Issuu

Spring .2012.

.Tabic of Contents. Title

Author

EigCL

Saint

Paul Anagnostopoulos

Cover

Escape- Velocity

Emily Buder

Earth at Its End

Gee Eun Maria Jung

Half poet to Dead poet

Faustina Lim

Untitled

Alyssa Clear

Abbesses

Alex C. Sedler

Entering the Hyperreal

Francesca York

Sacred Lotus

Josh Borja

Eyeball

Alison Hoffman

Alb Fuga

Christina Yaripapa

To a Painted Teacup

Aurora Bell

Little Staten tsbnd

Delia Rose Mandia

Untitled

Alyssa Clear

El antor olvidado

Kim Alpert

He Yan

Yictona Ahn

Of Our Miracle

Josh Borja

Aspens

James Barraclough

Adapt

Paul Anagnostopoulos

Hein es gibt keine kbrheit

Anatol Heller

Der teil von mir, der

Anatol Heller

Beyond the Theatrical

Paul Kollmer

Italian Gothic

Paul Anagnostopoulos

Thoughts, Too, Can Be

Aurora Bell

Fahise

Zeynap Eda Haksal

Irrelephant

Gee Eun Maria Jung

Sestina about my Grandmother

Alison Hoffman

aiid insignificant moments on the walls of their house. Cybele made sure tliat he didn’t have to worry about all tilings eartlily, and for this Dorian was grateful. For tliis he provided her with the illusion of liis love, a cloak she viTapped around her when everything outside of the comfort of the house seemed to her strange and cold.

Dorian had known all along that he was unfit for human domestic life, so when he had spent 7,513 days being alive on tlie earth, he figured it was time to talk to NASA. He wrote on a piece of paper and sent it to an address. Tlie piece of paper was a Standard Form 171 addressed to the Astronaut Selection Office, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058. One day he got another piece of paper in tlie mail. Tlie piece of paper w'as an acceptance letter to study inside more rooms, but tliis time tliey were located at NASA headquarters. Tlie plane began its ascent into tlie sky en route to Texas. As the altitude registered in liis organs, Dorian experienced a peaceful surrender. The tliick layers of clouds below moved like the ghosts of purgatory, revealing and then obscuring dark forms of earthly mass.

At his interview with NASA, Dorian w’as asked a series of questions about what tliey termed his “personal life.” “There’s notliing in this pietty' world tliat you have to worry' about interfering with my missions,” he told the interviewer. “But what about your wife and your unborn son?” asked tlie NASA official, a man witli eyes that bore gamma rays into Dorian. “I’ll tell tliem about the moon,” Dorian said. He wrapped his hands around his body and retreated. Tlie NASA official nodded and looked down at his papers. The air in the room began to pulsate. It was thick witli dark matter. Though they couldn’t see it, the NASA official and Dorian both knew tliat it was tliere, all around them. All his life, most people had looked at Dorian like he was mad. At NASA, though, the people looked at Dorian like he knew something to which they could never be pri\’y. When his mind delivered via his mouth an unfiltered remark about tlic inner workings of tlie universe, the people at NASA held eye contact witli him. Tliey didn’t wring their hands nervously or smile w’cakly as if Dorian were someone to be pitied. Instead, they took care to digest his remarks and hand them back to him in a neatly wrapped gift that was intelligent conversation. At NASA, everyone orbited on the same plane as Dorian. He w’as free to consider the galactic halo instead of taxes, interstellar medium instead of small talk. Nobody believed in human fables like God or politics. Everv'one believed tliat limits existed to be suipassed. Most importantly, though, everyone knew how insignificant he was in comparison with die vast scale of die infinite universe. They knew diat if you measure the earth’s lifetime within the framework of a year, the twenty-first century would be a quarter of a second in June.

By June, Dorian knew’ how to fly tw’entv'-three different kinds of airplanes. He knew how to operate five kinds of spacecrafts in a simulator. His lungs learned how to speak die language of hyperbaric and hypobaric atmospheric conditions. His body became acclimated to die feeling of weighdessness. He knew the function of every button in the spacecraft. He had traveled all over die world learning about emergency procedures and takeoffs and landings. His energy was like die tail of a comet, commandeering the space around him and blazing pathways through uncharted galactic theories. He could feel die immediacy of the mission. He could no longer keep his hands still; escape velocity pulsed through his entire being. His mind was parsecs ahead of his body. “We’ll get there, buddy,” the other astronauts said to Dorian. “Calm down, you’re one step ahead of yourself” They laughed, but Dorian knew’ it was a serious matter. He felt that if he stayed on the ground much longer, his body would shrivel away and sink into the core of die earth. He felt he w’ould melt into the fiery cauldron of all things earthly, just a thing among odier things at the earth’s core, anonymous matter among matter.

The night before the mission, Dorian sat idly on Cybele’s velvet couch. His spine was straight, aligned well witli die tropic of the Western hemisphere. He w’atched Cybele not unlike a specimen as she arranged plates on the dinner table. She struggled to bend over the enonnity of her stomach; it harbored something that was entirely hers and only partly his by virtue of science. He had given it to her, a final parting gift, a replacement. He had fulfilled the duty' of die human species, and for diis he was proud. “Is everything in order?” Cybele asked, moving towai'ds Dorian. He watched her move closer to liim and considered die fact diat she was unaware of Hubble’s Law and its residence in dieir household. Cybele didn’t realize diat two people could not close die distance between diem; her movements were futile. Dorian and Cybele, like all galaxies and like all men and women, had been moving away from each other from die beginning.

In this moment Dorian wanted to account for this space, this intergalactic gap. He allowed Cybele fragments of his mental undercurrents. “Almost,” he said, “but they’re having to do some double checks. It’s looking to be an eight o’clock launch. Harper is taking care of—well, I suppose diat’s classified information—” “Dorian.” “But technically I can disclose diat he’s almost done preparing die dehydrated provisions—” “Dorian. I haven’t asked you about the launch. Tliat’s not at all what I am asking you about.” Cybele sat at the table clasping her hands. There was a certain fatality in the way she looked at him; it was as if she were unable to discern whedier or not he was still living. “I’m talking about the baby’s room. Did you buy everydiing on the list?” Dorian then removed himself from the gravity of die room. He longed to enter die weighdess territory’ of his mind’s refuge, a space diat allow’ed him to hover above dining room matters. In this space, die raw material of Dorian’s ideas could form a nebula in wliich he could hide away undisturbed, reveling in the revolving particles. His moudi spoke words of indulgence to Cybele—“Ordered them online, should arrive in a week”— yet he had piloted his way out of his body and now resided within die whirls of die nebula in his head. His body sat on Cybele’s velvet couch, yet liis mind was in galactic ecstasy. Dorian and Cybele proceeded to consume dinner as if tomorrow were like any odier day. As if tomorrow Dorian were not scheduled to leave the planet. On the morning of November 17, Dorian felt diat the trees in die forest diat oudined the launch clearing were the only beings suitable to behold his departure. Tliey stood sentry, recording die sound of fire igniting in their trunk rings. They bore witness to Dorian’s eternal escape. They understood the pain of being rooted to the ground.

A day before die mission was scheduled to return to earth, Dorian took off his oxygen mask. He wanted to breadie differendy, to feed his lungs widi die majesty' of outer space. Dorian then began to punch codes into the spacecraft central computer. He also rearranged a few wires. Dorian assumed the odier astronauts would be glad diey would not be returning to earth. Everyone dreamed of his own liberation, and here was theirs, in full form. Here was the event horizon of their deliverance. Dorian awoke in a wliite room. Tlie smell of disinfectant wafted into his nose, which took in oxygen from the earth’s atmosphere. A man wearing a white coat and a stedioscopc walked into die room and smiled at Dorian in die familiar way that everyone outside of NASA did. “We’ll give you everydiing you need here,” the man reassured Dorian, resting a cold hand on Dorian’s shoulder. On Dorian’s bedside table, something was spinning. He turned his head and saw that it was a globe, suspended in midair by two long wires. He w’atched the eardi spin round and round. He closed his eyes.

Earth at lt$ End Gcc Eun Maria Jung

Half Poet to Dead foot Faustina Lim I am not a poet

I have always wondered what Sylvia Plath would say in the mornings

I wonder what Sylvia Plath would say to that

I know what I would say this morning

or maybe each mornings she has greater concerns on her mind, like

I cannot write, I would say to my reflection try to smile, maybe a corner lifting but stays not for long a droopy smile that says.

today, 1 shall die

and I wouldn't know what to say to that

. ..

Untitled

Abbesses

Alyssa Clear

Alex C. Sedler Salut mon frere, sais-tu alors c'que je devrais fairc? Je connais trop bien ton amour qui me coute trop cher, done (point.) Je les separe. Toi et moi et les mots de la chaleur; voici le drogue attisant que je venere, or le clioix de te prendre est toujours volontaire alors qu'on renonce le droit d’etre venere. La meme affaire qui m'a fait peur est arrivee en dccouvrant un element trop sedentaire. Que tu sois a I'aise entre mes deux parentheses, je t'ai mis a cote pour (peu) trainer le reve. Sinon on hate a parler pour simplement rien dire, de quoi t'as besoin hors d'mon regard qui se creve? Mes yeux sentent les mots car mon nez est H.S. apres ce regime de bouffer qu'la politesse. Bret', on procede avant qu'on s'repete: j'offrirais jamais a tes oreilles des gouttes qui semblent seches. Cest toujours le meme son malgre jamais le meme corps et il faut s'en rendre compte si on veut jouer le meme sport. J'ai entendu "galere" mais tu m'as dit "galant", e'est pas surprenant que t'aimes pas faire savant, mais ton mystere chiant m'emmerde vachement tout le temps. Et bien pose la-dans, voici le true au courant dont j'en ai ras I’bol - mais moi, j’ne suis pas le seul. Tout c'qui tous picolent an ivent a quoiqu'ils veuillent, les autres se rigolent jusqu'a ce qu'ils arrivent au deuil. On n'entend aucun son done est-ce qu'on salt que e'est bon? Pendant tout le printemps je voyais le soleil en levant, grace a tes yeux qui m'ont charme en le montrant. â doit etre longtemps, mais moi, je dirais un jour ou mon coeur commenâit a noyer par I'amour. Get amour de tout toi, s'il faut Hotter le coeur...je prefere ton beau ê plus que noyer par les pleures. Je te jure tout cela mais tu me crois pas, qu’est c'qu'il y a? "Voila toujours pas de son apres notre vacarme vraiment long, mais e'est vachement mieux non? On serre bien les dents, on sait deja comment. Cependant, mon amant, on n'a pas beaucoup d'temps.

Entering the Hyperreal: Third-Order Simulacra in the Digital Age Francesca York The Inteniet, electronics, and computer systems have become an inextricable part of modem people’s lives. Many of each year’s highest grossing box-office hits rely heavily on spectacular special effects to bring audiences into the tlieatre. Facebook boasts some 500 million active users from across the globe, and websites like YouTube allow anyone witli a webcam to broadcast videos of themselves to the entire world with a few clicks. As Vivian Sobchack predicted in her 1994 article “The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic ‘Presence,’” people today increasingly understand their “bodies in terms of computer systems and programs” like Facebook and “understand their lives as movies” diat can be uploaded and shared on YouTube.' Her theorization of the electronic stage of the image correlates closely to the wTitings of Jean Baudrillard, who stated that tlie world has entered a state of tliird-order simulacra and tlie hyperreal, where the lines of reality and illusion have become blurred. Websites like YouTube and new advances in computer-generated imagery have both fundamentally changed the uay that people experience their perceptions of self and reality.

