-human the goat and boar are ready with the spoons to eat distinction. They stress the closeness of humans to him. Two hounds hang from the tree, while a third animals via the metamorphoses of Christ-stag and accomplice waits their turn. On the right side, hunter-stag, and thus question human animals dance in celebration of justice. exceptionalism and mastery over animals.

Figure 6 Peter Paul Rubens. Meleagr and Atalanta Hunting, mid-1630s.

Oil on paper pasted on canvas, 316 x 622 cm.

The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

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These climactic scenes attract attention not only because of their size and density of figures but also due to the colors (e.g. a black cloud of smoke below and golden sunlight above). Framed by previous scenes, we can understand that the hunter received his retributive justice for causing much suffering to animals. In the center, the animals act like humans.

They do not kill like wild animals; but they do it like humans – by trial and execution. Notably, this painting does not have a singular hero. In each scene, the hunters are depicted with different faces, styles of clothes, horses, and hounds. Thus, the hunter in the center is not an individual but an archetype. His execution symbolizes the punishment of all cruel hunters.

The formal elements of the artwork support the WUD-like structure of the painting. Unlike Potter’s other paintings, Punishment of a Hunter is dense with figures of animals and humans in action.[11] Some animal poses and actions seem unnatural and anthropomorphic: a lion with a scepter, a fox holding a scroll, and dancing animals. Along with the battle-hunting scenes, these poses introduce a satirical aspect that coincides with the tradition of the world in reverse imagery. Moreover, the more conventional images of human-animal interactions on the sides of the painting reinforce the satirical essence of the central scenes. Providing a frame for the satirical images, the side scenes stress the cruelty and excessiveness of the hunts. Hence, the structure and formal elements of the painting enhance the satirical commentary on unethical ways of hunting.

Therefore, Punishment of a Hunter is a satire on cruel hunting and a metaphorical statement that challenges human mastery over animals and decentralizes humans. The analysis shows how side-scenes provide the moralizing context for central ones through the composition of the painting. The painting reminds the viewers that hunters can also be prey for some animals and suggests that all creatures are equal in their rights for co-existence in the world.

ANIMALS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT Punishment of a Hunter presents a complex message on the essence of the relations between humans and animals. In the seventeenth century, two major debates on animals centered around their cognitive abilities. The first was presented in the writings of Michel de Montaigne, a prominent sixteenth-century writer and philosopher. Even a century later, his thoughts were influential and were mainly articulated in the work of his disciples, such as Pierre Charron.[12] American philosopher, George Boas in his book The Happy Beast in French Thought of the Seventeenth Century (1933), introduces the notion of “theriophily” – the idea that animals are superior to humans. He argues that this concept is rooted in primitivism and observes that some thinkers concentrated on ancient (or primitivist) cultures like the Scythians and Hyperboreans. Some extended it to cultures that Europeans encountered during the period of exploration of the world. Simultaneously, as Boas puts it, other thinkers turned their attention to animals as an extreme point in primitivism, believing that animals are more “natural” than human beings.

Boas identifies this belief as theriophily. He states that some theriophilist thinkers argue that animals are better than humans because the former is better adapted for wilderness and are not perverted with intellect. This follows the same primitivist logic, in which “civilized people” are perceived as inferior to “savages.” However, other thinkers objected to the basic theriophilist claim by arguing that animals also have different forms of cognitive abilities, and it does not make them inferior to humans.[13] Boas identified Pierre Charron as the most prominent theriophilist and explored the origins of his views in Montaigne’s essays.

Boas claims that the essay “Of Cannibals” (1603) presents Montaigne’s primitivism or Theriophily in a better way. In this text, Montaigne affirms that savages are not more barbarous than civilized people but more natural.[14] Then, Boas shows that Montaigne despised human intelligence and pride.

