NU KS
"CENTRE AND PERIPHERY"
TABLE OF CONTENTS: "Who Are You When You Are Alone?"........................................................... 1 KNUS in pictures........................................................................................... 2-3 About Belonging............................................................................................ 4 Recommendations.......................................................................................... 5 Thoughts on a dream......................................................................................6-7 "My Spanish", "My Chinese" - Are they really ours?....................................... 8 The Hidebehind............................................................................................. 9 Black photography......................................................................................... 10-11 Mediterranean Blue (a poem)......................................................................... 12 Suffocation (a short story).............................................................................13 Decentring the Cisgender Norm.................................................................... 14-5 KNUS Quotes................................................................................................. 16 KNUS Symposium Theme Reveal....................................................................17
DEAR READER,
Welcome to the second edition of the NUKS in the academic year 2021-2022. It’s been a while since you last read the NUKS - how are you? What’s changed? What’s stayed the same? We worked on the NUKS during February, which is Black History Month. While we were brainstorming for the NUKS, we had some ideas about how to observe Black History Month, but while we were talking, it quickly became apparent that we do not have any particular insight to add to black history. Globally, there’s no shortage of nonblack voices providing commentary. White people are used to being in the centre, so of course our instinct is continue to centre ourselves. With this in mind, we decided instead to focus on the process of decentring the dominant narrative, and encouraging readers of the NUKS to consider the spaces in which they are in the centre, and those in which they are in the periphery. Allyship, anti-racism and activism require those in the centre to uplift those in the periphery, so we need to get used to hearing voices from the periphery. This is a muscle we hope you can exercise while reading this edition of the NUKS, and apply this same perceptiveness to black voices and experiences. In this issue of the NUKS, our editors explore what it is to be in the Centre, and what it means to be in the Periphery. To be on the front page, centre-stage; to be by the by, to be lurking in the corner of your eye.
Much love, Editor-in-Chief: Charlie Chowdhry
Designer-in-Chief: Anthea Vevirya Djajaprawira
Editors: Sophie Ingle Kameron Brnja Kai van der Vlist Jonathan Zackor
Adil Boughlala (helped in designing this NUKS too!) Daniela Piangiolino Angela Wang
“Who are you when you are alone?” Sophie Ingle It was not so long ago when I first heard this question, and even now, it is difficult to formulate an answer to it. Undeniably, even when there is nobody else around, I still possess the features I have spent hours grappling with, wishing that A was different, or that B was more consistent. Yet, A and B are not inherent to me. They are simply letters of the alphabet from which I choose how to present my X’s and who gets to know my O’s. It is a social actor’s alphabet, but when I am sifted and strained from society’s stigmas and standards, I am bare. I am beginning to outgrow some of the costumes I have been squeezed into, time and time again; for what use is a costume if I boycott the performance? I do not need to force myself into a box carved so immaculately by a faceless sculptor I have no desire to please. I am beginning to find myself beneath the masks and layers of paint; I do not need to “smile more” nor “be more lady-like”. Though, I must remember to give myself time and to be kind to my mind. The barricades are breaking, but rusting the ironclad expectations of oneself is no simple task. One pink, one purple, and one blue; I keep some spare masks in the pocket of my trusty jacket. I am saving them for the days when I do not feel so brave, where I allow myself to be engulfed in the controversial comfort blanket that is the performance of my identity. Perhaps I ought not to label such a performance as one of “my” identity, but a performance of identity in the abstract, for it does not need to be me, as it does not need to be you. The two of us may sometimes wear similar costumes, yet one person’s suit of armour may weigh another down. I am beginning to outgrow some of the costumes I have been squeezed into, but in their place, I am learning to sew together the attire I want to unveil. Identity is a performance, and you have the leading role. In light of that, who are you when you are alone?