YouTube offers a fascinating example of how tlie dawn of tlie digital age has thrust the world headlong into tlie hyperreality that Jean Baudrillard envisioned in tlie 1980s. Baudrillard’s theories were concerned witli reality, hyperreality’ and the proliferation of simulation. He argued that symbols had lost their referents, thereby affecting the way individuals experience reality. In his essay “The Precession of Simulacra,” he enumerated “the successive phases of tlie image,” which were a set of stages an image goes tlirough starting from tlie most basic reflection or representation to “pure simulacrum,” which has “no relation to any reality whatever” and actually precedes reality’.’ Tlie simulacrum is composed of tliree orders: the pre-modem, the modem and tlie post-modeni. Society currently resides in tlie latter, the third order. Once a concept botli objective and easily identifiable, reality, as claimed by Baudrillard, has now become irrelevant-“trutli, reference and objective causes have ceased to exist”’ This leaves the world in a state of hyperreaiity, in other words, a state where people are unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. YouTube Jind the ease witli which juiyone can now make tlieir own videos to upload onto the Internet create ;ui abundance of opportunities for the hyperreal as Baudrillard conceived it. Tiny digital cameras are regularly packaged into every' cellular phone sold, and any public event can and probably w’ill be recorded by someone. Tlie result of this is a cultural fascination witli “leaked” videos tliat people have managed to subversively record and subsequently upload onto websites like YouTube, of everytliing from frivolous spectacles of a frustrated celebrity’ attacking the paparazzi to more serious images of public protests, police brutality, or even executions. But as Baudrillard also noted in his essay, this is only contributing to tlie perpetuation of simulacra, and does notliing to restore reality. In fact, this proliferation of signs and images only serves to further eliminate their referential meaning.

Sobchack, Vivian. ‘The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic ‘Presence,’” in Film and Theory, ed. Robert Siam, Toby Miller, 67-84, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 68. 2 Baudrillard, Jean. “Precession of Simulacra,” in Simulalions, trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, Philip Beitchman, 1-79. (New York, NY: Semiotext, 1983). 11.

’ Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 6.

Baudrillard illustrates tliis concept with the example of a fake hold-up that confuses tlie line between reality and illusion. The hypothetical criminal uses harmless w'eapons and has no intention of hurting anyone or taking any ransom, but the real reactions of die people around him make die feigned hold-up hyperreal. Tlie case of people posting their coverdy captured videos onto YouTube has die potential to enter the realm of the hypeiTeal in a similar way. For example, many film clips can be found on YouTube that address and show the execution of prisoners, such as Frank Darabont’s The Green Mile (1999) and Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000). In 2006, die Iraqi government convicted dictator Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and condemned him to execution by hanging. An official video w’as released of the execution that ended before Hussein was actually killed. However, one of die guards present used his camera phone to record the moment of Saddam Hussein’s death and leaked die video onto the Internet, causing a massive media storm widi reactions ranging from fascination to outrage. Countless people logged on to view' die video - die actual recording of a person being hanged - in much the same way that millions of people ctin download die fictional recording of Michael Clarke Duncan and Bjork’s executions in The Green Mile and Dancer in the Dark. Much as Baudrillard’s explains diat a feigned hold-up may as well be the real deal, and in fact becomes hyperreal, the prison guard uploading his amateur camera phone video onto YouTube also ushers die “real” experience of a dictator’s execution into the hyperreal. Tlie illusion of a hold-up is impossible because diere would be no way to extricate die real from the un-real. (Tlie guns used to create the illusion may be harmless, but nonetheless “a police officer will really shoot on sight; a bank customer will faint and die of a heart attack.. .”)* Even in an attempt to create a simulated hold-up, the hypodietical faux-criminal would still find himself “immediately in die real.” Similarly, the video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging, now uploaded and easily searchable on YouTube, shares the same signifiers of illusion as a clip of Bjork, shot with low-end, handheld digital cameras, walking down a (fictional) death row and singing a song before her own (fictional) hanging. If one w'ere to judge solely off of signifiers of cinematic style, at some moments Lars Von Trier could just as easily be believed to be a prison guard widi a camera phone standing on the sidelines as a director with a full production staff at his disposal. And as Baudrillard said was the result of his simulated hold-up being indistinguishable from a true hold-up, “tlius all hold-ups, hijacks, and the like are now as it w’ere simulation hold-ups.’” Wliy else would tlie Iraqi goveniment (and the numerous otlier people who protested tlie guard’s \ideo, wiiich ultimately lead to his arrest) have preferred to end die official video before the moment of death, if not diat they recognized, at least subconsciously, die power diat this representation—diis diird-order simulacra—could have? Baudrillard explained diat die hyperreal endangered power structures by direatening to break power down into a mere simulation of itself, thus “disconnected from its aims and objectives, and dedicated to pnwer effects and mass simulation [emphasis in original).”" And though diis explains why such a controversy erupted around the original event of the YouTube leak of Saddam Hussein’s execution, there must also be other consequences now’ diat the video has, irrevocably, become available for viewing by anyone any number of times from any one of a number of individual YouTube users who now' host die video. In fact, Baudrillard believed that all power has already lost its meaning and now “produces nodiing but signs of its resemblance,” and said that “the only weapon of power” against its own destruction in the face of the hyperreal is to “reinject realness and referentiality everywhere” by means of mass-production.’

* Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 39. 5 Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 41. Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 42. Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 42-45.

By dieir very nature websites like YouTube tend towards mass simulation in that tlieir very purpose is to encourage its millions of users to upload content, whether it is a video of diemselves or their lives, which will then be seen by millions of others tliey could never possibly meet in person, some form of mass produced media such as film clips or music videos, or amusing, shocking, or otherwise attention grabbing video clips of events going on in the world around them. And what is more important, these millions of users do not fail to deliver, uploading hours upon hours of new content to tlie site every minute. Previously, in die modem age, die technological advances diat first made mass production possible began the process of die destruction of the reality it sought to replicate. Baudrillard noted that mass production “...only multiplies the signs and accelerates die play of simulation lemphasis in the original].’” Therefore, in a futile cycle, the production of capital (or in the case of YouTube, videos) is doomed to continually produce an endless stream of signs, which in their duplication have lost all vestiges of their referents. If one can move seamlessly from v^Titching one of countless videos of a person being executed to one of endless similar videos of another person simulating an execution, and these videos have been replicated so many times that diey have entirely lost their meaning—then what does diat imply about the reality, or non-reality, of eidier image of execution and death? The implications are not unlike the fears of the Iconoclasts, whose “metaphysical despair” over icons of divinity Baudrillard claimed stemmed from “the idea that the images concealed nodiing at all, and that in fact they were not images, such as the original model would have made them, but actually perfect simulacra forever radiant with their own fascination.’” Here, tlie idea of God as society knows him is not at stake, but instead our collective perception of life and death.

And that is not aK that is at stake: even people’s very perception of themselves and the world may change in relation to the technology that surrounds tliem. More tlian a decade after Baudrillard published his book and ideas on simulacra, Vivian Sobchack wrote her essay on cinematic and electronic presence. In the realm of existential phenomenology, Sobchack is concerned with how technology, particularly cinema and electronics, have impacted “our means of signification during the past century.”” She postulates that the very w’ay human beings perceive, experience, and understand the world has been directly influenced by the technological advances of cinema and the electronic image. “Technology is never merely ‘used,’ never merely instrumental,” she stated. “It is always also ‘incorporated’ and ‘lived’ by the human beings who engage it witliin a structure of meanings and metaphors in which subject-object relations are cooperative, co-constitutive, dynamic, and reversible.”" Sobchack quoted and expanded on Fredric Jameson’s division of technology into three historical moments: the photographic (which she calls “die being-diat-has-been”), the cinematic (the “coming-into-being”) and the electronic (“being-in-itself’).” Each of these stages could be seen as coinciding with Baudrillard’s first, second, and diird orders of simulacra, respectively. Today’s Internet driven culture is rooted firmly in Sobchack’s electronic stage die post-modem, the simulacra of the third order, where society has encountered the total loss of die referent and the hyperreal. According to Sobchack, this transition has not come without a concurrent phenomenological shift in people’s fundamental understanding of their own minds and bodies. This has been evidenced with die release and major success of the blockbuster motion picture Avatar (2009). Despite needing a sky-high budget that originally had die studio balking about the film’s potential for success, Avatar broke several box office records upon release and became the first film to gross more

® Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 44. ’Baudrillard, “Precession of Simulacra,” p. 8-9. Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 67. Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 68. Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 70.

than $2 billion. The film, a science fiction epic set in tlie future when Eartli has become little more than a desolate wasteland, is about a crippled marine named Jake Sully who travels to the almost entirely computer-animated world of Pandora where he is able to regain his mobility by controlling an avatar of one of the computer-animated aliens who populate Pandora, called the Na’vi. Computer-generated imaging such as the type tliat made Avatar a wild success is a perfect example of botli a tliird-order simulacra and the way in which tlie electronic image are so closely linked witli people’s experience of tlie world. Tlie technology used to produce the tall, blue alien Na’vi is in itself a perfect third-order simulacrum: small cameras attached to skull caps specially fitted to actors’ heads record their facial expressions, pupil responses, and otlier tiny nuances that will later be analyzed, interpreted, and animated into the actors’ Na’vi characters—avatars not unlike tlie ones the film itself is about." By the time tlie audience is able to see tlie Na’vi characters on screen, they bear little to no resemblance to tlie human actors they once represented, but instead represent tlieir own trutli witliin tlie computer-generated world of Pandora that is entirely separated from reality.

As Sobchack herself notes about the electronic image, it “constructs a metaworld where etliical investment and value are located in representation-in-iLseli. Tliat is, tlie electronic semiotically constitutes a system of simulatJon - a system that constitutes “copies’* lacking an “original” origin.”" This idea becomes even more prescient in relation to Ava/arwhen one considers several ol the film’s tliemes and basic premises, such as that a crippled human man can once again fuid agency and “wholeness” by inhabiting an alien avatar body that has been modeled alter but is entirely unlike his original, tliat has been artificially grown by scientists and must be inhabited tlirough the aid of computer technology. By inhabiting tliis new, simulated body, he is able to leave behind his flawed human one. According to Sobchack, “electronic representation by its very’ structure phenomenologically denies the human body its fleshly presence, and the world its dimension. However significmit and positive its value in some regards, the electronic trivializes tlie human body.”‘\Jake Sully’s computer-animated avatar’s whole function in the film—and indeed the function of aU of tlie avatar bodies—is to deny tlie humans their bodies’ presence on Pandora. In Avtitar, it is not only tlie crippled Jake’s body that is presented as damaged or weak, but all of the humans, who are unable to leave tlieir compound or so much as breath witliout tlie assistance of an oxygen mask. In fact, the computer-generated alien Na’vi are tlie actual protagonists of tlie film, opposed to tlie gieed, violence, and misunderstanding tliat is invariably displayed by the majority of tlie film’s human, non-animated characters. Humanity and the human body is in fact so reprehensible in Avabu' that by tlie film’s conclusion, botli Jake and the team’s doctor must attempt to leave them and inhabit their avatar Na’vi body instead. Even though tliis is clearly a desirable improvement for Jake, who in liis own body was unable to walk, A laZar continually glorifies the perfection of the alien Na’vi to the detriment of humanity, and it is a perfection tliat can only be attained through computer animated simulacrum.

Just as it is “no accident” that people now understand their minds as computers and lives as movies, Sobchack similarly observed, “Nor is it nivial that computers are often described and understood in terms of human minds and/or bodies (for example, as intelligent, or as susceptible to viral infection) and that these new ‘life forms’ have become cybernetic heroes of our most popular moving image

“James Cameron on the Cutting Edge,” BusinessWeek, accessed December 8, 2010, http;//www .businesswcek.com/magazine/contcnt/07_ 14/64028005.him. Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 79. Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 82.

fictions..Tlie sweeping, record-breaking success of Aratar only proves that there is sometliing about these simulated creatures and the simulated world of Pandora that appeals to people today. As more and more tlieatres switch to digital projection, and more films start to release special 3D versions or boast the most spectacular cutting edge special effects, it seems evident that society has only become more fascinated witli tlie simulation and representation offered by the electronic image than we were when James Cameron first made 'Jermhiator 'in 1984 and when Sobchack wrote about it in her essay a decade later. It is unsurprising that the fully animated, simulated world of Avatar would appeal so strongly to a generation that can hardly stand to be separated for any length of time from dieir iPhones, BlackBenys, or laptops that keep tliem connected to tlieir own simulated world of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. At die time of her writing, Sobchack feared diat die continued dev’aluation of die human body and desire to shed it in favor of an electronic existence would leave people “in imminent danger of becoming merely ghosts in die machine.”” And it would seem true that today, more than simply living in an era of die electronic image, people are becoming die electronic. Society has fully entered the realm of Baudrillard’s hyperreal, making die tongue-in-cheek paraphrase of Descartes, “I can be Googled therefore I am,” less of a joke and more of a truth of the twenty-first century.

