Writers and Intellectuals in Exile
“It may be that writers in my position, exiles… are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt”1 said Salman Rushdie. The loss and love of home is not what constitutes an exilic existence; what actually and in true sense constitutes it is the chasm between carrying forth and leaving behind and straddling the two different cultures from two different positions. In my paper, I propose to look at the two sides of an exilic existence- the negative that which has the horrors and trauma with reference to Adorno and Said; and the positive, that which provides the intellectuals and writers a critical and reflective insight, and here I would refer to JanMohamed and Salman Rushdie with special reference to Said’s “contrapuntal” effect. I would then proceed to the ‘enabling’ aspect of exile which involves the agential process of hybridity where I will bring in Homi K. Bhabha’s take on it and his concept of “third space”.
“Exile originated in the age old practice of banishment. Once banished, the exile lives an anomalous and miserable life, with the stigma of an outsider”2 said Edward Said. Adorno in the 13th terse “Protection, Help and Counsel” of Minima Moralia asserts that, “every intellectual in emigration is without exception, damaged and does well to acknowledge it to himself… He lives in an environment that must remain incomprehensible to him… Relation between outcasts are even more poisoned than between long standing residents.”3 Adorno’s reflection epitomizes the common understanding of exilic experience as one of trauma, estrangement and paranoia. Numerous autobiographical accounts confirm this devastating assessment a...
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... “Introduction” The Oxford Book of Exile, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995. Print.
6. Said, Edward. Reflections on Exile, Interview by Nikhil Padgaonkar. Doordarshan
7. JanMohamed, Abdul R. “Worldliness-Without-World, Homelessness-Without-Home: Toward a Definition of the Specular Border Intellectual.” Intellectuals and Critics: Positions and Polemics Volume 1 of Edward Said / ed. by Patrick Williams. Sage Publications.2001. P.219. Print.
8. Rushdie, Salman. “Gunter Grass” Imaginary Homelands. P.279.
9. Bhabha, Homi K. "How Newness Enters the World," The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994. P.224. Print
10. Bhabha, Homi K. Interview by J. Rutherford. Identity, Community, Culture, Difference. 1990. J. Rutherford. London, Lawrence and Wishart: 207-221
11. Bhabha, Homi K. “Introduction”, Nation and Narration, London: Routledge, 1990. P.6. Print.
In the poems “Feliks Skrzynecki” and “St Patrick’s College”, Peter Skrzynecki explores the relationship between understanding and belonging through his experiences, both with his father and at school. Brandon Sanderson delves into the effects prejudice can have on acceptance in the novel “Mistborn: The Final Empire”. These texts all demonstrate how inclusion can be prevented by a reluctance to accept or engage. Peter feels estranged from his father in “Feliks Skrzynecki” and disconnected with his school in “St Patrick’s College”. The concepts of disconnection and estrangement are further revealed in “Mistborn: The Final Empire”, along with perceptions of exclusion. Collectively, the texts
In Brent Hayes Edwards essay, “ The Use of Diaspora”, the term “African Diaspora” is critically explored for its intellectual history of the word. Edward’s reason for investigating the “intellectual history of the term” rather than a general history is because the term “is taken up at a particular conjecture in black scholarly discourse to do a particular kind of epistemological work” (Edwards 9). At the beginning of his essay Edwards mentions the problem with the term, in terms of how it is loosely it is being used which he brings confusion to many scholars. As an intellectual Edwards understands “the confusing multiplicity” the term has been associated with by the works of other intellectuals who either used the coined or used the term African diaspora. As an articulate scholar, Edwards hopes to “excavate a historicized and politicized sense of diaspora” through his own work in which he focuses “on a black cultural politics in the interwar, particularly in the transnational circuits of exchange between the Harlem Renaissance and pre-Negritude Fran cophone activity in the France and West Africa”(8). Throughout his essay Edwards logically attacks the problem giving an informative insight of the works that other scholars have contributed to the term Edwards traces back to the intellectual history of the African diaspora in an eloquent manner.