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KNUS in Pictures
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about belonging IV
Kameron Brnja there is a farm all the way at the PERIPHERY. it is a strange place at four am: it is never clear if there are animals in the barns, but the doors open and shut with the bolts creaking anyway. fog diffuses the sterile white of the streetlamp. movement feels like slow motion as the fog captures limbs dragging through the air. only the stars escape. the town always engulfs them, and they come to the farm to be free. to let go of a place where they are misunderstood. (if only it was so easy to be like stars.) it is freezing to stand on the road with a flannel and memories in a backpack, but who can still be rational? a bus arrives and the seat next to the driver, all the way in the front, is vacant. the large transparent windows offer a panoramic view of the dark. at first, it is a winding road where every slight turn is felt as the bus tilts. the headlights catch glimpses of deer observing night passengers from within their forest haven. later, it is the familiar highway route towards the mountain. the peaks are visible from the moment the bus approaches rolling hills. and then the sun begins to rise, ever so slightly. the pitch black nature is tinted a deep evergreen and the sky shifts into indigo. i feel true belonging in the meeting point of the horizon where colours blend and transition is inevitable. the bus arrives in the CENTRE when the sun looks down at the earth directly from above. the capital city is unfamiliar with its never-ending avenues and bridges high above the river. the bus stops at the central station. there are no further directions besides: finally, the big world. finally, the realisation of how broad and suffocating being an individual is at the same time. the closest thing to belonging i can reach is wandering the streets, without a map so that my mind can stretch and let go.
Recommendations
Adil Boughlala
Death to 2021 (Netflix) Death to 2021, talk about an impactful title! This mockumentary (‘mock documentary’, remember Film Analysis?) produced by Netflix and the producers of Black Mirror is a sequel to - you guessed it - Death to 2020. The film recaps all the major events that happened during the year in chronological order. The interview-based film is filled with characters, extreme archetypes really, that make you laugh because of their funnily extreme and exaggerated interpretation of the situation, or they make you somewhat uncomfortable because the characters actually hit very close to home. In Death to 2021, the characters range from social media addicted influencer, to Republican news anchor, to an anti-vax Karen mom and so on. If you are easily offended and do not enjoy dark humour, this series is not for you!
Daughter of the Moon Goddess (Sue Lynn Tann) Based on the Chinese deity Chang’e, the debut fantasy book by Sue Lynn Tann and the first entry of the Celestial Kingdom Duology, Daughter of the Moon Goddess follows the main character Xingyin who lives on the moon. When Xingyin’s magical powers are discovered and her mother is taken by the Celestial Emperor, she is forced to embark on a quest towards the Celestial Kingdom in order to save her mother. The book is reviewed as the beginning of “an enchanting, romantic duology which weaves ancient Chinese mythology into a sweeping adventure of immortals and magic”. Daughter of the Moon Goddess will be released at the beginning of 2022.
Working With Water (Central Coast Council) We live in a time when bringing awareness to climate change is so important that, thankfully, all the means available are used to get across this message. Central Coast Council combines awareness for climate change with serious games* into a turn-based strategy web game in which you help the city of New South Wales, Australia in responsibly handling the water supplies and building adequate infrastructures for an increasingly bigger demand. The game, although visually pleasing and having a cute mascot, effectively educates players with every step and choice they make. While playing the game, you learn a lot about water management, but in a fun way! Working with Water is free to play, just type in the following link: https://www.chaostheorygames.com/work/working-with-water *games or game-like interactive systems developed with game technology and design principles for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment, such as education
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Jonathan Zackor
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality. Open your eyes…”