Bibliography Avatar. DVD. Directed by James Cameron. 2009; Los Angeles, CA and Wellington, New Zealand: 20th Century Fox, 2010. Baudrillard, Jean. 1983. Precession of Simulacra. In Simulations, trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, Philip Beitchman, 179. New York, NY: Semiotext. Dancer in the Dark. DVD. Directed by Lars Von Trier. 2000; Arlington, WA: Fine Line Features, 2001. The Green Mile. DVD. Directed by Frank Darabont 1999; Blowing Rock, NC: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2000. McConnont, Aili.2007, April 2. James Cameron on die cutting edge. BusinessWeek. http://www.busines.sweek.com/magazine/content/07_l 4/1)402800.5.httn. Saddam Hu.s.sein’.s Exec. Video (The Real One) [Video|. (2006). Retrieved December 8, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/waichPv-Z0dvIHaYV0w. Sobchack, Vivian. 1994. Tlie Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic ‘Presence.’ In Film and Theory, ed. Robert Stam, Toby Miller, 67-84. Oxford, L'K: Blackwell.

Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 68. Sobchack, Vivian, “Scene of the Screen,” p. 82.

Sacred Lotus

Eyeball

Josh Borja

Alison Hoffman Last night my eyeball popped out of my eye and rolled like a marble on the dirty floor.

I looked in the mirror and strings grew out of my eye socket, long and red.

They were thick, and soft like yam.

I told my father I knew I was going

to die, like I know tlie sky is blue.

He cried. And said:

“But...It’s Just An Eyeball,” and told me that I just couldn’t die before him.

I told him 1 felt okay. Like

how people say when you drown,

you struggle at first then accept—

give in. I was happy and Peaceful and I felt

like I knew something for once.

Alla Fuga Chnstina Vari papa “Ma io sono una farfaila!” disse Butterfly. Butterfly era una bella ragazza di sedici anni con i cappelli rossi e gli occhi quasi neri che ti portavano alle stelle per quanto erano luminosi. Abitava I'l, in un paese che si cliianiava Agrigento. Come Luigi Pirandello, era una ragazza di Caos, perche il posto negli anticamente si chiamaxa appunto Kiios in grcco. DifTerentemente dal posto in lui viveva, influcnzato spesso de forze esteme, lei viveva in un mondo tutto suo. “Invece no. Inf'atti, non sei nemmeno umana. Sei sola una cagnaccia impazzita dalla rabbia,” grido Vittorio. “Sai che sei?” rispose Butterfly tranquillamente, “Un verme.” “Ti rendi conto di quello che dici?” sputo Vittorio rosso in faccia, “Continua cosi e avrai un corpo colorato come se fossi dawero I’insetto che immagini di essere.” “Si, mi rendo conto! Sei brutto e cieco senza spina e seiiza cervello. Hai solamente i denti per mangiare il fango.” Vittorio si awicino a Butterfly agitando i pugni...

Il 14 inaggio 1982 c iiata la Ince della nila iita, Luclaiia Rosa. Ha gli occhi neii ina d giuro che biillaiio come le stelle. Sembra una creatura sovniniana e so che sara cos'i fino alia fine. E speciale. Di notte quando dorme, la guardo - ogni tanto mi I'ermo sopra il suo lettino per ore. Ho paura che una notte usciranno le ali dalla schiena e lei volera via lasciandonii nel buio. E troppo cani e pura per vivere qui in questo mondo Mioto di speranza e fede nella magia. Vittorio si awicino ancora di piu e Butterfly trasali, ma non si sposto. Alzo la testa e guardo il cielo con gli occhi neri splendenti didle lacrime. Fisso il sole per un attimo; intanto Vittorio si stava arrabbiando perche lei si rifiutava di guardarlo in faccia. Quando ebbe abbassato la testa, Vittorio le diedc uno schiaffo com’era una carezza, e la fece cadere sul pavimento. Butterfly emise un rantolo, e Vittorio le strappo le ali, come un uoino avrebbe spogliato la sua amante. Nella violenza degli uomini e’e sempre una traccia di desiderio; nella voglia animalesca di distruggere e’e ancora la voglia di sentire la pelle sotto le mani. Cosi fu per Vittorio. Sentiva le coste crollare sotto il piede, e fu soddisfatto I’impulso distruttivo; dopo, cadette in ginocchio e accarezzo la faccia di Butterfly. Sentiva la pelle morbida sotto e la gratto. Butterfly invece sentiva solo il cuore battere contro il tessuto sotto il seno e guardava il caleidoscopio nel cielo. Il mondo le girav~<i attomo. appaiivano macchie di colore a caso come i segnaiatori di passjiggio su una bobina cinematogiiiflca, simili a bmciatore di tante piccole sigarette. Infatti, sembrava che tutti i colori stavano bruciando e scomparendo uno alia volta dalla vista della nostra Butterfly... Luciana ha quatfro anni, ed e come un angelo. Corre per casa tre mila volte al giorno, fino a quando la rincorro eon il cuechiaio di legno nella niia nifuio stiillando come una pazza. Finalinente, ho trovato un soprajionie per lei che non le fa schifo. Tutte le altre volte che ci avevo provato mi aveva risposto, “No, questo no, ” con la sua voce adorahile. leriinvece quando fho chiamata “farfallina'’ha riso e ripeteva, “Bella, bella!*’

Vittorio se ne scappo quel giomo e alia gente di Agrigento non importavTi. Lui era il primo che I’aveva picchiata, ma non era il primo che aveva quasi rotto lo spirito della Farfaila. La Farfaila aveva dei “corteggiatori.” Nessun “buon ragazzo” del paese voleva tenerla per fidanzata, pero due o tre disgraziati le avevano fatto sperare qualche notte. Le promettevano I’amore

etemo, ma allo spuntare del sole Butterfly trovax'a il Ictto scmpre vuoto. I ragazzi di Agrigento la chiamavano “Matta Monaca,” perche di sicuro era destinata ad andare in convento - nessuno I’avrebbe presa. Di solito la gente di Agrigento proteggeva le ragazze del paese a suo modo. Le vecchiette scnitavano la strada dalle finestre aperte di notte, controllando che nessuna ragazza girasse ancora con uno scemo volesse prendere il suo onore. Le madri controllavano le camere da letto. Ma la Farfalla non aveva piu una madre, e le vecchiette avevano perso la speranza per il suo onore dopo aver capito che era disturbata. Quando le vecchiette menzionavano la Farfalla, era in un discorso su sua madre e su quant’era brava. La madre si chiamava Angela, e faceva la parrucchiera. Tutte le donne de! paese I’invidiavano per la sua bellezza, sino all’incidente. L’anno prima della nascita di Butterfly, Angela cadde da cavallo. Da quel momento in poi ebbe una lunga cicatiice a fonna di ala attraverso la guancia. Oggi lit niiii fiufiiUinn hn sei iuuii! Come passa subko il tempo. Facci^uno la torta nelgiardino pensile. A Luciana place essere all’aria aperta. Magari entro ilpomeriggio mi sentiro un po'meglio. Oia ho la testa che gna. Beh, saia perche sto peiisajido a tntto quello che doiro fajc. Voirei che tuUo fosse perfetto per la mia bimba!

Tre mesi dopo I’incidente con Vittorio, Butterfly era gia guarita. Correva nclla piazza con nuove ali di cartone alia schiena. I ragazzini del paese le deridevano come sempre. Un giomo perd incontro un piccolo amico. Lui la seguiva nella piazza. Correva dopo di lei, ma ogni volta che Butterfly si giro a salutarlo, lui corse via. Finalmente un giomo le disse, “Ciao, sono Michele.” E per la prima volta in sette anni Butterfly si presento con il suo nome vero. Disse, “Giomo! Sono Luciana.” Michele, povero ragazzino, rimase scioccato dal fatto che la Farfalla sapeva parlare, e non sapeva cosa doveva dire dopo. Luciana sorrise e tenette la sua mano. Corscro insieme per la piazza tutto il pomeriggio. Alle cinque, Michele disse che doveva andare a casa. La maimna gli aveva raccomandato di non tomare tardi. Prima di camminare via, si giro e gliela fece la domanda che aveva in testa mtto il tempo mentre stava giocando con Luciana. “Ma sei dawero una farfalla?” Luciana si mise in ginocchio e gli rispose gentilmente, “Si, non penso che qualcuno mi creda, perd si. Ho le ali che nessuno pud vedere. Sono dentro, sotto la pelle, e sono grandissime e belle.” “Nessuno?” “Beh, la mia mamma le vedeva. Mi chiamava Farfallina quando ero piccola.” “E dov’e? Non ho sentito mai parlare di tua madre.” “E morta anni fa.” “Oh, mi displace,” rispose Michele e fece una cosa che un altro non avrebbe mai fatto con tutta la simpatia e la sensibilita che aveva quel ragazzo di dieci anni: la abbraccid. Butterfly lo guardd mentre se ne andava e pensd alia madre. E morta proprio nel giomo piu bella della sua vita. Era il compleanno di Luciana. Erano sul terrazzo, Luciana, i suoi genitori, e gli amici (a quel tempo ne aveva un sacco). Ridevano. Giocavano. Mangiavano la lasagna che era buonissimaera la sua preferita. Poi a un certo punto. Butterfly notd che la faccia era un po’ spiegazzata come se avesse dei forti dolori da qualche parte. “Vieni qua, amore!” disse Angela. Luciana corse verso la sua mamma e appena nelle braccia chiese, “Che hai. Mamma?” “Niente, amore. Ho sonno, ma ne vale la pena. Vedi quanto e bella la tua festa? Tipiace?” “Moltissimo!” “Ti volevo dire una cosa importante. Non so se tu sia pronta a sentirlo perd.” “Dimmi! Sono quasi una donna, sai?”

“Si, lo so. Ormai sei grande! Fra poco sarai una signora! Ecco tutto, Farfallina. Dico solo che un giomo sara I’ora di volare sola senza di me e vo^io sapere che puoi farlo.” “Mamma, io non volo da nessuna parte senza di te!” “Non dico oggi, tesoro. Ma un giomo, dovrai volare sola, facendo vedere a tutti la tua bellezza. Prometti che non nasconderai mai le tue ali, che tutti sapranno che mia tiglia e speciale.” “Ok, Mamma,” disse Luciana confusa. “Brava! Corri a raggiungere i tuoi amici. Vai.” E quando Angelina si alzo, fece una faccia strana. Luciana si giro mentre la mamma cadde dal terrazzo. Corse con tutta la sua forza per la crinale, ma il suo padre la prese nelle braccia. Le strinse forte, non lasciandola andare. Butterfly gli batteva con le mani strillando, “Lasciami, posso salvarla! Mamma! VOLO! VOLO! HO PROMESSO!”

VoJa, arnore. Vola.

Sei mesi dopo, Vittorio torno. Infatti, tomo lo stes.so giomo che Michele fu preso dal cancro. E quella mattina, dopo che ebbe sentito le novita. Butterfly si trovo sopra quello stesso terrazzo. Ci era andata senza renders! conto di aver camminato. Guardo giu da sopra e send un sussurro: Vola. Farf'aJhna...vola. Butterfly pianse. Non sentiva il suono della voce della madre da dieci anni. Era il suono piu hello al mondo.

VoJa...vola, amore.

E con quesfincantesimo in testa, salto. Per un attimo quel giomo una farfalla volava. I cappelli rossi erano soffiati dal vento e gli occhi neri divcntarono larghi. La Farfalla ando in alto cantando alia madre, e poi cadde pensando L'ho faUo. Fu Vittorio che la trovo qualche minuto dopo. Fu colpito dalla sua bellezza. Le accarezzo la spalla con piu passione di quando I’aveva fatto una volta e disse, “Vola, Farfalla.”

