Suture XI: Fall 2022

SUTURE

Issue XI, Fall 2022

EDTIORS-IN-CHIEF

Bella Moses

Lillian Norton-Brainerd

EDITORIAL BOARD

Kate Broeksmit

Olivia Chandler

Ally Feisel

Caitlin Gooding

Alex Glogoff

Morgan Hodoroweski

Alison Isko

Caitlin Moehrle

Ashley Scheichet

Lucas Zheng

Suture is a student-run academic journal associated with Hamilton College that showcases insightful and elo quent critical essays in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Suture is a peer-edited journal grounded in the belief that access to incisive, original criticism is essential to anyone’s development as a reader, schol ar, and appreciator of the creative arts and humanities.

CONTENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE 1

EMMA SWAN

Between the Lines: Boundaries and Difference in Avatar and District 9 2

What Do You See?: Subjectivity in Modernist Poetry 9

CAITLIN MOEHRLE

Claude Debussy’s Dirge: The Sonata for Violin and Piano as Compositional Culmination 15

LILLIAN NORTON-BRAINERD

Constitutional Rights of Nature: An Approach to Imagining Decolonial Futures 21

Dear reader, Reviewing the Suture submissions semester after se mester, we look forward to seeing the vast range of topics that students write about, topics which emerged in class es within Hamilton’s diverse curriculum and were taken up by writers who imparted them with their distinct perspectives and life experiences. Taken outside of the context of the classroom, these essays demonstrate students’ commitment to exploring, thinking, and investing in complexity through writing. Essays are more than simply an in-class assignment; they serve to analyze, to cri tique, to provide inspiration, to spark conversations… The essays published this semester demonstrate the capacity of students to generate in-depth analysis, to engage in meaningful ways with art and culture of all kinds, and to challenge dominant epistemologies and narratives. In this issue, we see how the arts are inscribed into the world around us, how music, films, poetry, and law have far-reaching implications, and how nature complicates human ideas of cat egorization. By reading the following essays, we hope you come to a new understanding of the value of critical engage ment and the importance of eloquent writing in constructing an argument, but we hope most of all that these essays will renew your appreciation for art and culture and for the rich world of meaning that exists all around at every moment.

Happy reading, Bella and Lillian

Between the Lines: Boundaries and Difference in Avatar and District 9

EMMA SWAN

Science fiction creates a perfect blank canvas onto which storytellers can project their attitudes about the interactions between dominant and subjugated cultures. Directors aware of this opportunity can wield this canvas for produc tive social commentary, especially through the creation of narratives that condemn the colonial attitudes of the dom inant culture. Through the framework of postcolonial studies, the divide between aliens and humans becomes an ex tended metaphor for the divide between real peoples, and the level of sensitivity used in handling this divide in fiction deeply affects the condemnation of reality the director sets forth. James Cameron’s film Avatar and Neill Blomkamp’s film District 9 both have this intended effect; parallels between their fiction and real events—the United States’ colo nization of Native Americans and South Africa’s apartheid, respectively—indicate a will to highlight the subjugated cul ture in these historical moments and indict their attackers. Specifically, both films create a binary relationship between humans and aliens, but examining how District 9 more effectively blurs binaries societally, physically, and interpersonally leads to a better understanding of how Avatar fails. Avatar creates boundaries for its humans and aliens through stereotypes relating to technology and nature. Cam eron depicts the Na’vi as in tune with nature, spiritual, and undeveloped with regard to technology and weapons, while the RDA, the main human administration, shows a disregard for nature and spirituality but has guns and steel to exert their will over the helpless Na’vi. Cameron utilizes the very common “noble savage” trope in which a native’s primitivity allows them to connect more deeply with the world around them. This trope relies on the native being primitive in con

trast to the developed hegemonic culture—in this movie, the RDA. Although the trope grants the natives a sort of moral high ground, it still reinforces a binary in which the hegemonic culture is firmly in power. Philosopher Jacques Der rida asserts that “there are very few neutral binaries;” one pole of the binary “is usually the dominant one, the one which includes the other within its field of operations” (Hall 253). Cameron recreates this binary by establishing these same power relations. The RDA has the capacity to subjugate the Na’vi through the use of force and technology, especially tak ing DNA to embody and infiltrate their ranks. The dominant pole of the binary is the one with the power to enforce its narrative, and in this domain, the RDA is securely in control. The society in District 9 splits its humans and aliens along the binary opposition of purity and contamination. Within the documentary frame of the film, the prawns, District 9’s aliens, appear only ever digging through trash, ema ciated, or fighting over scraps. Blomkamp places these scenes in juxtaposition to clean offices with professors analyzing prawn behavior and the city itself, standing in pristine, colonial glory. The offices invoke the elitism of academia and the clean and rigid structure inherent to its operations. Academia keeps itself at a level above the populace, earning the title of “higher” education. The city itself appears in the film many times from a bird’s eye view, allowing the steel to shine in the sun. The glare off the steel, too, evokes the image of cleanliness; the media certainly does not show parts of the city they consider dirty. In contrast to the prawns, who are “down” in the dirt, living in shacks swarming with flies, the media in District 9 creates a binary opposition be tween the clean humans and the contaminated prawns. The direct juxtaposition of these scenes in the frame narrative reveals a deliberateness in the establishment of this binary. Jake’s physical transformation cements the binary op position between Na’vi and human. Throughout the film, Jake relates to the Na’vi through a synthetic recreation of their own body; the titular avatar is a blend of Na’vi DNA and the DNA