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However, Boas cautions the reader not to interpret and thinking seem deceptive and confusing. Since, Montaigne’s works only through the lenses of according to Cottingham “feeling [sentire] is no animal superiority over humans because the French other thing than thinking.”[18] In this passage, philosopher also wrote some statements that Descartes clearly states that feeling is one of the presented the opposite view. Boas argues that these cognitive abilities – thinking – that is tightly opinions and statements were not peculiar to connected with self-consciousness. However, this Montaigne, who was influenced by the literary does not mean that Descartes’ denial of animal selftradition of paradoxes.[15] In the texts where he consciousness necessarily leads to the inability to raised the question of human-animal relations, feel. As Cottingham notes, Descartes employs two Montaigne stated that nature gave people and distinct terms that are both translated into English animals an equal means of defense. He claims that as “feeling” but mean slightly different things: all creatures have unique ways of interacting with sentire and passions. Sentire is the feeling that the world, and comparison of human features with requires self-consciousness and cognitive abilities animalistic traits does not provide a basis for that Descartes denied to animals. In contrast, claiming that one group is superior to another.[16] passions do not depend on thought or selfHowever, some of Montaigne’s followers and consciousness, and they may be found in animal readers have interpreted his comparisons between behavior (i.e., fear, hunger, and joy).[19] Thus, animals and humans in the discussed texts as an Descartes did not deny all animal feelings. assertion of animal superiority over humans.[17] They tend to focus on the passages where Moreover, Harrison argues that the concept of souls Montaigne states that intelligence is evil, animal is crucial for an understanding of feelings. Descartes’ instincts might be more divine than rational understanding of souls derives from Aristotelian human acts, and animals are nobler than people differentiation of them: vegetative (plant) souls, because they do not have servants and slaves. sensitive (animal) souls, and rational (human) souls.

Descartes claimed that there are two types of On the whole, the attitudes of Montaigne’s disciples movement: corporeal and mechanical (sensitive) towards animals were criticized and attacked by versus incorporeal and rational. He considered Descartes’ followers. Both sides had different animal movements to be mechanical because they points of view over the claim that animals are lacked self-consciousness or rational souls. Harrison reasonless automata, which Descartes presented in pays attention to the fact that Descartes, in his his book Meditations on First Philosophy. Building Meditations, “established rational grounds for belief upon this claim, Descartes’s readers concluded in God, other minds, and the external world.”[20] In that if animals cannot think and are deprived of other words, for Descartes, rationality is tightly self-consciousness, then they are non-sentient connected with spirituality. Harrison shows that beings. In his text “Descartes on Animals,” Peter Descartes in his letters claims that he cannot be Harrison examined Descartes’s original text, his certain if animal souls encompass spiritual actions, replies on letters with the questions about animals’ and that he did not deny that animals have the cognitive abilities, and other interpretations of the ability to feel pain.[21] Hence, for Descartes, since he philosopher’s position. Harrison starts his text could not be certain whether animal cognition is from John Cottingham’s reading of Descartes’s text similar on a spiritual level to human one, it was where he asserts that attentive, close reading shows better to claim that animal activities are mechanical that Descartes did not deny animals ability to feel. ones.

Furthermore, Descartes’ understandings of feeling

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TURNING FROM HUMAN TO ANIMAL

interconnections and relations between animals and humans.[22] On the other hand, he claims that even While Descartes and Montaigne, placed the human though people and animals are not separate in the center of their studies and animality is used as homogeneous groups, they can be united over the an instrument to define human nature and the violent and ignorant attitude of humans to other features of being human, Jacques Derrida criticizes species. Moreover, he highlights the paradox that this this approach. In his book The Animal That kind of attitude comes from species being divided Therefore I Am (2006), he examines the great divide into human and non-human groups. Hence, he in western thought between humans and animals, argues that the “animal” category is a crime against arguing that earlier philosophers ignored animals as animal species.[23] Following this same logic, we the objects of study and their influence on the may consider Potter’s Punishment of a Hunter as an construction of ideas about humans. He uses a opposite case because it unites all the hunters in the structuralist approach to address the history of the world under the category of “hunter.” The painting cultural separation of the category of animal from may be interpreted in two ways: it shows that the category of human, and the nature of this humans might be a mere “prey” category for division in culture. Derrida’s ideas had a major predators, or it shows hunters in the animal position, impact on other philosophers, and this text is as animals being killed only because they belong to perceived as a turning point in contemporary animal the non-human category. In other words, if we studies. Interest in animality – and not humanism – assume for a moment that the hunter in the center is is one of the crucial differences between not an archetype but an individual, animals execute contemporary theories and those of the seventeenth him regardless of his deeds but because he belongs to century. Donna Haraway, a philosopher influenced the category of “non-animal” abusers. This message,