This extract emphasises the lonely, outworld feeling that would have been felt living in such settings. This puts into perspective the feeling that will be felt during the coarse of the plot development.
Seeing through a multicultural perspective. Identities, 19(4), 398. doi:10.1080/1070289X.2012.718714. Steven, D. K. (2014). The 'Secondary'.
Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...
Intellectuals are philosophers, are writers, are artists. They are all those people who work with their minds by questioning the events that touch them and that are touched by them. To recall a Plato's famous allegory, we can say that intellectuals are those who are able to look beyond the shadows and never take concepts for granted. However, some questions as what their role is and, more specifically, whether they should be engaged in politics are still unanswerable. Over the years answers and behaviors towards the engaged culture have been various and we can assume that the intellectuals who cannot separate the two live their lives actively for they want to be part of the events that surround them and let awareness win over apathy. On the contrary, we can assume that those who let apathy win are the intellectuals that look at politics and culture as two different and specific concepts and live a solitary life far from society. However, this is not an appropriate judgment because it would be difficult to consider to which extent solitude can be regarded as cowardliness and to which extent action can be regarded as consciousness.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 101-131. Print.
Nagel, Joane. “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture”. New York University Press. Washington Square, New York 1998.
...learly that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh and Bouyeri had indeed highly divergent understandings of several issues including the relation between Church and government and gender equality. Bouyeri, for instance, a Muslim immigrant unable to assimilate to a western, secular nation seemed to fail to identify either with his original or with his host culture. His fanaticism, therefore, was apparently more a remedy to his feeling of isolation than real identification. Ironically, the country that is supposed to host the most tolerant civilization of the entire world was home of a prime example of intolerance – Van Gogh’s murder. Clearly, the three characters’ clashing perceptions, added to the effects of globalization pointed out by Huntington (economic modernization and social change) made them – even if Bouyeri more visibly – fall into the “trap” of civilizations’ clash.
Rutherford, Jonathan. "Third Space: Interview with Homi K. Bhabha." Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. Ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990. 207-221.
That community which we inhabit (dubbed by Rama La Ciudad Letrada [The Lettered City 1984]) has been built around the symbolic power of the written word, one of whose chief corollaries is the prevalence of the eye over any other sense. Consequently, a totalitarianism of the eyed letter has over-determined the kind of process of educational interpellation (i.e. enculturation) that individuals undergo as they become subjects, i.e., citizens that are thus subject-ed via indoctri-nation to the author-ity of their respective (domi)nations. Such cultural process, unapologetically built around sight and the script as tokens of surveillance and marginalization, has dramatically affected our epistemological potential as individuals and, intractably linked to it, our capacity to build inclusive
Human contact is considered to be one of the worst elements of life to be deprived of. In nearly all prison systems, isolation is the punishment given to inmates who commit the worst offenses. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that such reclusiveness is the theme of many literary works and essays. In one, a man insists a wall be kept up between himself and his neighbor, all because of his father’s mantra. In another, there 's a young woman, murdered brutally in the street, while all of her neighbors watch in horror, but make no move to help. There 's also a young family that, after moving to Spain, discovers just how welcoming and friendly and inclusive the Spaniards are compared to their home country. All three
Isolation is defined as the state of being in a place or position that is separated from people, place or things. Many people identify with a desire to be isolated, despite science saying that people’s natural instinct is to gravitate toward others. Studies have shown that isolation is not good psychologically. Isolation can be voluntary or involuntary; however, whether it is with a human or an animal species, physical touch, communication, and emotional connection is necessary to survive in everyday life. In a number of literary works, isolation is seen as a theme among characters who are sick, mentally ill and those who are incarcerated to name a few. In the literary works we have read in this unit, the isolation of the protagonist, whether voluntary or
Different speakers not only present different viewpoints, but also mirror different aspects of the modern cultural experience. This not only presents a group of varying viewpoints, but also a sort of anthropological description of post-World War II Europe. For instance, Eliot gives a picture of the rootlessness experienced by many Europeans in line...
Takhar, O. K. (2005). Sikh identity: An exploration of groups among Sikhs. Aldershot, England: Ashgate.