of Jake’s late twin. Despite the apparent physical blending of these two poles of the binary, the product is something dis tinctly Na’vi. The physical form that Jake occupies is only offset by his unpracticed mannerisms; Neytiri comments that he acts like “a baby” in the lush forests of Pandora, but the synthesis of human and Na’vi goes uncommented on by the tribe. The hybrid body, too, can take part in inherently embodied Na’vi rituals, especially the linking of their hair to other crea tures and spiritual objects. The human DNA hardly plays a part at all besides allowing Jake’s consciousness to inhabit the body. Therefore, the addition of Na’vi creates something that is Na’vi rather than a blend; one may shift from one end of the binary to the other, but not exist in a middle ground. Camer on depicts this shift in the culmination of his film as one akin to rebirth. Jake abandons his human body in favor of an able Na’vi one, and states in a voice-over, “The aliens went back to their dying world.” Through this symbolic move, Jake fully embraces the Na’vi end of the human-Na’vi binary by ‘otherizing’ the human culture. Refusing to acknowledge commonali ty or middle ground, Jake reinforces boundaries between the groups despite his apparent transition. This transition, too, accentuates binary themes present throughout the piece. In order to take up the able Na’vi body that he inhabits for most of the film, human Jake must die in a ritual. Through requiring the death of the human body to accept the native body, Camer on reinforces that these bodies are forces completely opposed. Jake’s commitment to the Na’vi comes inherently as a rejec tion of humans and the opposite end of the binary extreme. The depiction of Jake’s relationship with his humanness and Na’vi-ness eliminates nuance in the conversation of identity binaries. Hall argues that although binaries are necessary as tools to understand the world, they also tend to be “reductionist and over-simplified – swallowing up all distinctions in their rather rigid two-part structure” (253). Cameron absolutely falls into this trap within his film. By framing Jake’s nativeness strictly as a rejection of his humanness, Cameron creates a strict dichotomy that allows no room for “distinc-

tions.” He creates a system that is maximally “rigid,” as one has to die to transition from one end to another. More than that, “over-simplification” is one of the film’s largest flaws; after just three months of living among the Na’vi, they accept him as one of their own, eventually embracing him as their leader due to a demonstrated dominance of natural elements. When Jake dominates natural beasts that prey on the Na’vi, he demonstrates mastery over the Na’vi’s realm of the bina ry dynamic. This mastery, then, creates the conditions for his acceptance because the Na’vi mostly stand in for an end of a binary rather than an alive political community. They resist him at first, but once Jake completely dominates nature, the community has no choice but to yield to his transition.

Wikus physically crosses the boundary between human and prawn in District 9, and in his transformation, the relationship between the two groups is cast less in terms of extreme opposites and more in terms of a spectrum. Wikus’s body gradually transforms into prawn, starting with his arm and extending into his torso. Here, difference appears as parts of a whole rather than distinct opposites. Wikus embodies a crossing of boundaries between those parts, compli cating their separation as opposites and introducing a sense that they are inherently intertwined, even if unwelcomely so. When Wikus attempts to cut his prawn arm off, he attempts to symbolically remove the prawn part of himself; the at tempt not only fails, but inflicts great pain on his body. The doctors, too, comment that the nerves in his arm have fused with his body. The attachment and necessity of Wikus’s prawn arm further demonstrates the blurring of the boundary between prawn and human. No matter what Wikus is, the arm is his, and he cannot simply eliminate it. Wikus’s transformation defies categorization through most of the film as he is neither fully prawn nor human. He lingers in a gray area between the binary the society around him imposes, indicat ing the presence and perhaps necessity of such a gray area.