by Derrida, criticizes the idea that the human is the in effect, creates a crime against humanity. central figure in the world in Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016).

Derrida also provides a close reading of Descartes This book considers ideas about human-animal and criticizes him for his logocentric approach to interactions in a dimension of conceptual thinking ontology: to exist and have an ability to respond, one over power and world order. Their ideas will be needs to have self-consciousness. Derrida argues that applied to formulate a contemporary interpretation Descartes’ approach excludes possible ways of of Potter’s artwork. comprehending animal responses because this logic is developed from human perception in opposition to In his text, Derrida presents the idea of the great animality.[24] Moreover, he claims that the animal divide between animals and humans. He examines point of view is missing from the discourse because it ideas presented in different cultural objects, such as is the product of human reason.[25] Therefore, the Book of Genesis, works of literature, and existing discourse over human-animal relations limits philosophical texts. All these sources share a our comprehension of communication to the abilities common separation of humankind from the of Homo sapiens and does not consider alternative diversity of other species called “animals.” He ways of interacting with each other. criticizes this binary opposition between two categories because it creates an abyss between them From this perspective, Punishment of a Hunter in our comprehension and deters the development allows viewers to reflect upon the possibility of of a more complex understanding of humans and animal responses to human actions. In this painting, animals. Derrida argues that this oversimplification the animals have their own point of view on excessive is even more harmful to the comprehension of hunting and response to it, which allows us to rethink animals because, under this abstract group, the the content of the painting from the animal’s incredible diversity of living beings is homogenized. perspective.

It creates an obstacle for thinking about possible

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On the other hand, this painting shows us the limitation of human understanding of the animal point of view. Potter’s animals act according to European human customs – they do not kill the hunter in the manner of predators, they do it like humans by means of trial and execution.

Nonetheless, the moralizing narratives suggest different ways of interaction between humans and animals, by revealing animal pain, which is ignored by humans.

Therefore, contemporary animal studies try to abandon anthropocentric logic and propose conceptions that allow consideration of other species at play. Both Derrida and Haraway recognize animals’ ability to respond to human actions. This analysis allows us to see the painting’s message as a warning for people that they are not the masters of nature; that this mastery harms and limits the perception of the world and interaction with it.

CONCLUSION

In Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Donna Haraway criticizes the concept Given the preceding arguments, initially, Punishment of “the Anthropocene,” which presents humans as of a Hunter, seems to condemn animal suffering, comparable to a major geological force that changes which is a rather unconventional message for the nature and to a planetary force that has power over seventeenth century. Formal and iconographic other forms of life. She argues that this concept analysis shows that this painting is a satire on cruel promotes human exceptionalism and presents hunting. Even though the artwork does not condemn humans as the key force that changes the world. To all forms of hunting, it clearly presents moralizing counteract the shortcomings of this concept, she narratives that label excessive hunting as wrong and proposes to switch the primary focus away from the highlights the tenuousness of the distinction between human species and instead to consider them as part animal and human. Descartes and Montaigne’s ideas of the enormous web of interactions between the support this point by recognizing that animals diversity of living beings.[26] Moreover, she argues deserve equal consideration in discussions about that the Anthropocene is a harmful concept for pain and interspecies interactions. These statements humans considering ecological crisis because it dispel contemporary misconceptions about the presents humans as villains who will destroy Earth perception of human-animal relationships in the and all life, including themselves. She proposes to seventeenth century. By abandoning anthropocentric accept the troubles that people caused to the world logic, contemporary animal studies reveal the and take responsibility for it. She argues that people painting’s attempt to show hunting from the point of need to abandon apocalyptic thinking as seemingly view of the animals. This context adds to the unavoidable and maintain a more responsible way moralizing message that people are not the masters of living and acting together with other living and of nature and that the arbitrary exercising of power nonliving actors on Earth.[27] She does not relieve over animals will eventually end tragically for all humans from responsibility for the climate disaster, living beings. This approach allows us to reflect upon but rather proposes to rethink our place in the our cultural and physical attitudes to animals and to ecosystem and loss of hope in case of preventive consider more ethical ways of interaction with our actions. In the context of Potter’s painting, sentient neighbors.