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I am sure that I have been in this exact location in my dreams. How did it end up on Instagram, on an account that shares images with the hashtags #liminalaesthetic #liminalcore #weirdcore? How can it be that the location captured in this image does not exist in our reality, yet I know every corner of it? The items on the images are artificially put together, posted to attract an audience that finds entertainment and pleasure in eeriness. Looking at this picture, we might experience an otherworldliness. Something is not right, it is out of the ordinary, it might even have some nightmarish qualities. Why? A recreational swimming area with slides ending in a pool of water; bright colours; a ridiculously big red mushroom; an over-exaggerated, comic book-style frog head - this is the setting usually associated with a children’s playground. But where are the children? Where is any human being? If the location is abandoned, why are there no obvious signs of decay, deterioration, dirt? Everything is just illuminated by white light which creates a blue-ish, greenish tint that contributes to the dismissiveness of this creepy, unsettling space. If you would imagine yourself trapped there - could you escape? Or would you be on a constant search for a way out, eventually crawling on the white chequered, cold tiles, or freezing in a corner? One could say, the image lives on the periphery of the centre that we call reality: the recreational swimming area is unsettling because it doesn’t look quite real, but it does look real enough that we could mistake it for being the reality. Peripheries are contested spaces: while they may be defined as spaces of potential freedom, they deviate from a centre that is often regarded as the dominant: the one that makes all the rules, the one that is structured, safe. Centres are not able to touch peripheries, or deliberately avoid the touch with them. In the contested periphery space, the cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah offers the concept of ‘contamination’ as a counter-ideal to romantic notions of ‘cultural purity’ that is attached to the centre. When looking up contamination in the dictionary, I encountered two definitions: 1.) “making something impure or unsuitable by contact with something unclean, bad, etc.”, or 2.) “rendering something harmful or unusable by the addition of (e.g. radioactive) material”. So, in a way, contamination always refers to a (material) body that becomes impure through an outside influence, and is not only outside the norm but even repelled or rejected by it. This image certainly has this impurity, this creepy-ness to it - a characteristic of contamination. Hence: is there an outside, perhaps peripheral influence that ‘corrupts’ the items that usually belong to a children’s playground? Can peripheral influences always ‘corrupt’ bodies belonging to the centre? But looking with a peripheral vision, that is, with a sense of revelation and innovation, countering the lingering association of a periphery as being backward and stagnating, we experience only a new context to these ‘corrupt’ things: being rejected from the centre gives them the freedom of having endless meanings, and even being able to appear in our dreams… or nightmares.
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“My Spanish”, “My Chinese”are they really ours? Angela Wang
Melissa Lozada-Oliva was born in the US as a second-generation Latino: in her poem “My Spanish”, she illustrates how trying to speak Spanish is “reaching for words and only finding air.” I, having lived my childhood in Peking, did not expect that it would so strongly echo with a struggle of mine which I could not describe properly until now. I remember the 12-year-old me, who unwillingly flew for 4853 miles to a scaringly unknown future... I remember how I deemed myself more German than Chinese at 14 and the shameful pride inside when my peers told me the same, or the fact that my dead name was never really alive. “If you ask me if I am fluent in [Chinese],” I'll tell you about my three mother tongues and their endless debate on who the biological parent is; I'll tell you about feeling a bit excluded from the people who were born on the same land as me and more included by the people from places I've never been. My Chinese is the curse of being torn between belonging everywhere and nowhere. My Chinese is the blessing that forms me as a living example of ‘human being, before anything else.’ If you ask us if we are fluent in the language we are ‘supposed’ to speak most well/best?, we will only write into poetry that, like a blurry memory we can’t seem to remember, “there are letters that will always stay silent. There are words that will always escape [us]” - yet they never really leave either.
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Editor's note: you can find readings of My Spanish by Melissa Lodaza-Oliva online, on YouTube.
THE D N I H E B E HID st Kai van der Vli
Nocturnal. About six feet tall. A slender body, allowing it to hide completely behind most trees. Almost impossible to tell whether the critter is coming or going, and practically hopeless to locate its face — if there even is one. Marvellously quick. Stays behind its victims, no matter their efforts to face it. This beast originates from American folklore, along with creatures like Bigfoot, and is said to roam the wilderness of the Great Lakes region. There have been no official records, as it never leaves humans’ peripheral vision. So, if you ever visit the forests, try to watch your back; the Hidebehind probably is, too.
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Dana Scruggs - @danascruggs
Clifford Prince King - @cliffordprinceking
Mark Clennon - @mark.c
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Denisse Ariana Pérez - @denisseaps
CHECK THEM OUT!