Wikus’s embodiment of the prawn binary does not fundamentally change his identity, unlike Jake, who becomes

akin to a stereotypical Na’vi to demonstrate a full shift into the ‘Othered’ end of the binary. Jake’s attachment to those embodying the ‘noble savage’ trope leads him to adopt their characteristics, placing more value in the spiritual and nat ural aspects of the Na’vi’s culture. As he becomes more and more assimilated, he becomes anxious about the stability of his identity: “I can barely remember my old life. I’m not sure who I am anymore” (Avatar). Jake stands at the crossroads of both extremes of the binary; as a veteran, he is entrenched in the technology of the dominant culture, but as an assimila tor, he is immersed in the values of the subjected one. Within the worldview of Avatar, this crossing of boundaries leads to an identity crisis. The image of one end of the binary cannot be reconciled with the other. As Jake accepts his life as Na’vi more, he refers to his human experiences in the hegemonic culture as a “past life,” and calls into question who he is rather than what he wants to do. This identity crisis does not occur for Wikus; Blomkamp establishes early his attachment to his wife, and this attachment never changes. The poignant final shot of the film is a fully-prawn Wikus, the viewer assumes, folding tin roses to leave at her doorstep. While the transition to the other end of the binary brings him an understanding and empathy for the Other, it does not fundamentally change who he is. He is still attached to the institution of marriage, one obsessed with purity through monogamy, despite his “contaminated” form. He has the same values; his embodiment of the opposite extreme of the binary does not require a complete personality change. Wikus can exist in a position between the two, where he is attached to both the human and prawn identity. Thus, Wikus’s transformation allows for a sort of middle experience, not adhering to any one extreme, while Jake’s transformation is depicted as all-or-nothing. This middle existence lends much more support to the plight of marginalized groups. The binary, especially in its manifestation as a set of stereotypes, creates “two extreme opposites” that subjected groups “are obliged to shuttle end lessly between” as the dominant culture refuses a greater

complexity of personhood from the Other, sometimes even representing them “as both of [the extremes] at the same time” (Hall 263). Those within these binary systems, then, become caught in an impossible situation: defying the stereo type by practicing its opposite still affirms the poles of that dynamic and lends more power to the culture creating those distinctions. In Avatar, Cameron has Jake transition from one end of the binary to the other. Jake, then, upholds the RDA’s framing of humans versus natives, technology versus nature. Cameron does not use his protagonist to challenge those ideas that create depictions of savage and primitive natives but instead reinforces those ideas through keeping his narrative within the framework of savage versus civilized. Blomkamp’s choice to have Wikus exist between the two poles of the binary directly combats the binary system that traps marginalized groups. His situation does not fit a category in comparison to Jake’s, which is a switch from one end to the other. In defying this binary structure, Blomkamp creates a stronger message against depictions of subjugated people as distinctly primitive, questioning the concepts society uses to label groups of people rather than what labels it assigns.

District 9’s portrayal of the human-alien divide as a metaphor for real life difference is more effective because it blurs and confuses binaries while Avatar reinforces the concept of binary divisions. These films begin in the same place, establishing societies with clear prejudicial treatment towards subjugated peoples, endeavoring to comment on parallels to reality. Again, science fiction is a prime locale for conversations about the treatment of Othered identities; not only is it optimal for this treatment, but the routine presence of aliens and Others frequently necessitates some broaching of the subject matter. For science fiction narratives to approach these subjects well, they should address the binary division between galactic species the way District 9 does, not allow ing the presence of a binary to dominate the conversation.

WORKS CITED

Blomkamp, Neill, director. District 9. Sony, 2009.

Cameron, James, director. Avatar. Disney Plus, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2009.

Hall, Stuart. “The Spectacle of the Other.” Representation: Culture Representation and Signifying Practice, edited by Stuart Hall, Open University, 2013, pp. 223–277.

What Do You See?: Subjectivity in Modernist Poetry

EMMA SWAN

A central concern in the Modernist literary movement is the way that language fails to describe human reality. Modernist writers explore this theme by changing the way they represent life in their work; their attempts vary from Imagism to including actual image depictions of objects into their prose. Related to the concern about language’s insufficiency in gen eral is the concern that humans are unable to use language to describe an objective reality. Modernist writers explore how an observer’s subjectivity seeps into their observations, altering the reality that they observe. William Carlos Wil liams and Wallace Stevens explore this theme in their poems “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” and “Anecdote of the Jar” respectively. These works both center their observations on an individual’s perspective, demonstrating how subjectivity determines what one perceives as important and meaningful. In conversation, these works hold a tension between a created reality and the objective truth that speaks to Modernist concerns about humanity’s inability to capture reality. The authors introduce an individual’s perspective at the start of their poems, framing all of their claims around someone’s subjectivity. Stevens begins writing, “I placed a jar in Tennessee” (1). The use of the first-person speaker in the first line establishes all of the poem’s events and observations as filtered through a specific person’s understanding. It cannot be understood to be an objective account because the speaker imposes themself as soon as the poem starts. This perspective’s imposition immediately has an effect when the speaker writes that they placed the jar in “Tennessee” as part of this framing. The idea of Tennessee, and for that matter all state lines, is a man-made construct written over a natural world that makes no such distinction. The “wilderness” described through the