Haraway’s approach supports the painting’s message, which overthrows human supremacy over Therefore, Punishment of a Hunter challenges the animals. In this light, Potter presents humans as anthropocentrism that is dominant in Western villains who kill animals for amusement and bring culture. Both in the seventeenth century and today, it disbalance to biodiversity. The animal trial reminds proposes alternative ways of perceiving hunting and us that people cannot abuse nature eternally because interacting with animals. The painting decentralizes people are not separate from the tight web of humans from the position of mastery over nature and interspecies interactions. proclaims ethical methods of hunting.

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Endnotes [9] Hofstede de Groot and Hawke, “Paulus Potter,” [1] Hofstede de Groot and Hawke, 583–85.

590.

[2] Beirne and Janssen, “Hunting Worlds Turned [10] Hofstede de Groot and Hawke, 592.

Upside Down?,” 49–69.

[11] Hofstede de Groot and Hawke, 583.

[3] Beirne and Janssen, 22, 23, 25, 26.

[12] George Boas, The Happy Beast in French [4] Nathaniel Wolloch, “Dead Animals and the Thought of the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore: The Beast-Machine: Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Johns Hopkins press, 1933), 2, Paintings of Dead Animals, as Anti-Cartesian http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b685327.

Statements,” Art History 22, no. 5 (1999): 705–27, [13] Boas, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.00183.

[14] Boas, 3; Villey,“Les Essais” de Michel de [5] Dustin Garnet, “Polyptych Construction as Montaigne, I xxxi, I 256.

Historical Methodology: An Intertextual Approach to [15] Boas, 9. the Stories of Central Technical School’s Past,” [16] Boas, 4, 19; Villey, II xii f. 181-205, 214 f.

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in [17] Boas, 4, 9.

Education 28, no. 8 (September 14, 2015): 955, [18] Harrison, “Descartes On Animals,” 222. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2014.933911.

[19] Harrison, 222, 225.

[6] David Kunzle, “Bruegel’s Proverb Painting and [20] Harrison, 223, 224, 226. the World Upside Down,” The Art Bulletin 59, no. 2 [21] Harrison, 226.

(June 1977): 198, [22] Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.1977.10787404. Am, ed. Marie-Louise Mallet (New York: Fordham [7] Here I would like to thank my supervisor Erika University Press, 2008), 33, 47.

Wolf for drawing my attention to this image.

[23] Derrida, 48.

[8] Like in the Bernie and Janssen paper, sometimes [24] Derrida, 87. the figure of St. Hubert is confused with the St. [25] Derrida, 11.

Eustace. However, unlike Eustace, as the devotional [26] Donna Jeanne Haraway, Staying with the figure, Hubert wears robes, and as the patron saint Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham: of hunters, he has a hunting horn. Moreover, unlike Duke University Press, 2016), 49.

Eustace, he appears only in the art of northern [27] Haraway, 2, 49.

Europe after the sixteenth century; Beirne and Janssen, “Hunting Worlds Turned Upside Down?,” 19; James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, ed. Kenneth Clark, Icon Editions (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 158.

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