Aisha Seriki - @occupiedbythelens
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Mediterran e ja rn
Blue an
Kam ero nB
AUTUMN rain plummets down on my island crafted out of silver shells. i discover the ones abandoned by crabs and make necklaces that echo the murmurs of a land far away. WINTER dawn turns the page of a new calendar as the mediterranean shivers under the wind. the sun scrapes my skin with their teeth. SPRING transparent jellyfish float to wherever the current drifts. should i also let go of the rough cliffs i desperately hold on to? SUMMER heat melts the music of the cicadas and the heartbeat of the village into one. i offer necklaces to travellers, hoping that at least the seashells can leave this endless summer behind.
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N O I T A C O F F U S ng a W a l Ange
Asherah. She settles her foot – before her entire body – onto the biting sand, as an almost unfamiliar feeling sinks in, so forgotten that she only starts to remember as the grainy particles tingles her skin, the way a childhood friend does. In the abandoned seaside’s kind embrace, every muscle of hers loses tension, inch by inch, until an artist that only this very place embodies, draws long-lost joy onto her cheeks. Then, drifting into the tides – as naturally as a drop of morning dew that flows away from its leaf-bed to visit the grass below – her smile widens, finally believing that she has returned to home. More and more fishes begin to surround her, weaving together a kaleidoscope-landscape as she dances with them from its center. Yet all of a sudden, the sunlit waves of Asherah no longer entice her vision: instead, she was back, finding herself in the dark, dry room of the cruel present. Without a second thought, she screams. The midnight clock ticks, unbothered by her wish to travel to a realm that is not here and now. Rustling sounds nearby. “Breaaaa! The same dream again? Brea, look me in the eyes. Take deep brea-ths.” “Eeth, I can’t.” A soft yet cold ocean blanket cuts its way out of her eyes, falling crumpled onto her trembling fins.
Her brother beholds her face, which resembles the red dusk on a dessert maliciously teased by the scanty rain. The girl in front of him seems endearingly delicate, despite the turbulent storm she embodies, unaccompanied by any hint of aesthetic. He taps on her shoulder lightly with his right hand, and as he expected, she lifts up her heavy head and stares back with an empty gaze, as if waking up paralyzed by a silent, but gruesome nightmare. The blankets don’t stop forming anew, and the gates are all open now, releasing waters of the past she has been holding back in her dam for too long. At the sight of a Brea whose entire body shivers in the abnormally freezing autumn air, Eeth couldn’t help but precipitously wrap his arms around her with a hug hundred times tighter and more caring than a warm winter coat. Brea does not sense the regretful wistfulness he buries within, as he wasn’t able to prevent the thunder that tears her apart. Instead, with perseverant patience, he could only hope to mend the ripped pieces of her paper heart, that was once painted colourful, now nothing but deep, deep blue.
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DECENTRING THE CISGENDER NORM (or: how to stop wondering whether you should ask that person what their pronouns are or not)
Charlie Chowdhry
Think about times you’ve asked somebody what their pronouns are. Nice allyship, right?! Well done. Now think about times you’ve been asked for your pronouns. I’m going to stick my neck out and make a gamble here: you’ll definitely have been asked for your pronouns more often if you’re nonbinary, or if you’re someone is confusing to cisgender people for whatever reason. Congratulations on causing consternation in the cisgender community at large, you get a little kiss on your forehead from me. Keep doing what you’re doing. I think cisgender people deserve some credit for creating a system for trying to spot trans people that is so oversensitive that it sometimes ‘catches’ people that aren’t even transgender. It hurt itself in its confusion! This isn’t just limited to TERFs or other transphobic weirdos trying to decide if somebody is trans so they can be all weird and transphobic. No, I think that this system is present in everybody’s thought process (including people who aren't cis). The process in question? Trying to see which cisgender norm of appearance a person fits the most. Deep-voiced person with otherwise ‘feminine’ features? Oh dear, I think I’ll just check what their pronouns are. Short ‘masculine’ person with very soft bone structure? Think I’ll just double check what their pronouns are real quick. Oh this person is sending me many different signals because of their voice, mannerisms and bone structure, I’m 100% going to get this wrong so I’ll ask for their pronouns.