rest of the poem is given societal bounds at the outset of the poem because of the speaker’s understanding of their sur roundings. Likewise, Williams’s first line is simply “According to Brueghel” (1). The speaker themself makes no claims; in stead, they set the entire message of the poem against someone else’s credibility. The poem’s claims are immediately filtered through Brueghel’s perspective, but the speaker does not necessarily assert its truth. Williams writes “according to” without necessarily defending Brueghel’s ideas. With this framing, the poem becomes a report of Brueghel’s account on events from his perspective. The speaker, though not explicitly introduced, recounts Brueghel’s claim much like they recount Icarus’s fall, which prompts the reader to question the speaker’s reliability as well. Williams’s argument on subjectivity is liable to both Brueghel’s and the speaker’s subjectivity, and the language Stevens’s speaker uses to describe their surroundings are built on societal rather than intrinsic meaning. These authors both start their poems with a recognition of subjectivity that frames the rest of the poem with the perception of the subject. The poet’s formal choices also emphasize the prevalence of subjectivity by centering the reading experience to reinforce their themes. The odd line breaks and the lack of punctuation in “Landscape” drive the reader to make deci sions that determine their basic, denotative understanding of the poem. This understanding changes as the reader moves through the poem; for example, when reading the second stanza, “a farmer was ploughing / his field / the whole pag eantry,” the reader might at first understand the third line to be describing the farmer’s field as elaborate and colorful (46). Their destruction of this “pageantry” when they “plough” it could represent a disregard for the beauty of nature in favor of their own concerns, namely their crops. Proceeding to the next stanza, though, “of the year was / awake tingling / near,” the reader might conclude that it was in fact the “pageantry / of the year,” referencing the vibrance of spring (7-9). The potential of life in spring and Icarus’s fall contrast because their different life cycles give them different concerns; while Icarus

loses something, the natural world gains. Both of these readings hold, even through the lens of this poem as a commen tary on subjectivity. As the reader moves through the poem, the context they are aware of changes, and the poem comes to mean something different with shifting readings of its line breaks and lack of punctuation. “Anecdote of the Jar” resists the reader’s inclination towards neat understanding as well by refusing to conform to consistent formal patterns. While there are internal rhymes, Stevens only deploys end rhymes to describe the jar. He writes that the jar was “of a port in air. / It took dominion everywhere. / The jar was gray and bare” (8-10). This series of perfect rhymes at hard stops in the poem establishes a momentum towards more perfect rhymes. These rhymes establish the jar as a solitary item with quasi-political power. Associating it with a “port” invokes the idea of control over commerce and trade. Stevens suggests the jar has this kind of power “in air.” To be surrounded by air implies not being surrounded by other things. So, even decontextualized from societal structures, this jar still has pow er. It takes dominion “everywhere,” reinforcing its sense of omnipotence, and its being “gray and bare” makes it sound blank, as if nothing has had the power to influence it. In the next line, Stevens breaks this pattern, saying the jar did not “give of bird or bush” (11). To “give of” something means to care for it, and so while the speaker is saying that the jar does not care for any of the natural elements around it, the poem shows that invoking nature still changes the way that the jar is perceived. While earlier in the poem, the rhyme scheme was more rigid, once nature is brought into the picture, it cannot be maintained; nature cannot conform neatly to invented human patterns like rhyme. Both authors manipulate the reader’s expectations and experience of reading to comment on how context affects the object of consideration. Even the titles of these poems have phrasing that frames the importance of certain elements in their poem, reinforcing the influence of context on perception. Stevens’s ti tle determines that this is the anecdote of the “Jar,” despite

the fact that there are three prominent actors in the poem: the speaker, the jar, and the wilderness itself. Before the first line, the poem already distinguishes the jar as the most influential element of the poem, which predisposes the reader to understand the wilderness’s response to it as less powerful. The wilderness is present in the jar’s anecdote, not the oth er way around; it is set as submissive before the poem starts, providing the reader with a specific context through which to read the wilderness that is reinforced by other elements of the poem. Similarly, Williams titles his poem “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” after Brueghel’s painting of the same name. Relevant to both pieces, they do not describe the scene as “of” Icarus’s fall, but rather as only “with” it. His fall is not a focal point of either piece despite its mythic origins; it is just another feature in this portrayal of the world. In the poem, the effort to deemphasize is even more evident. The painting cannot control the order in which the viewer absorbs the scene. Williams, however, places Icarus in the last line of the poem, ensuring that the reader does not “notice” his fall un til after they have digested the concerns and imagery of the rest of the landscape. The title of this piece establishes from the beginning that Icarus’s fall is only included in the piece, not its focus. Yet, like the jar, the fall of Icarus is the only el ement of the poem mentioned in the title, framing the reader’s experience with the poem around the thought of Icarus. Without the fall of Icarus, the poem is simply a description of a landscape that the reader has no special motivation to consider. By distinguishing a myth that the reader, an outsider to this scene, would be interested in, the title gives the poem meaning to an audience not invested in the landscape itself. Much like the farmer finds Icarus’s fall “unsignificant,” the reader does not enter the poem invested in the farmer (18). Even as Williams suggests Icarus is not the center of this poem’s message, he appeals to the reader’s experiences to create something they might find worth paying attention to. Both pieces’ messages reflect a Modernist anxiety re garding whether humans can represent reality objectively