To a Tainted Teacup

Tittle Staten Island

Aurora Bell

Delia Rose Mandia

LigHt flickers through lattice on a Sunday afternoon, Makes patterns on die ground you could hide in,

Filters through ivy and magnolia leaves To play among the steamy irises

And leaves its traces in comers of the old stone walls

Protecting the garden from trampling feet and prying wind. It must have been for someone special

To keep it locked up most days among the latticed crepe myrtle limbs And honeysuckle-hung trellises If you were lucky enough to find diem in die spring

Protected from the wind by the old stone walls

And light patterns you could get lost in. Light that makes a spectrum of green and brown and violet With the delicacy of the gardener and the potter

Both of whom, at times, paint

Untitled Alyssa Clear

El amor olvtdado y la formacion do la idontidad on T0 de^jo amor, on pronda, ol mar Kim Alpert Cuaiido estamos enamorados, vemos el mundo de color de rosa. Podemos estar cautivados por una flor, una carta, una mirada singular mientras el mundo nos pasa. La mente tunciona en una manera en que los detalles innumerables de la \ida estan olvidados en la estela del gran amor. Son estos olvidos de los detalles triviales lo que nos permiten traducir la sensacion y los sendmientos a las memorias, a experiencias que podemos entender y releer en el futuro. Cuando leimos “Funes, el memorioso” de Jorge Luis Borges, un cuento que ilumina el handicap de la memoria perfecta, en comparacion con el cuento de Carme Riera, “Te dejo amor, en prenda, el mar”, el segundo nos re vela una narradva que esta caracterizada por dos dpos de memoria: la memoria subjetiva (una memoria vaga, conceptual y emocional) y la memoria objetiva (lo que esta afeiTada a los detalles, una memoria muy precis^. De esto, emerge un segundo patron. Los dos dpos de memoria parecen ser una con otra, respecdv’amente, momentos del texto que estan gobemados por la ley, y los que est^ Uenos de amor y deseo. Esta tendencia, cuando se examina a la luz del "Melancholy Gender/Refused Idendficarion", un ensayo de Judith Butler, y los pensamientos de Nietzsche, sugiere que el amor, y el deseo que lo perpetua, pueden ser constitudvos de la idenddad. Funes, el tocayo y el psuedo-protagonista de “Funes, el memorioso,” es la vfedma de un accidente del que quedo lisiado flsicamente, pero, en el mismo momento, como si en un cambio de sus molestias, el accidente le doto de la memoria perfecta. El lector esta introducido a este talento peculiar de Funes via el shock del narrador cuando, solo pocos dias despues de que el preste un libro sobre los fundamentos del latin a Funes, el narrador entro a la casa de Funes y, Oi de pronto...la voz hablaba en latin; esa voz (que venia de la tiniebla) ardculaba con moroso deleite un discurso o plegaria o incantacion. Resonaron las silabas romanas en el patio de tierra; mi temor, las creia indescifrables, interminables; despues, en el enonne dialogo de esa noche, supe que fonnaban el primer parrafo del vigesimocuai to capitulo del libro septimo de la Natiiralis lustoiia. (127) Es una escena de luz parpadeante, luz oscura y casi mitica y, por eso, presta un aire magico e inestimable a la nueva capacidad de Funes, a su capacidad para absorber y entonces para siempre recordar los esdmulos. Sin embargo, podemos ver que eso no es la verdad entera y la memoria perfecta es tan debilitante como los h^idicaps fisicos. El narrador nos dice que la incapacidad de Funes para olvidar es un problema porque el

[e]ra casi incapaz de ideas gcnerales, platonicas. No solo le costaba comprender que el simbolo generico perro abarcara tantos individuos dispares de diversos tamanos y diversa forma; le molestaba que el perro de las tres y catorce (visto de perfil) tuviera el mismo nombre que el perro de las ties y cuarto (visto de frente)...no era muy capaz de px.’nsai\ Pensar es olvidar diferencias, es generalizai’, abstracr. En el abarrotado mundo de Funes no habla sino detalles, casi inmediatos. (130-131)

Por eso, por la capacidad involuntaria de la memoria exacta, Funes no puede comprender “la gran vision” o los conceptos grandes. Es como el esta muy cercano a un mosaico y esta demasiado fascinado por las partes para darse cuenta de que componcn una imagen. Con esto en mente, la descripcion de Funes como "un precursor de los superhombres, 'un Zarathustra cimarron y vemaculo” toma una significacion nueva en su referencia a la composicion de Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (122). En esta obra, Nietzsche explora las ideas de "tlie eternal reoccurrence of the same" y el Overman y, tambien, el crea un di^ogo entre la memoria y la percepcion que esta elaborado en "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense". Alli, Niestzsche escribe.

Every concept arises from the equation of unequal tilings..Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally tlie same as another, so it is certain that the concept 'leaf is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects...We obtain tlie concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual. (83) La capacidad para mezclar, para desdibujar juntos los detalles, y para abstraer desde lo especifico a lo general son procesos esenciales al pensamiento y el razonamiento; estos procesos son englobados dentro del acto de olvidar. Por eso, el olvido esta situado como un precursor del pensamiento. Esto sugiere que hay algo formativo sobre la relacion entre esos procesos, algo sobre el olvido que es constitutivo de la capacidad para conceptualizar. Cuando el narrador oye que Funes esta hablando en latin, el nos narra como “la voz hablaba en latin; esa voz (que venia de la tiniebla) articulaba..." (127). El da la agenda a la misma voz, no a Funes. Sugiere que, al narrador, le resulta claro que Funes no tenga control sobre sus facultades - el ha llegado a ser mecanizado, y funciona por auto-piloto.

tarde, el narrador dice que "la voz de Funes, desde la oscuridad, seguia hablando", separando Funes desde la voz un otro vez (129). En este momento, Funes ha sido reducido a poco m^s que un deposito para la memoria, un recipiente de una voz. Aliora, la identidad de Funes es problematica. Cuando una persona esta definida por lo que percibe, llega a ser nada mas que una parte del ambiente, un espejo de los alrededores. Si la memoria exacta erosiona la identidad, podemos concluir que la capacidad para olvidar es parte de la creacion o, al menos, la preservacion de la identidad.

Sin embargo, la memoria exacta apenas existe fuera de la imaginacion de Borges. Para la mayoria, la capacidad para recordar es estructurada como un continuo: algunos momentos estm grabados en la mente con detalles exactos, y otros son recuerdos breves y vagos. “Te dejo amor, en prenda, el mar”, de Carme Riera, es una coleccion de memorias devastadoramente exquisita. La narracion de la carta oscila entre los detalles exactos y la ambigiiedad frustrante. "Aiioro la inmensidad azulada, la diminuta inmensidad azulada que parecia adentrarse en el camarote por el ojo de buey", dice el narrador, su voz facilmente atribuible a Riera (53). Con esta.s oraciones empiez^ la carta, y el narrador da enfasis a la singularidad de su mar, aunque hay muchos mares y todos son grandes y azules. La frase “la diminuta inmensidad azulada” parece contradictoria, y puede ser una alusion a varias cosas: que grande la presencia del mar parecio a ella por la ventanilla, como las posibilidades de la inmensidad del mar parece personal a ella, etc. (61). Nunca podemos comprender con certeza cual articulacion de ese momento estaba captada en su memoria.

Del mismo modo, el narrador continua y recuerda que, “Me preguntaste que queria pedirte con aquella manera de mirar, escudrihadora, como si te rebuscara el alma. Yo te conteste - me hago cruces de mi sinceridad - que siempre miraba asi cuando alguien me llamaba la atencion” (62). Hay un vacio en esta memoria que resulta en la sorpresa retrospectiva de Riera sobre su franqueza; si era de una memoria

exacta, nada de eso podria estar sorprendente porque Riera ya lo conoccria. Tambien, Riera escribe que "avara sobre todo de aquella claridad injertada de besos que tanto amamos. jAmabamos tantas y tantas cosas!" sin especificar que son “las cosas” (56).

En contraste, Riera describe mementos de claridad de la memoria completa: ...pero nadie, a excepcion de mi padre, se atrevio a hablarme cara a cara enfrentandose con la realidad. Tengo aun muy presente el rictus de su rostro crispado, el tono agrio de su voz...Recuerdo solamente dos frases que - como el sonsonete pegadizo de un anuncio publicitario, que se te mete en la cabeza y repites mentalmente sin darte cuenta - me han acompanado a menudo: 'ELste es el camino de la depravacion, Te mandare a Barcelona, se csto dura un di'a m^.’ (57) Eln mismo modo, ella recuenta que, “Mi hiciste callar. Como un automata escupias palabras: 'Esto no puede continuar. Tenemos que poner punto final a nuestras relaciones, porque no tienen ningun sentido," y tambien que Maria dice,

Ha pasado el tiempo y ahora esta todo mucho mas claro. Nuestras relaciones no tienen sentido, no deben continuar. No quiero ni hacerme ni hacerte daiio. (?Que ibamos a hacer con este amor que no conduce a ninguna parte, que no tiene finalidad ninguna?...No te replique a pesar de que no estaba de acuerdo con tus argumentos; porque yo si sabia, con seguridad absoluta, que la linica finalidad de nuestro amor era sencillamente el amor. (61) Hay muchisimos ejemplos de cada tipo de memoria dentro del texto de Riera, pero cada uno parece aparecer en circunstancias especi'ficas. El factor determinante que distingue entre los dos tipos de memoria es el contenido; los que est^i saturados en contexto emocionaJ son preservados en "memoria subjeliva" (son mas literarios, mas metaloricos, son abiertos a muchas interpretaciones). En contraste, el otro tipo de preservacion, que es rigido y factual (como en “Funes”), parece estar aplicado a los momentos que est^ enfrentados con algunas manifestaciones de la ley; no significa csto que esas memorias scan totalmente desprovistas de la emocion, porque eso no es verdad, simplemente que hay algo opresivo de su caracter que requiere repeticion precisa en vez de la memoria emocional. Las memorias subjetivas - los que enmarcan los momentos del gran amor (y el dcseo que lo perpetua) - parece ser estructuradas alrededor del olvido de detalles y la conservacion de los sentamientos, el humor, cl tono y la calidad. Judith Buder, en su ensayo "Melancholy Gcndcr/Refused Identification", explora las consecuencias de la idea que la homosexualidad es el resultado de un fracaso para lamentar la perdida de nuestras "prc-ocdipal, same-sex attachments"; cs decir, ella expresa que "heterosexual identity is purchased through a melancholic incorporation of the love that it disavows"(134). Como la teoria de Nietzsche sobre la "active faculty of repression" que filtra la mayoria de los detalles de experiencia perceptual, la teoria de orientacion de Butler presupone una perdida, un olvido de la homosexualidad que, m^ tarde, va a influir la identidad sexual: "negation, loss, and melancholia are preconditions for the emergence of the subject" (Subjects of Desire 244).

Las memorias de Te dejo" son importantes porque nos permiten la examinacion de la influencia del proceso de hacer memorias sobre la identidad. Las memorias subjetivas que permiten el olvido de detalles y minucias son relatadas por su contenido: el amor y el deseo. Todos los textos que habian sido referenda para este ensayo hasta este punto son relativos a los temas y modos de comunicacion diferentes, pero todos sc unen en un punto singular: hay algo sobre el olvido que influye en la formacion

de la identidad. Podemos extender eso a decir que las memorias subjetivas incompletas (que estan caracterizados por el olvido) tambien tienen un 'stake* en la identidad.