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This tends to happen subconsciously (at least, I hope that you do not enter a Sherlock mind palace where you piece together different aspects of a person’s gender presentation in order to tell what their gender is), but there is a level of assessment that goes into choosing to ask for somebody’s pronouns. There is an assumption, I fear, that a transgender person will either look transgender (i.e. not successfully perform cisness), or they will ‘pass’. Generally, the only time people are asked for their pronouns is if they do not pass as a binary gender. I do not pass; I am not asked for my pronouns. My trans friends who pass as their (binary) gender are not asked for their pronouns. My trans friends who do not pass as any binary gender, theirs or otherwise, are asked for theirs.
Hi, I'm Charlie! My pronouns are he/him.
In short, anybody who does not successfully perform cisness (regardless of whether they’re trans or cis) will be asked for their pronouns, but somebody who does not attempt cisness will likely not be asked in the first place (also regardless of whether they’re trans or cis). Now, what on earth does ‘attempting cisness’ mean? If you attempt cisness, you are trying to look cisgender; you are trying to fit a cisgender norm of appearance for a particular gender. In spite of my own dysphoria I refuse to attempt cisness for various personal reasons that I could write another article about, the most prominent reason being that I don’t care about cisgender people. I am seldom asked for my pronouns and frequently ‘she/her’-red, even though I socially transitioned in 2015. If you’re a cisgender person who successfully performs cisgender norms of the gender you were assigned at birth, it’s likely that you are also seldom asked for your pronouns. Ultimately, you cannot tell what somebody’s pronouns are by looking at them or just talking to them. You do not have the power. You may be able to smell out cisgender norms of appearance and voice patterns and be able to put somebody in a box because of it, but as somebody who is frequently misgendered regardless of whether I’m in a room full of queer art students or sweaty gamer men, you are all absolutely rubbish at telling what a person’s pronouns are. Like, abysmal at it. Until a point in time that everybody wears a pronoun badge, we need a new solution for this issue, because as you may have noticed, deciding if someone has failed at cisgender norms of gender presentation before you ask them for their pronouns is rather transphobic. So, what is the solution to this conundrum? How do you become a better ally, whether you are cisgender or not? How do you stop wondering whether you should ask that person what their pronouns are or not? The solution, my dearest reader, is to introduce yourself with your pronouns, and then ask absolutely everybody for theirs. Yes, everybody. Old people, young people, that person wearing makeup, that person wearing cargo shorts with a crew cut, that person who you’re absolutely, positively sure could not possibly be transgender. Because, get this:
cisgender people also tend to have pronouns.
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KNUS Do cocaïne, you become a doctor - Sam I would be up to direct porn - Anne Two flies in one klap - Merel The bathroom is just high - Anna
Oh no more Germans, gatverdamme - Miriam
QUOTES
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KNUS SYMPOSIUM THEME REVEAL:
All of us are interested in art. It is, after all, what we chose to study and spend our time researching and writing about. But what exactly do we get out of art? Is it something we simply enjoy looking at or can we also derive pleasure from it? During KNUS’ yearly symposium we will discover what it is exactly that art and pleasure have in common. A museum visit, a theater play or a random encounter with art on the street. What is it exactly that fascinates us and allows us to derive pleasure from art? During the symposium the lines between art and pleasure will be blurred as we try to get a better understanding of what we experience while admiring art. We will invite three speakers and a graceful host who will delve deep into this year’s topic. Each speaker will talk about a different discipline and present a new and exciting perspective on the topic of Art & Pleasure. You might ask yourself when you will be able to attend this Symposium? It will be held on Tuesday the 7th of June from 13:30 to 17:30 in Theater Hall C (if the corona measures allow it). Keep an eye on KNUS' social media for updates regarding the symposium!
7 JUNE 2022 | THEATRE HALL C
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Friends of KNUS: Marcel van de Haak
www.studieverenigingknus.nl