through focusing on an individual’s perspective that is altered by their subjectivity. These poets drive to make this subjectivity more apparent in their works, but they still maintain elements of their poems that are not evidently subjec tive until looked at closely. These concerns are in line with the occupations of the Modernist movement; these poets resist traditional understandings of reality and representation, bringing a new way to view an element as fundamen tal as the speaker of the poem. Other works may not declare their intent to discuss subjectivity, but the thorough exploration of how one’s experience inflects their observations suggests that they merit a similar consideration. Even if those authors do not intend to explore themes of subjec tivity, these poets challenge readers to push against so-called objective narrators and see how the speaker’s positionality changes the way they understand the world around them.

WORKS CITED

Stevens, Wallace. “Anecdote of the Jar.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/ poems/14575/anecdote-of-the-jar.

Williams, William Carlos. “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, https://poets.org/poem/landscape-fall-icarus.

Claude Debussy’s Dirge: The Sonata for Violin and Piano as Compositional Culmination

CAITLIN

MOEHRLE

French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) is widely con sidered to have been the pioneer of impressionist music, despite not personally embracing this term. The techniques with in his compositions defied tradition with regard to harmonic treatment, approaches to instrumentation, and the concep tion music as depicting a specific image or scene. Although Debussy deviated from traditional musical forms throughout his life, ironically, in his final years, he turned to the familiar sonata form to structure his compositions. One such piece was the Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor, Debussy’s final completed work before his untimely death at age 55. Because of the physical and mental ailments that plagued him—compounded by the strife of World War I—composing this sonata was difficult for him. As is evident within the first movement, Debussy pointed toward a potential future for his compositions which never came to pass by incorporating musical im pressionism and exoticism—past styles he had embraced— within his version of the sonata form. This sudden adoption of the sonata form at the end of Debussy’s life, paired with the integration of his unique style, reveals how the Sonata for Violin and Piano served as a manifestation of his tumultuous emotions as well as a greater culmination of his musical career. Debussy’s severe physical and mental turmoil in the latter period of his life and his subsequent decision to return to classical forms are most likely linked. From 1915-1917, Debussy’s correspondences reveal a downward trajectory for the composer. After his colon cancer diagnosis in 1909, Debussy “underwent a drug treatment, an unsuccessful oper ation, and radiation therapy” (Scoville 20). He expressed existential and depressive thought patterns in his letters, citing his exhaustion at the persistence of World War I (especially

the German bombings of France) and how he would “watch the hours go past, each the same as the other” (Lesure & Nich ols). His disillusionment with the state of the world and the failing state of his own body may have pushed him to broad en his compositional horizon, perhaps combating these depressive spirals with the familiar art of structured musical composition. In 1915, he resolved to write six sonatas “for different groups of instruments and the last one will combine all those used in the previous five” (Lesure & Nichols). This shift to embracing a traditional style can also be traced to a newfound “nationalistic fervor” as a consequence of the Great War. Debussy sought to bolster support for the French arts as his country suffered numerous attacks, and, in the pro cess, create a grand work to focus his efforts on in the final years of his life (Scoville 20). In these contexts, the Sonata for Violin and Piano served Debussy’s artistic goals during physical and mental turmoil and acted as a pillar to uphold the integrity of a war-torn nation. Despite Debussy’s disillusionment with his personal life and global affairs, he persist ed through these hardships with the promise of a completed set of sonatas, a final magnum opus to anchor his efforts. The form of the sonata, and the first movement in particular, hearkens to an earlier classical style—a major depar ture from Debussy’s earlier, highly experimental, and most successful works. The hallmarks of Debussy’s earlier style in cluded techniques such as chromatic melodies and wide ranges in dynamics in service of channeling highly specific images in music. In pieces such as La Mer (1905), a musical mural of the sea, or Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894), a forest soundscape with the fauns of Greek mythology, the listener embarks on a pre-determined musical narrative and can envision these specific titular images. Though Debussy maintained certain aspects of this style, “the late sonatas present a preference for a simpler neoclassical texture. The composer de scribed this transition as ‘a return to “pure music”’” (Scoville 23). ‘Pure’ music references the idea of absolute music, or mu sic without any extramusical material—such as specific images