Tenemos que considerar que la orientacion sexual de la relacion del narrador con su maestra es una relacion lesbiana; el narrador nos revela ese detalle con mucho cuidado, en una frase singular. Yo argumentaria que eso es una manifestacion del olvido. Es claro que la omision es con intencion y es parte del estilo del autor, pero tambien puede funcionar como un gran olvido que permite el narrador abrazar la heterosexualidad. M^s, como todas las memorias subjetivas se situan alrededor de los sentamientos fuertes del amor y el deseo, podemos concluir que la presencia de esas emociones influye en la identidad tambien. Es una idea comun que las relaciones pueden cambiamos - si nada mis, es claro que, en Te dejo” las memorias que estan formadas durante las relaciones, cuando cstamos expuestos y vulnerables, son preservadas en una manera que incorpora un crecimiento en nuestras identidadcs.

Tambien, tenemos que considerar que las memorias objetivas de “Te dejo amor, en prenda, el mar” aparecen debido a contacto con la ley - la ley del padre, de las regulaciones de abuso infantil, amenazas a la reputacion. El “Judith Butler Reader” nos dice que, “the subject turns against itself by passionately attaching itself to tlie law tliat subjects it” (12). Estos momentos son cuando necesitamos prestar atencion al ambiente fuera de nuestra identidad singular, fuera de una relacion privada. Aqui, la memoria objetiva funciona como un mecanicismo de seguridad, porque lleva la atencion al exterior para evaluar precisamente la ley y las amenazas que nos confrontan. Juntos, los dos modos de memoria sirven para preservar momentos y experiencias que pueden desarrollar y proteger a identidad - esencialmente, como el mar, las memorias sirv’en como prendas del amor.

Referencias Bibliografias

Borges, Jorge Luis. Ficcioncs. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993. Print Butler, Judidi P. Subjects of'Desiie. New York (N.Y.): Columbia VP, 1999. Print Butler, Judith. The Fsycbic Life of Power: j'lieones in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1997. Print Nietz.sche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Clancey Martin, Kathleen M. Riggings, Robert C. Solomon, and George Stade. Thus Spoke ZarathustiH. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2007. Print Salih, Sara, andjuditli Biitler. Tlie Judith Buder Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2003. Print.

Of Our Miracle

He Yan Victoria Ahn

Josh Borja

My grandfather paid a man who knew all the ways of names before I was bom. old philosophies and persistent envies made me beautiful river. I have been called many otlier things, a dead queen in england, mispronunciations, labels, things tliat I have done what did tliis man speaking names see where does tliis river flow am 1 who grandfather wanted me to be? a name tliat has been given can be left, but a name that has been bought that is different.

Just look closer and read the material: the paper, the pulp, the tree that hugs the ink— it’s between the lines and snuggled witliin the letters. Just look closer, tlie closest you can get, then I'll tell you that there's notliing to see, to hear. Just listen as you slide your finger across the comer of tlie page, and I’ll tell you that's music when you swijui die sheet from right to left, as die friction massages the fibers and makes them groan in shaip whispers. Your digits groping 191 and, just like I said, its gasps float about. Look what you've done: invisible bonds in the air, devastated and out of breath by the roller coaster waves you've sent dieir way, page 192 whisked away mid-kiss from 193, the only page he’s known—they’ve had their faces pressed tighdy until you came along, and when you've read them like an open book and had your way with the stories on their faces, you'll roll them over and make diem kiss again. Tlie drama! Those fibrous vocal chords crinkling and wliispering and loving and moving, I'll have you know, is die music that I'm talking about. It's die sound of motion and continuity and, well, of our miracle.

Aspens James Barraclough A chill runs along my spine ;is I push tlie heavy door open and peer into my fatlier’s study. The handsome room is filled with a fiery glow tliat ebbs and flows against the dark, lacquered oaken panels of the walls. There are two chairs in die room: one directly in front of the heardi, die other behind the hulking desk that crouches in the darkness on die far side of die room. My father sits upright in the cushioned chair near the fire, his head just visible over die top of the chair, though it hangs limply forward in sleep. He used to say the room made it easier to remember, to diink when his mind was heavy. Wlien I wa,s young, I would sometimes sit on die floor in front of die fire to be near him, even if he was working and didn’t look up from his papers. One night when my mother was sick, I crept into the study and found him sitting in his deep chair. It was unclear whether he knew I was beside him or not His eyes stared fixedly at some unidentifiable spot on the wall, while his strong chin rested in his open palm, his moudi clenched and rigid. The fire seemed to soften his sharp features, but it could not warm the look on his face. 1 tried to think his thoughts, but my mind could not reach through his implacable eyes. At die time, I couldn’t understand how sick my mother was, but I felt a terrible pressure in my chest when I looked at her pale face and into her too-wateiy eyes. I felt like I was falling inside diem with nothing to buoy my head above water. She would hold my hand weakly and whisper a few words to me, but if she exerted herself too much, the nurse shooed me out of the room. In the vacant hallway, the mask-like face and drowning eyes I didn’t recognize cast shadows in my mind. My father’s hand moved to rub his face in what I thought was an attempt to purge sleep from his eyes, but his hand came away glistening. Instinctively, I reached my hand toward his where it lay on the armrest, but I stopped before reaching him when his hand clenched convulsively in pain or anger. My hand hovered near it, not quite touching, quivering a litde widi die effort of holding it still. He could not sense my presence, even diis close, when it seemed as if I must feel the tiny hairs that covered die back of his hand. As bodi of u.s sat suspended in motion, second.s ticked by, and die fire popped periodically. I retracted my hand silendy widiout touching hi.s skin. His eyes didn’t even move toward me as I rose and moved to die door, my litde feet soundless on die warm wood. I turned back, but his eyes remained fixed ahead, while his face sliifted and changed in light and shadow. Now, he almost never leaves die room. The doctor says diere is nothing wrong with him physically, diough he is quite old—his hard, sharp features cracked and softened by age. He can walk fine on his own, but someone has to help him move around die house or he loses himself in the long, quiet halls. Even when I sit next to him or bring him food, he rarely notices I am diere. I take a step inside die room. Tliis has always been his favorite room, the place for him to be alone. Looking into his dark, shadowy refuge, I realize die intrusion I must have been a.s a boy, even just sitting quiedy by his side. The room is still, save for die sharp occasional crack of the fire. The large wooden desk and die matching chair are all diat remain to show he was once a hard-working man. All of his papers have been sorted and disposed of; everything is gone. I wander dirough die room looking at die pictures he carefully framed. He n'as very fond of his pictures, and he never let anyone else frame diem. Many of the faces are unfamiliar to me; most are probably dead or long out of touch. I only know them from their fixed expressions here on the wall. There is a picture of my grandparents—both austere and stem, both worn and old—whom I don’t ever remember meeting. They are only old faces to me. I stop at die prints of my mother. She died when I was thirteen. My memoric.s of her are vague, but I remember our dinners in die backyard underneath the aspens as the light was beginning to fade. I can vividly recall the orange light and the spangled leaves and, around me, her voice and die wind, a litde cool.

The dark, solid shadow of die desk draws me closer and closer. I ease into die rigid chair, trying not to wake him. I open the center drawer carefully, hearing the silky whisper of wood sliding on wood. There is a gold lock on it, but I stopped locking it a few months ago. I found the key tied around my father's neck widi a piece of white string. I took it furtively while he was sleeping, like a thief, but he doesn’t miss it. His mind is elsewhere now. My fingers linger over the smoodi wood of the desk drawer. There are several documents inside still needed for legal purposes—mosdy pertaining to the house—but I have eyes only for one thing, die photograph. Tliere is a crease on the bottom right comer where I hold it, and where he probably held it before me. In die picture, my father and his platoon look sharply out at me. The faces are young, my father being the oldest. He’s standing in die middle, an arm around the two nearest soldiers, his closest friends during liis later years. His eyes arc focused on the camera, staring straight at me with a clarity diat is now gone from his old eyes. They are strange, complicated faces. I do not know them. He sent me away to a boarding school soon after my modier died because he wanted me to have an excellent education and was sure of his own alma mater. Later, when he made his only visit to me at school, he informed me he was going to war in an effective, brisk tone, as if diis was the last little piece of business to attend to before going. He didn’t explain himself to me, but I always diought he did it more out of loneliness dian a sense of patriotic duty. I waited patiendy for him to leave. His sharp eyes looked at me curiously, as if he thought I was going to cry, as if he had planned for such an outcome. Instead, we exchanged uncomfortable handshakes, neither of us sure if I was man enough for a hand shake yet, and he marched confidendy from die room. A couple years later, wliile I was home on vacation to see old friends, he arrived widi his faded green bag and a flashing breast, sprinkled gold and silver. His face was stem and impassive as he advanced up die driveway, his dress shoes clacking sharply on die cement. He extended his hand with strong precision and gripped my smaller hand finnly. I knew I should speak, but I couldn’t think of anydiing he would want to hear or I wanted to say. He had written occasionally, but I hadn’t seen him in two years. I watched his eyes dart up to my face, warily, even a litdc unsure. Quiet fear crept into my chest as he examined me like a stranger. For a moment, I thought he was going to venture a pat on cheek, but he stepped past me and entered the house. Once inside, he moved briskly down die hall toward liis study. I never asked him about the war. After diat, I went to college. I came home during holidays occasionally, but he busied himself widi work. I don’t know if he ever really knew I was diere, not the way I knew he was there. His mind was already distant, and it was breaking down gradually. He cried sometimes, which he had never done in front of me before. The first time it happened, a sudden spasm came over him, and he knocked his bowl from die table, shattering the beautiful porcelain. Shock rolled through me as my fadier cried quietly in his hands. Pity welled within me, but it w'as too strange, too frightening. I felt if I touched him or spoke to him I might ruin my already tenuous presence in his mind. After several minutes, he wiped his face widi his napkin, called for die seivant to clean up die dish, and disappeared down die hallway. I felt sick and my breath w'as hot and fast as I stood up from die table, moving quickly out die back door. Tlie light breeze rusded through the aspens lining the backyard. The yellow leaves blazed orange as the sun set, and I lay down beneadi diem, and waited for my ragged breadiing to slow. I look at the photo for a moment more before placing it delicately back in the drawer. My fadier mutters incoherendy from his place by the fire. I finger die tiny key he had worn around his neck, still attached to die worn and dirty piece of string. Ten years have passed since he came back. I cannot remember die last time I visited him here. We are different people now but still strangers. After a moment of hesitation, I lock the drawer. As I approach him, die wood is very warm beneadi my bare feet He stirs briefly as I look at his wrinkled face, but his eyes are closed, and he lapses back into stillness. He looks almost at peace wrapped in liis blanket. My hand rests on the back of the chair, and I extend my fingers to almost touch the top of his head. His eyes flicker open, and I am once more aware of their impenetrability and die gaping divide yawning between us, and my hand darts away. His mouth

quivers a little, and he seems about to say sometliing, but he can’t, or won’t, and shrinks back into himself. I sit down once more in front of liis chair and lean up against the leg. Shadows dance around the room, and warmth rolls over me as 1 let my head rest against the chair. I must have fallen asleep for some time because when I awake, tlie fire is low. Looking up at his face, I feel a deep longing to know him. I stand up and reach out my hand hesitandy, my fingers close enough to graze his stubble. I realize I am holding my breath; I release it in a long sigh and let my hand brush hi.s forehead. As my fingers brush his skin, his jaw clenches instinctively, and he shudders. The room is very dark as I look around it, though a shaft of moonlight drifts through tlie window. My eyes roam over the desk, the dark oak walls, the pictures hanging on tlie walls, tlie shadows dancing amidst the dying glow of the fire, and then I tie the key around his neck with reluctant fingers and leave him. Outside in the hall, I desperately want to say something, anything, in the hope of hearing somediing in return, but I know that here there are only shadows huddling in comers. I hurry from the house, almost miming, down to tlie aspens tliat line die yard. The moon sliines brightly on bone-like branches and through leave,s that glow white and rustic like ragged breath. The sky is cold and pure here in the mountains, and the bright formations of the unblinking stars fill my eyes to bursting.

Adapt Paul Anagnostopoulos

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is crying through the floorboards.

one day

it, too, will return to the place, it has created

for itself, it’s easy to kill, they say.

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Beyond thG Theatrical: (Xon)Event5 of Judgment and Forgiveness Paul Kollmcr In the second to last paragraph of Franz Kafka's “The Judgment,” as Georg weakens his grip, he “spied between the railings a motor-bus coming which would easily cover the noise of his fall” (63). Throughout Kafka's short story, the action of “covering up” occupies a figurative role for tlie father, the son and tlie dead motlier. In this final moment, die reader can interpret tliis “cover” as a symbolic connection diat establishes the role of father as fatlier and die son as son. A few pages earlier in the text, just before die father's “No!” and his erect springing up from his son's tuck-in routine, die fadier twice repeats die question: “Am I w’ell covered up?” (58-59). Tlie father objects to being “covered up,” to being controlled at die hands of the son. Later in the text, just after liis sentencing, Georg’s fadier makes a loud “crash” wliile falling onto the bed. Georg does not overpower the noise of his father—he submits to die order of die judgment widi immediacy, silence and submission. He obeys the orders of die performative speech act or the sentence as immediately as he performs die role of son. He is, in die end, die “innocent child” diat his fadier labels him.

This is one way to read the event of Georg's final “covering up” moment The father becomes the judge, die accuser, and re-occupies his role as sovereign, a role to which die son does not, until the last two pages of the short story, respond. The time of the judgment, in this reading, arrives. However, this is not to say diat diere isn't a level of unreadability to diis one word “cover” when it comes to die event of the judgment, die fulfillment of the final sentence. Tliere are difficulties and leakages in diis performance when it comes to die idea of “covering up,” for Georg's last moment is as much an event in die dieater of judgment as it is a non-event and a non-dieatrical moment However, before I discuss the unreadability of this “cover,” some definitional work is in order.

The mention of an event, a dieater, a performance all lead to a chain of questions on meaning and definition: Can we agree on die meaning of diese words? An equally, if not more difficult, task of definition is beginning to investigate die meaning of a non-event, a non-dieater and a non-performance. Tliere will be no concluding or finalizing definitions of diese words. If anything, I am interested in investigating how language is vulnerable to both conducting and failing such a task dirough performative speech acts, characterizations and temporal settings. Kafka's “Judgment” as well as Derrida's “On Forgiveness” complicate and blur die spaces and temporalities of forgiveness and judgment. Tliey introduce not only readable features of a judgment and an act of forgiveness but also die paradoxical and die unreadable features of diese events. In this paper, I question whedier die instances of “covering up” in die final paragraphs of “Tlie Judgment” also go beyondthe theatrical realms ofjudgment and how bodi texts operate through equivocations, ambiguities and tensions in representations ofjudgment and forgiveness.

1. Derrida's Tangle of a Paradox

In “On Forgiveness,” Derrida states tliat “tlic representative of the State can judge, but forgiveness has precisely notliing to do widi judgment” (43). Derrida's conception of a “pure” forgiveness is, as he italicizes and paraphrases in the final section of his essay, “ unconditional but wthout sovereignty^ (59). Because the act of a judgment has bodi terms/conditions as well as a sovereign, a judgment has “precisely nothing to do” with forgiveness. Tlie thinker's use of the adverb “precisely,” however, hits a few different complications, for, yes, “pure” forgiveness remains completely outside of conditions—tlieater, performance, event—however tlie purity’ of forgiveness also, with the idea of “confusion,” seeps into tlie juridical process in his text. How dependent is the expression of forgiveness in language upon tliis confusion?

This is dangerous territory. Derrida’s forgiveness is mad; its meaning is non-meaning (45). This paper does not seek to fall into tlie confusions of judgment/forgiveness of which Derrida accuses various actors belonging to “tlie geopolitical scene.” At tlie same time, a site of confusion not only informs the reader of tlie “geopolitical scene” but also speaks to tlie issues of paradox within Derrida's text itself. Wliat Derrida calls tlie indissociable connection between “the unconditional and the coiulitional” '\s part in parcel of tliis tension, tliis difficulty in defining tliat which is judgment and that which is forgiveness. This difficulty is not only a site of “confusion” for tliose that think they are forgiving. It is also inseparable from botli tenns’ meanings. Tliis idea of indissociablity is operative within the structure of Derrida's own text. Tlic unknowability of forgiveness is at the same time contingent on Derrida's judgment of tlie “geopolitical scene” as confused (28). Tliis is one paradoxical tangle of tlie text, for without the ability of Derrida as judge or sovereign to accuse political actors of non-forgiveness, tlie very conception of a pure forgiveness does not have a context and thus, for the reader, does not have a meaning outside of “non meaning.” Tliis is not to say tliat Derrida is an arbiter of pure forgiveness, but ratlier that tlie definitions ofjudgment and forgiveness arc contingent upon each other in tlie essay and yet also have “notliing to do” witli each other.

In order to critique the confusions of forgiveness, Derrida must reproduce tlie theatrical space of judgment. Tlie negativity of Derrida's word choice in the paraphrase of a forgiveness wortliy of its name, one tliat is both “ uncondidonal but nitljout sovereigiity,” further emphasizes tlie indissociability of judgment and forgiveness. Negati\dty meaning—Derrida adds an un- and an -out to tlic adjectives of a judgment in order to attempt explaining the idea of forgiveness. Tliis negative prefix/suflix combination is a judgment of its ow'n kind that botli claims forgiveness of having “a name” while, at tlie same time, escaping such a prescription in language. I must provide a caveat, for tliis analysis of prefixes and suffixes is dependent on an English translation and is, in the French, vulnerable to complications. Nonetheless, these complications do not refute that the description “uncondidonal but \vithout sovereignty^' is an event in language, a scene of judgment of its own kind suggesting tlic performative tensions of language as an inescapably judgmental institution, even in its attempts to describe forgiveness. This is a moment where language fails, for a conceptualization of forgiveness for Derrida is impossible in language without the crutch of a judgment. Even though with judgment a “pure” forgiveness collapses, the very idea of forgiveness collapses without the event ofjudgment.

2. Issues of Finality—Conditions of Time

To return to the final moments of “The Judgment”, when Georg sights the motor-bus that will “cover the noise of Iiis fall,” there arc a scries of other cover-ups that complicate the performative fulfillment of tlie fatiier's judgment. Georg responds to die performative speech act, “I sentence you now to death by drowning!” Tlie deed ofjudgment is done as soon as it is put into language. However, die re are a series of fissures diroughout the last paragraph that involve “covering up” and work to contaminate a reading of the perfonnative features of die judgment. These fissures and instances of unreadability set Georg up as performing the sentence of a judgment as well as going beyond such a performance. I do not suggest that these instances of going beyond in “The Judgment” paint the final scene of the short story as one in which Georg crosses the boundary from judgment to forgiveness. Such a boundary is both contrived (as Derrida points out) and reads onto, rather than into, the text at hand. However, these fissures in the text complicate die dieatrical boundaries of die judgment, die fulfillment of die sentence and the reading of finality into this moment of the text.

Finality' is not an easy term to simply dirow out widiout explanation. Who is to assume or read finality into a judgment? Because the judgment in Kafka's short story is a perfonnative speech act, the utterance in language is final. The sentence is said and the deed is done. This is an event in language, and this is die event that, widi the tide, the reader waits for througliout die story. The father's dialogue, “Maybe the time will come for mentioning diem, and maybe sooner than we think,” foreshadows the arrival of die judgment (56). In addition, just before the erect springing of the fadier, die old man “hangls) onto the watch chain” in Georg's pocket. The watch chain foreshadows the coming of the event However, the final scene complicates temporality and the idea of diis event iUTivitig in die short story.

In the story’s final sentence, just as Georg “let himself drop,” die reader does not see a landing, an episode of drowning, a close to die deed. The last sentence is, instead, “At this moment an unending stream of traffic was just going over the bridge” (63). In contrasting die dieatrical boundaries of the perfonnative speech act widi the “unending” stream, George is sentenced immediately, yet his fulfillment of diat sentence is temporally ambiguous. Tliere is an infinity to his final sentence, and thus it is difficult to call it “final.” While die sentence begins “At diis moment,” it describes something “unending” and thus complicates die idea of die complete event of judgment. What I refer to with die word “complete” is the initial analysis of diis paper, where die father and son re-enter their respective roles and the son becomes “covered up.” The final event, foreshadowed widi die watch and die fadier’s dialogue, occurs. Yet although his father's sentencing orders to drown him immediately, die reader never sees an episode of drowning. Tlius, diis stand-alone sentence stretches die temporal boundaries of the judgment and problematizes the performative conditions of die story’s “final” scene.

In die first section of “On Forgiveness,” Derrida discusses die difficulty of forgiveness, finality and temporality. He states, “Each time forgiveness is at the service of finality...dien the 'forgiveness' is not pure- nor is its concept”(32). Whereas die reader can see die performative speech of a judgment, the “I sentence you now” as the arrival of a judgment, the performative of “I forgive you” in Derrida's text always fails. Forgiveness, in its unconditional form, never arrives, for all of his historical examples are telling of what forgiveness is not. Like Kafka's text, “On Forgiveness” ends with an ambiguous “unending.” Derrida finishes his last line on forgiveness as a dream with the three dots of an ellipsis. The reader can look at diis ellipsis as a figurative representation of this non-arrival and the non-event of 30

forgiveness. With this impossibility of forgiveness to arrive in language, the ellipsis suggests that the very idea of forgiveness is as unknowable as a ... [sicj

The figurative representations of the ellipsis fail on several accounts, for they attempt to clarify and substitute for that which does not have a substitution: that which is outside of language. However, I am going to back down now from this analysis of the ellipsis and return to the issue of temporality in both texts. How does non-arrival complicate both the event of a judgment as well as die concept of forgiveness? In Kafka's story, the timelessness of the final sentence points to die paradoxical occurrence of bodi the event as well as die non-event. The fulfillment of die father's terms of accusation does not occur on die printed page, just as the utterance of “I forgive you” in no way marks the arrival of forgiveness.

3. Issues of Spectacle

It isn’t until die final performative speech act of “The Judgment” that the reader sees Georg exit his private home and enter the public eye. Tliese tensions between private and public run through the final two paragraphs of the text and complicate the judgment as a spectacle. But who is to say diat a judgment has to be a spectacle in a public place? This is a valid point, for diere are no rules as to where and when a judgment may occur. Wliat I am instead suggesting is diat diis tension between die spectacle and non-spectacle, or the less-spectacular features of die judgment, open die text up to die various tenets of forgiveness. Is it possible to read forgiveness into die final moments of “The Judgment”? Is this yet another episode of confounding of which Derrida warns the reader? This paper does not aim to escape its own error. To apply Derrida in this way to Kafka is a confounded act. However, looking at dicse views ofjudgment and forgiveness side by side illuminates some of the difficulties and tensions of what a theatrical space in Kafka can even begin to mean.

Wliile discussing die history of a “Declaration of Human Rights,” the thinker describes this transformation in rhetoric as structuring a “theatrical space in which the grand forgiveness, the grand scene of repentance...is played” (29). The recurring appearance of “grand” bodi comments on the massive and impossible public scale of a “Declaration of Human Rights” and emphasizes die perfomiative/theatrical grandiosity of die event. Tlie spectacle of forgiveness or the “simulacra” of forgiveness is a prominent issue in this text. Tlie unconditional form of forgiveness diat Derrida dreams of does not belong to die dieatrical spaces of law, religion or the court of “Human Rights.” Forgiveness, in order to occur, must occur beyond this juridical theater, beyond the audience, beyond the play.

In the last paragraph of “Tlie Judgment,” as Georg exits liis fadier’s home, there are a series of clashes in die language of spectacle and diat of non-spectacle. For instance, two similes describing Georg’s grasping of die railing to his end: “Already he was grasping at the railings as a starving man clutches food. He swung liimself over, like the distinguished gymnast he had once been in liis youth, to his parents’ pride” (63). With these two similes, Georg is both a performing gymnast and, at die same time, a non-performative starving man. To suggest that die starving man totally escapes die realms of perfomiativity is problematic. However, the first simile involves the fulfillment of a biological process and is far less interested in self-presentation, event or spectacle. Wliile Georg is performing his fadier’s sentence, diis simile is a rupture in such a performance. It avoids and disturbs the spectacle of a scene of judgment and also blurs the idea of Georg’s fulfillment of the judgment as a public event. But how does 31

this tension between spectacle and non-spectacle open up the final scene to Derrida’s tenets of forgiveness? Botli the “starving man” simile and Derrida’s uncotiditionalforgiveness deny and go outside of the role-play of a scene. They both invite the reader towards a non-peribrmance in a non-venue.