or pieces of art—serving as context or inspiration for a composition. During the 18th century, French composers like Jo seph Bodin de Boismortier and Jean-Marie Leclair wrote solo and trio sonatas. These compositions were devoid of any sort of program or image in mind, and Debussy reflects this with his absolute sonata. There are three parts to the sonata struc ture, and Evans outlines those sections in Debussy’s piece as corresponding to those of traditional sonata form (i.e. exposi tion, development, recapitulation). Within each section, there are smaller sections with differing violin-specific techniques like “the subtle ornamentation and employment of harmonics and portamento techniques” (Evans 91). Even if this sonata is hardly as structured as those of Haydn or Mozart, the fact that there is a recognizable structure to the piece is notable when considering the avant-garde and unpredictable nature of Debussy’s earlier works written at the height of his career. Even though Debussy took inspiration from the clas sical French sonata form, the idiomatic nuances present in the violin part maintain styles reminiscent of impressionism and the improvised sound of folk, Spanish, and Romani fiddle playing—the antitheses of stricter classical styles. A fa vorite subject of impressionist composers was water and its movement; Debussy and Ravel both composed works cen tered around this theme. Scoville argues that the same musical techniques evocative of water pioneered by Ravel can be found in Debussy’s sonata. Both sonically and visually on the sheet music, Debussy incorporated wave-like motion,

Like the calmer sections of Ravel’s ocean, the piano lingers on certain tonalities for unexpected lengths of time, with melodies on the violin employing special techniques, before more dramatic action returns and disrupts the tranquility. Indications for the violinist to play over the fingerboard (sur la touche) and a motive consisting entirely of artificial harmonics further contribute to the special color of the section. (Scoville 29)

At 2:30 in the recording by Augustin Hadelich and Orion Weiss, the piano accompaniment rocks back and forth, while

the ethereal timbre of the violin floats above. At 1:17, Hadelich performs the slides as written in the score, a technique idiom atic to string instruments and often employed in impressionist works. The sonata is a piece of absolute music, but these timbral gestures which maintain “ambiguity in harmony” suggest the same image-provoking sounds of earlier impression ist compositions (Scoville 23). In a similar manner, gestures toward Spanish and Romani fiddle playing can be found in the section at 0:55, when the violin soars into its highest register on the E string and plays appassionato, or passionately. The open G string and chords after that section evoke the use of open strings and string crossings in fiddle music. Although Debussy sought to affirm the primacy of French music with a return to its classical forms, the specific techniques he used in this sonata reveal how deeply entrenched past styles such as impressionism and exoticism already were in his compositional style. He leaned on this past knowledge to create in teresting textures within the restraints of the sonata form. The mixture of traditional and innovative techniques in Debussy’s sonata resulted in a composition unique from anything audiences had expected from one of the greatest composers of the time. Examining critical receptions of this sonata in tandem with Debussy’s personal opinion of his composition points to this piece as one written without much regard for what an audience might enjoy. Unfortunately, the sonata’s premiere was not incredibly well received, and “a young composer who attended it, Francis Poulenc, described the scene: ‘At [Debussy’s] entrance on stage, he was given an ovation, but at the conclusion [of the performance], he was met with only polite applause’” (Lesure; Moreno). Debussy’s reputation upheld itself, but the actual reception of his final piece did not meet the audience’s standards. Debussy accept ed this, addressing that he “‘wrote this sonata only to be rid of it, and because [he] was spurred on by [his] dear publisher… This sonata will be interesting from a documentary point of view and as an example of what an invalid can write in time of war’” (Lesure & Nichols). His nonchalant dismissal of his

own work is tragic when considered alongside the knowledge that this was his final composition and one of the last pieces he ever performed. Even if Debussy did not believe his work to be grand, due to the mental and physical trauma he endured while writing this piece, his integration of old and new music was a step forward in musical composition. As he relied on his personal musical tendencies throughout this suffering and meshed them with classical techniques, he unwittingly creat ed an entirely new style of music in his repertoire. The sonata is undeniably a culmination of Debussy’s life experiences, en compassing the hardships of a composer who seemingly had all of his best, most critically acclaimed work behind him. Amid the throes of cancer, depression, and war, Debussy managed to piece together everything he had learned about composition into these late sonatas, and the Sonata for Violin and Pi ano in particular is the pinnacle of these culminating works. The initial motive in the first movement of Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano “opens, as it were, distantly and detached, at first restrained and hesitant,” “build[ing] up mo mentum and realiz[ing] its expressive-motivic potential only gradually” (Somer 84). If at first Debussy expresses his own hesitancy toward his unfortunate lot in life with this reluctant opening, by the end of the first movement, the violin asserts its independence and sonic power. Somer’s take is also an apt description of the sonata’s reception; while hardly critically acclaimed at its premiere, present scholarship and analysis by the likes of Evans and Scoville asserts the appreciation it has always deserved. It is a terrible tragedy that one of the greatest composers who ever lived died believing his final composition to be a failure. Surely, if Debussy were alive today, we could justify this sonata’s worth to him as a culmination of his career and on the basis that it masterfully captures the complex emotions of a tortured man, one who endured debilitating hardships to do what he loved best: create music.