As Georg “rushed down” tlie staircase, he runs into his charwoman who “covered her face with her apron” (63). Tliis moment also ruptures die spectacle of die judgment and the theatrical boundaries between public and private. This minor character, die charwoman, is die first witness or audience member of the judgment. Her occupation places her in between die limits of her public identity as cleaning-lady and her private access to die home and the family. However, her reaction is as follows: she cries “Jesus!” and denies herself of vision. I do not want to section off public as performative and private as non-perfonnative but radier to suggest diat die charwoman complicates the spectacle and the theatrics of the judgment. She is an audience member with private knowledge of the family, and she bodi reacts with “Jesus!” as il she were a member of die short story’s tragic chorus,'* yet she also denies herself the vision of die judgment and dius complicates her role as viewer. This “covering up” of the Charwoman’s vision bends and plays with the audience in the theater ofjudgment.

4. Issues of Sovereignty or Triangulation

During the sentence in which Georg “lets himself drop,” he sends a final letter to his parents: he “called in a low voice, ‘Dear parents, I have always loved you, all the same’” (63). Georg uses the formal epistolary structure of a letter just before his fall. Yet he makes sure to “cover up” diis letter, for he “called in a low voice” (63). The addressees of die letter are both die modier and die father. Sections diree and four of this paper deal widi how die temporal and spatial boundaries of die judgment blur and break away from the scene, the event, die theater of the judgment just as Derrida attempts to use, and dien go beyond, judgment. This last line leads me to the following question: does the final scene of “The Judgment” open itself up to a Derridean reading of forgiveness?

Tliis question fails on several accounts. It is a mistake to shove a philosopher’s ideas on the madness and impossibility of uncondidonaJ forgiveness into the work of Kafka. Also, to suggest that Georg’s fadier is not a sovereign during die final judgment is to blatandy ignore his order: “I sentence you now to deadi by drowning” (63). Georg’s father is the judge in diis sense. However, instances of triangulation widi dead figures are imbedded in both die final judgment and the examples of non forgiveness in Derrida’s text. This triangulation does not deny the reading of Georg’s fadier as father, sovereign, etc. However, Georg’s final words address not only the fadier, but also die mother, wliom he has not properly mourned, and dius complicate die structure ofjudgment and blur die inside/outside boundaries of characters’ relations to the theatrical space.

In “On Forgiveness” Derrida introduces a South African woman whose husband is assassinated and who denies herself the ability to forgive. From this die pliilosopher breaks away from the court scene and states that this woman suggests diat, “if anyone has die right to forgive, it is only die victim, and not a tertiary institution” (44). “Tertiary institution” not only refers to die South African court system but also, ” This is an idea to which I credit the Professor during lecture (9.12.2011). Also, the screaming of “Jesus!” is another intersection of forgiveness and judgment, of the father and the son, for il alludes to the moment of crucifixion. This paper avoids delving too deeply into religious structures in both texts for it would require another 10, if not 20, pages.

the woman of the victim. Because die idea of sovereignty is indissociable from forgiveness, the dead sovereign, die “absolute victim,” deconstructs the dieater of forgiveness widi the introduction of an impossible sovereign, one diat will never arrive.

“Dear parents, I have always loved you, all the same.” These are the only words of dialogue that Georg shares in his last moment. Do they also complicate the judgment of the father as a “tertiary institution”? Do they introduce die madness of an impossible sovereign? Do diey open up the story to the impossible non-event of forgiveness? Georg is different from die perpetrator in die Soudi African court, for he does not ask for forgiveness. How'ever, like die woman of the victim, Georg breaks away from the sovereignty of die fadier/the law. The father does not hear his final letter, for it is in a “low voice,” and, including the modicr as addressee, the letter takes on the spiritual form of a prayer—a missive wdi an uncertain destination. Georg’s last low words move him both further inside of the performance of the judgment and furdier outside into an ambiguous and unreadable territory—one that die reader might confuse with die mad, unknowable territory' of forgiveness. The final instances of “covering up” in Kafka’s “Tlie Judgment” do not offer any definitive message about forgiveness. They do, how'ever, like Derrida’s “On Forgiveness” blur and complicate the temporal and spatial barriers of die judgment and open it up to a new realm of analysis both in and outside of the performance space, the realm of the paradoxical, of die meaningless, of the unreadable...

Works Cited Derrida, Jacques. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. New York: Routledge, 2001. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorjthosis, In the Penal Colony, a/ttl Other Stories. New York: Schoken, 1975. PrinL

Italian Gothic Paul Anagnc>5topoulo$

Thoughts, Too, Can Bo Nogloctod

Fahisc Zcynap Eda Haksal

Aurora Bell

In dirty cobwebbed comers, in attics

Bir oz(g)ur fabiseye,

Of unkempt upswept hair, in fresh wrinkles

Dua etmeyj ogrettim;

And lunches of leftovers, you, free of dramatics.

Hicbir sey degismedi.

Await the chance to show yourself, sprinkle

Your dust in rooms and - clash the cymbals, An apology to the prostitute

How you love Americana! - sing

Whom I taught to get on her knees

Duck paintings in hotel rooms that swindle

To pray

Life and kill fresh cut flowers with your sting.

You, dinginess, lingering in comers. Sure of your triumph from Schenectady

To Park Avenue, stop for versifying (empty) And for dramatic endings blessedly

Biting in their blind tragedy, mundane Spectacle to push you away.

Irrclc^phant Gcc Eun Maria Jung

Sestina about my Grandmother Alison Hoffman My Grandmo±er gently dries her skin, It sags with age, is wet with ocean. She drinks a glass of dark red wine. Dressed in white, reclining in her chair. She thinks always of her baby And of her strange and lonely sister

Avoids her wanting eyes, blue like ocean. She says die child is big like his sister, As she cuts through layers of thin onion skin She finishes, puts a plate in front of his chair

Sitting quiedy beside him in her chair Remembering when she was his baby. His soft, sw'eet touch on her young skin Drunk off of beauty and kisses and wine Talks of sweet first love with her sister During summer in Cape Cod, on the ocean.

She, in an old picture with her sister With bright eyes and smootli skin. In each woman’s arms a pink baby In Cape Cod, beside the wide ocean. Each sitting on a yellow beach chair. Their cheeks pink from French wine.

His silence is vast and deep as the ocean. She rises carefully from her chair. Sees the phone, she diinks of her sister, Ever alone and so fragile like a baby. She walks to the beach with a glass of wine The waves on her toes, cold on her skin.

Her husband pours die cold white wine She cooks, ignores a call from her sister He sits heavy in his wooden chair Glances at her hand, die weathered skin. His head turned from the sunset on the ocean, From die framed picture of his buried baby.

She is singing to the ocean like it is her baby Sitting in a soft chair of sand, drinking wine A sad song for her sister, sea air on her skin.

She tells liim about his daughter’s baby, He stares deep into his glass of wine.

Donna Jennifer Lapper

El hueco quo todo lo trago Lissi Sanchez Aniajieci con nauseas.

junto a la caja registradora. Pero apenas duro una cuadra, asi que antes de Hegar a la estacion, entre en un segundo Duane Reade, donde esta vez adquiri un exodco paquete de bolas rosas, con sabor a pomelo, y una barra de chocolate con almendras. Abri el paquete de bolas rosas, pero sabian a diablos, asi que me decidi por el chocolate primero, pensando, “Me como el chocolate, y ya, las bolas las tiro”. Me puse los auriculares, y baje por la boca del metro. En el trayecto, sentada en el vagon, acabe con todas las bolas. Despues de probar tres o cuatro no sabian tan mal. El hueco que todo lo traga comenzo a aullar coino en un baile tribal en tomo a una hoguera.

Me sentia tlena, sobre todo en la iripa, de una sustancia viscosa. Eructe nada mas abrir los ojos.

No ya de grasa. Imagine mas bien esas bolsas que cuelgan junto a las camas de los hospitales, una bolsa tiansparente con plaquetas amarillas. Hay que reponerlas via inlravenosa, cuando la medula deja de fabricarias. Dentro de la bolsa, las plaquela.s llolan en su propio jugo, se desprenden de si niismas, como rotas pcro tampoco rotas, en realidad, porque nunca estuvieron tejidas, son hquidas. Viscosas como la grasa pero mas ligeras, mas parecidas a una mousse de visceras, que recorre el tubito, hasta las venas. Como es que luego Ilegan a la medula, desde alii, lo desconozco.

Ya cerca de casa, pense en niandar un mensaje de texto a mi amigo, mi mejor amigo, el linico que me entiende, a pesar de que hace ahos dejo de hablarme. Que diantres— “porque no escribirlc?” pense. Desenl'unde el telefono. El hueco que todo lo traga comenzo a rugir, a agitarse como un enorme estomago hambriento.

Las plaquetas sirven para que la sangre se coagule, esa es su funcion. Sin plaquetas el cuerpo no puede formar costras, y es cuando uno se desangra, empieza a cubrirse de puntos rojos, en las pienias, los brazos, el cuello, puntitos sutiles que indican que uno se esta desangrando por dentro.

“Quiero amor”, repetia. “Soy un animal”, teclee.

Amaneci con nauseas, y eche un eructo, pero la cosa no mejoro.

Mi amigo no respondio, por supuesto; subi las escaleras del portal.

El hueco que todo lo traga no es oscuro, como uno pudiera imaginarsc.

Destape una cerveza—robada a mi compahera de piso—y embadumc cinco tostadas en aceite y queso. No todas de golpe, claro. Primero toste dos. El hueco que todo lo traga me agarro por el gaznate despues de relamerse, asi que toste otras dos. La ultima la enguUi sin calentarla, de pie junto a la nevera. Cayeron migajas sobre el piso. Manana recojo, pense.

Esta hecho de toalla sobada. Toalla azul, la que ese amigo llevo al campamenlo en septimo curso, la del bano de la casa de la abuela. Ha perdido su color, y esta deshilachada en los hordes. Tiene fonna de bolsa y flota en un espacio ingravido, con una boca abierta, amorfa, como de viejo sin dientes, donde cabe un puno mas o menos. Supongo que se parece a una de esas algas marinas extraiias, que miran con ojos, especies terrorificas que en realidad no tiencn ojos, sino boca. Alga.s que conien en las profundidades y liacen la digestion como los seres humanos. Dcspues de devorar dos platos de paella, cinco bunuelos de coco, cuatro copas de vino y una cerveza, el hueco que todo lo traga siguio pidiendo. “Ya empezamos”, pense, aunque estaba borracha.

Pero, casi llegando a mi cuarto, tuve que dar media vuelta: el hueco que todo lo traga gritaba, “Quiero cereales”, decia, “dame mas”. No quedo mas remedio. Como un animal, sumergi el hocico en las cuencas de mis manos para absorber los copos. El piso se rego de leche.

“Quiero decir", escribi a mi amigo, “que da igual comida, personas o textos”.

El hueco que todo lo traga comenzo a bailar en tomo a las llamas, tapando la boca y luego destapandola, una y otra vez, como hacen los indios. Un ruido de tambor, de empieza la guerra, alumbro el pasiUo.

Sail' de la casa de mi amiga, dibujando cses y, de camino al metro, me meti en el primer Duane Reade que encontre. Compr6 un paquetito de M&Ms que habia

Peacock Laura Valcnra

The Ranch Will Carington Sain is smaller than me, smaller tlian anyone in our fourth grade class, but we become friends anyway. His parents eat doughnuts for breakf ast on the weekends, which is one of die reasons I like sleeping over al his house. In Sam’s backyard, die biggest I’ve ever seen, we build houses out of twigs and dien wash them away with die water hose. We take minnows from die fishpond and drop them into the pool widi a small net. Later, someone will skim dieir little bodies from the water. Tliey float on the surface, wliite from die chlorine.