WORKS CITED

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Sonata. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 15, 2022,

Evans, Tristan. “Thesis and antithesis: Resolving the dialec tique in the first movement of Debussy’s Violin Sonata.” Bangor University, 2014.

Hadelich, Augustin. “Augustin Hadelich & Orion Weiss play Debussy Sonata for violin and piano.” Youtube, uploaded by Augustin Hadelich, 1 September 2020.

Lesure, François. Claude Debussy: A Critical Biography. Boy dell & Brewer, University of Rochester Press, 2019.

Lesure, François and Roger Nichols. Debussy Letters. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987.

Moreno, Henri. “Conservatoire national de musique et de déclamation: Distribution des prix, année scolaire 1876-1877.” Le ménestrel 43. no. 36, (5 August 1877): 281-84.

Scoville, John. “Crossroads: An Examination of the French Sonatasfor Violin and Piano Written During the First World War.” University of California, Santa Barbara, 2021.

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Constitutional Rights of Nature: An Approach to Imagining Decolonial Futures

LILLIAN NORTON-BRAINERD

In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to give nature legal rights in its constitution in an attempt to decenter humans, include indigenous voices, and prevent extractive environ mental practices. Bolivia gave nature constitutional rights in 2010. India, New Zealand, and Colombia have all given specif ic rivers in their countries legal personalities (Guzmán, 2019). By giving nature constitutional rights, governments codify na ture’s right to exist regardless of its value to humans. Through the legal system, anyone can argue for nature, and exploitative environmental activities can be halted when ruled as violating nature’s rights. Despite the limitations of working within a colonial framework of law, the rights of nature movement provides an alternative way to view nature, challenges Western ideals of ownership, and imagines a future outside of capitalism. Legal rights of nature challenge Western notions of nature as an object that can be owned and used for one’s own benefit. Giving nature legal rights fundamentally questions the idea of property ownership and positions nature as an ac tive subject, an entity with agency that cannot be used or controlled. The rights of nature movement envisions a non-an thropocentric future where the relationship between humans and nature is healed (Guzmán, 2019). Because the system of rights works within the framework of law, people must speak for nature in order to protect it. They thus engage in a relation ship with nature, rather than simply taking care of nature. Instead of using technology to stop environmental degradation and working directly within capitalism to solve environmental issues, the rights of nature framework challenges the objec tified, commodified status of nature under capitalism (Guzmán, 2019). Again, the rights of nature framework imagines a future of balance outside of a capitalistic, colonialist narrative,

where nature is not essentialized or used for profit (Lalander, 2014). This subversion of capitalist narratives of owner ship is rooted in indigenous activism in Ecuador and Bolivia. Indigenous ontologies of nature, such as the Kichwa concept of sumak kawsay, translated in Spanish as buen vivir, view everything as interconnected and having its own soul. These concepts position the earth as an active, living entity and reject the goal of limitless material growth and progress (Lalander, 2014). The rights of nature movement theoretically challenges the emphasis on material gain in capitalist nations. However, the concept of sumak kawsay is sometimes used to encourage the states’ planning and development, despite its inherent contradiction to these concepts. As an attempt to combat the problems with incorporating indigenous ontologies into a constitution based on colonial language of devel opment, Ecuador prioritizes a decentralized, participatory approach (Lalander, 2014). While sumak kawsay and buen vivir theoretically subvert dominant ontologies of a passive earth in need of control, the essential nature of these concepts is some times ignored when included in states’ goals of development. Similarly, while the inclusion of the rights of nature movement into an inherently colonial framework of law contradicts its essential decoloniality, the inclusion of indigenous voices helps destabilize the colonial rhetoric of law. As legal frameworks have been used across the globe to justify and car ry out colonialism, the subversive power of the concepts of sumak kawsay and buen vivir is reduced when included in the framework of law. However, the process of including rights of nature in Ecuador’s constitution only occured through indigenous led movements in the 1990s that rejected neoliberalism and demanded recognition and justice (Guzmán, 2019). The resulting constitutional drafting process included multiple in digenous groups and relied on their support, emphasizing the importance of participatory processes. Some argue that add ing the rights of nature into Ecuador’s constitution challenges the colonial framework of law because it includes indige nous ontologies, uses a participatory process that recognizes

non-Western epistemologies, and challenges fundamental Western ideals of ownership (Guzmán, 2019). Guzmán also discusses the problematic creation of “indigenous” as a homogenous category through colonization. Ecuador’s recogni tion of itself as a plurinational state, where multiple nations within one country are recognized, attempts to address this homogenization. Thus, the participatory process shifts the center of power by giving indigenous people authority over law and, in some ways, challenges the colonial framework of law. Further complicating the issue, putting nature under the state’s power makes truly resisting capitalism challenging. Ecuador’s and Bolivia’s constitutions both directly recognize pa chamama and sumak kawsay, the Andean conception of Moth er Earth, and use this notion to give the earth rights, perhaps co-opting these concepts to fit the states’ agendas. In an anal ysis of the concept of pachamama, Miriam Tola (2018) argues that colonization has gendered and sexualized pachamama by imposing heteropatriarchal values onto it, shifting the conceptualization of earth to one of passivity and rendering the earth ex ploitable under capitalism and science (Merchant, 1981). Thus, the way pachamama is politicized by the state stands in opposi tion to the very essence of the concept. Bolivia’s use of the concept of pachamama reduces both the earth and women to their reproductive abilities and gives the state control and power over the earth (Tola, 2018). Tola argues against Bolivia’s misuse of pachamama, instead proposing that pachamama and the rights of nature be used to transcend the gender binary, display how the more-than-human world is connected, and prevent the literal and conceptual ownership of the earth. While the rights of nature movement theoretically moves beyond the ownership and commodification of earth, the way the concept is mobilized by the state in comparison to activists’ ideals essentializes the earth under the heteropatriarchal ownership of the state (Tola, 2018). Practically, the rights of nature movement has had suc cesses and failures in preventing exploitative environmental practices. Ecuador’s first successful court case concerning the rights of nature ruled in 2011 in favor of a river, after neighbors

argued that a road widening project was damaging the riverbank. The court ruled that the provincial government must sub mit and enact a preservation and environmental repair project as well as issue a public apology (Greene, 2011). Most famously, Ecuador ruled in favor of nature to prevent oil drilling between 2007-2013 in Yasuni, a large region where many indigenous people live, instead requesting that other countries provide financial support in exchange for carbon credits. However, oil drilling began again in 2013, which the president justified by arguing that they needed the profit, meaning that the rights of nature framework only temporarily prevented oil drilling (Lalander, 2014). In Bolivia, the most controversial and wellknown rights of nature case revolves around the construction of a highway through a protected indigenous area. Protesters stopped the project, but a few months later the government pro vided contradictory messages about whether the project would continue or not, and the highway has since been constructed (Lalander, 2014). In the end, capitalist notions of progress and development won over the rights of nature, showing that le gal protection may not be enough on its own. Thus, the rights of nature movement in Ecuador and Bolivia has had successes and failures in terms of its actual impact in protecting nature. In theory, the rights of nature movement questions an thropocentrism, subverts colonialism, and challenges the dominant conception of the ownership of nature. Although when put into practice, the rights of nature movement still sometimes prioritizes capitalist development and colonial thought, the movement’s work shifting perceptions of earth to non-hierarchical and non-anthropocentric conceptions is essential to challenging the commodification and colonization of nature. It is also important for environmentalists to not co-opt indigenous theories for purposes that only privilege some groups of people. Despite the problems with rights of nature existing under states’ control, the fundamental concepts of sumak kawsay and and pachamama can be employed to resist some aspects of capitalism and shift people’s value systems in order to envi sion a future where all people and nature exist in harmony.

REFERENCES

Greene, N. (2011). The first successful case of the Rights of Nature implementation in Ecuador. The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. Available: http:// therightsofnature. org/first-ron-case-ecuador.

Guzmán, J. J. (2019). Decolonizing Law and expanding Hu man Rights: Indigenous Conceptions and the Rights of Nature in Ecuador. Deusto Journal of Human Rights, (4), 59-86.

Lalander, R. (2014). Rights of nature and the indigenous peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador: A Straitjacket for Pro gressive Development Politics?. Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies, 3(2), 148-172.

Merchant, C. (1981). Earthcare: Women and the environ ment. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 23(5), 6-40.

Tola, M. (2018). Between pachamama and mother earth: Gender, political ontology and the rights of nature in contemporary bolivia. Feminist Review, 118(1), 25-40. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41305-018-0100-4.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We the editors would like to thank the Hamilton College Print Shop for their work in printing this issue and for their advice and expertise. We would also like to thank the Dunham Letterpress Studio, particularly Seth Gottlieb and Tina Hall, for their assistance in designing, typesetting, and printing the cover of this edition. As always, thank you to the writers for submitting their work and collaborating with our editors throughout the editorial process and thanks to you, dear reader, for sticking through with us to the end.