One weekend, Sam asks me if I want to go to die ranch. At night, he says, we can light fireworks, and his mother will make us all kinds of special ranch foods. He’ll rent Austin Powers, wiiich I’m not allowed to see, and we’ll watch it anyway. So I say yes. He tells me dial we’ll have to drive, but dial along the way we’ll stop in a place called Crystal City for dinner. Tlie ranch is between Crystal City and Piedras Negras, which means black stones, and I imagine everydiing to be made of rocks. Tlie sun sets as we make the trip down, and I sit with Sam in die back seat There are no crystals in Crystal City when we stop and eat diere, and I wonder why. By the time we get to the ranch, turning off the highway and passing dirough a gate that has to be unchained and then chained again, it’s too dark to see anydiing out die car windows. Sam says he sees an armadillo, but I don’t believe him. Tlie next morning, we have breakfast on die porch and I look out at the wide, flat horizon. The eardi is brownish-yellow and covered in spiny brambles. During die day we ride around in a white truck driven by Sam’s father. Sam and I sit in die back, in the open air, throwing pebbles over die side and watching diem tumble down die road behind us. Sometimes Sain’s dad will go fast to scare us, and Sam laughs. At one point, Sam says that he wants to be buried here because he diinks it’s die most beautiful place on earth. I look away and start diinking about all the places I think are better.

When we get home his modier has made dinner: deer sausage from the ranch and bread smeared widi bright yellow butter, which Sam loves. Mounted on die dining room wall is the head of a jackalope, a rabbit widi anders, which everyone at die table tries to convince me is real. I diink it’s fake, so Sam’s father gets up and comes back with a thick encyclopedia. He flips dirough its diin pages before laying his finger down on die entry about jackalopes. He reads it aloud, proving diat diey exist. On die second day, Sam wants to take a walk. We follow a dirt road to a clearing in the scrub where there’s a house made of brown bricks and a small metal shack. From die front porch of the house, a dog begins to bark at us. I ask who lives diere. “The man who takes care of die ranch while we’re gone,” Sam says. “Wliat does he do?” “He looks after die land and die cows. Sometimes he also catches wetbacks.” “Wlio are they?” “The people who cross die river and hide here.” Sam walks over to the metal shack and opens die door. “Look,” he says. I can see diat inside is die body of a dead deer. Its eyes are open and black. “No,” I say, and ask to go back to the house.

That night we sleep in a room with tall windows that look out onto the black landscape. I turn away from them because I’m afraid that outside there are people hidden in the dark.

Poctcnt Gabriel Miller To hear the fully produced Radio Drama please visit

hltp://vimeo.com/S3393748

IMT. ASYLUM - NIGHT (INTERNAL MONOLOGUE)

R.I.P

Ravenous as I tore Into the black ink. Happy, yes, to isolate my white walls. But read now, re-read now, for my walls don't mind- God bless them in their heavenly indifference to my repetition! But why read, re-read? Perhaps this literary fornication fulfills the cruelest of dramatic punishments in the hearts of men, no? Oh, but punishment, yes, lobotomy for my fellow eccentrics, lunatics and me, me! Lobotomy for failing to read, re-read, memorize, yes! Memorize one of your choice from the dusky ink, in the evil book that sits on my bed stand, struggling like I am to burst out of its cage, white pages for my book, white walls for me, lobotomy for me.

(THE MANIA SUBSIDES SLIGHTLY) Oh, but how foolish! In my foUy, I've forgotten. You don't know how I came to reside tn my cage.

EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT SOUND: GRAVEYARD WIND R.I.P

The graveyard wind whipped back and forth like a pair of lovers, quick, quicker now. My family: mother, father, brother aU morbidly sleeping now within the cemetery they once owned. SoU and worms protruding from every orifice, a millennium's worth of feasts for such feeble organisms. Eyes and tongue gnawed through—for the hour is always midnight within the black soU of my family's cemetery, now my cemetery where I pace swiftly this November night.

Suddenly, I perceived somewhere in the distance, for any sense of direction was forfeited to the fiend of night, a chomping, scooping sound. The wind carried this clamor, for someone, something was breaking into the soU of a grave. I lashed around now, aimlessly stupefied at the sound's indifference to direction.

But then I saw, for a dimly ht lantern in the distance burned, breaking through the wind, the darkness of the night. It was but a cloaked figure simUar in size and stock to myself, feebly digging at the grave. For but a brief instant, I perceived the figure as myself, the grave as my famUy’s, the lantern in my own hand as I stretched to piy a gold watch from off that bony figure. But then, fragmenting my fantasy came those

tolling bells, breaking through the whipping wind—my graveyard shift had come to an end! IHT. ASYLUM - NIGHT (OUT LOUD)

R.I.P "Hear the loud alarum bells -

Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells I [In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire.

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire. Leaping higher, higher, higher. With a desperate desire.]"

(INTERIOR MONOLOGUE-CON'T ABOVE)

Clang, cleaning, cutting, corpsing, sharpening the divining rod of my central cortex. Clang, clasping, closing the anesthesia's cauldron not long now before ah sonic senses deaden. Clang, closer perhaps, but communicate my crime! Clang, crimson, cold graveyard night. Clang, covering the Countess, stih clinging to her clothes, stone cold dead. Clang, caressing Countess, no, no, no! That's what the man told me to say. I shpped off her gold gleaming watch, steal it, yes, but necrophilia no! Never, touched her, never lusted for her body dead or alive! 0-these white walls reflect quite quickly, for even tn my state they see my sin, no sin, what sin?! Poe's poem, stanza three, read, re-read, but no time now for there came a clanging banging at my funeral door!

INT. BAR - NIGHT (INTERNAL MONOLOGUE BUT ALL DIEGETTC SOUNDS)

R.I.P My grave shift ended, and I entered the local bar acutely aware of a gold watch, not belonging to my own disposition, clawing at the circulation of my wrist. As I went to examine further, I perceived that it was not Indeed mine but of a female, my dead mother's perhaps? I now became aware of each ragged, drunkard sipping their brews but eyes closely locked on my watch. OUT LOUD TO R.I.P

BARTENDER 0—you're the loony— 42

R.I.P Please! Pint of logger and some crisps. BARTENDER

Heard you've been havin’ a wee too much fun at the graveyard.

R.I.P

What?! Lay off the family's business you mongrel.

BARTENDER 0— A'm salry! Did Mother and Father tell you to be havin' a go at the dead? R.I.P Tiyhat? Oh, to bring the souls of my family into this pub Is most surely a crime! BARTENDER

I'm a true Scotsman. I like my wummln crakln' and hot, not shivery an’ dead!

R.I.P Where's my logger? BARTENDER

Here'S yer cratur, but I won't be havin' no necrophUiacs burying mah deld!

VOICE: THE WHISPERS OF RUMOR SPREAD AROUND THE BAR AND CATCH LIKE WILD FIRE. DRUNKARD#!

That boy gets aff fucking dead women. DRUNKARD #2

He's a fruitcake! DRUNKARD #3

Go back to your graveyard! DRUNKARD#4 Look he stole her watch!

SOUND: THE SHOUTING GETS LOUDER AND LOUDER AND WE HEAR A FIGHT BREAK OUT AS THEY SCREAM AT R.I.P AND BRING HIM TO THE POLICE STATION FOR BUS ALLEGED CRIMES.

INT, ASYLUM - NIGHT

(INTERNAL MONOLOGUE) R.I.P Oh, in this crowd of drunken Scotsman I was dragged.

"True! - nervous- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?[...] Above all my sense of hearing was acute." I heard them from behind my white walls, and I stayed calm. Oh, how calm I stayed all the while as they came closer, dreadfully closer. Oh, with what patience did I let them strap me into my bed. Rolling around the asylum as I lay stUl as death, but, oh what cacophony did I hear! More Bells, Ravens, Dreams, Spirits of the Dead. But I did not sleep with Lenore!

(SCREAM) The nurse screamed and ran away. I feared, for had my sudden outburst been the cause of her distress? And then suddenly I knew in my mind's eye that perhaps she would return with the anesthesia, and then what bliss, freedom from forms would be bestowed upon my ragged vestiges!

INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT

(INTERNAL MONOLOGUE) R.I.P Oh, but how in that jaU I banged at these criminal bars. For how could I, despite the gold watch, stiU clenching my wrist, commit a crime? I begged and whimpered but for a moment, I perceived that the stone in my cell bore an eerie resemblance to my mother's tombstone. When finally, the constable did come, I rang out my plea, and the officer responded:

OFFICER

Thee have been accused of laying with a woman named Lenore. R.I.P But she lays in the grave! OFFICER You've been condemned for laying with her tn the grave!

R.I.P 44

(INTERNAL MONOLOGUE) I shouted out with the most shrill of shrieks, and if these stones were but glass the shattered shards may have fallen faithfully upon my heart.

OFFICER We've received orders to bring you to the asylum. Onwards, out of the cell I

INT. SURGERY ROOM - NIGHT (R.I.P IS STRAPPED DOWN, INTERIOR MONOLOGUE)

R.I.P

"The sentence, the dread sentence of death." A Lithium aspiration, an asphyxiation so dreadful and glorious as I heard, for I now perceived aU off heaven and most of heU, for even the devU himself keeps quiet in moments of false fates. My madness is but a sickness, a dread curdled from the miasma of the white walls ever plain, ever more. The needle bearer marched my anesthesia forward. Clippers forward, cutters forward, clenching forward ail in hand finally yeUing:

(OUT LOUD) Who dares to lobotomlze my moral soul?! EDGAR ALLAN POE (SLOWLY)

Edgar Allan Poe, it's absolutely dreadful to make your acquaintance, even more so before your slow death. R.I.P My madness has been arranged, I've been but accused of sleeping with some dead man's wHe, Lenore.

EDGAR ALLAN POE How I wish there was a place worse than heU. Perhaps the pulp of this world is that place, but even that would be too good for you. R.I.P Back and forth again my tongue has been tested, but never have I met the likes of Lenore!

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Do you think fate smiles upon your ignorance? Did fate smile on me but a child age of three, father already in the grave, mother dying of disease, all innocence stripped away, but how "The most exquisite theme in poesy is a beautiful woman in death."

B.I.P I have not slept with the hkes of that whore!

EDGAR ALLAN POE Oh Lenore love of my life, if there is such a thing as life, wrapped in death so harshly that even a feeble child's breath rarely escapes the reaper's scythe. You're but a plaything, a pawn, for it wasn't you who slept with Lenore but me I

R.I.P Then remove these chains, and release me from my steel bed! EDGAR ALLAN POE Oh, damned I was as death cUmbed up the lap of my Lenore. I made her but a promise that mortal midnight that rang true as my bells. I would be with her; I would sleep with her for all of my miserable Ufe. "The most exquisite [thing] in [hfe] is a beautiful woman in death." But oh how you caught me, and now I must never return. In that sublime moment before your lantern caught me, I lusted in that grave, night after night until I gave her what she wanted, ravished her cold, dead body, LENORE!

R.I.P I swear I did not see a thing!

(INTERNAL MONOLOGUE)

He came clanging closer, now infinitely closer the crimson sunset of my life drowned out in the whiteness of the walls. What rumors did he spread on my behalf but the banging. Banging? 0-but yes, dangling, clanging of my skewer, sliding, riding up the sockets of my skull closer, closer and deaf.

INT. ASYLUM - NIGHT (SELF-RECORDING)

EDGAR ALLAN POE Diagnosis: paranoid delusions, schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. Status: lobotomlzed successfully April 4th. Date and place of death: April 10,1849, Edgar Allan Poe's Asylum.

.Contributors. Victoria Ahn Victoria just found a small piece of rock in her hair from biking around NYC. Tliis semester she satisfies die requirements for an Art History major and will go on to complete minors in Studio Art and Psychology. She finds life to be pretty swell.

James Barraclough

Kim 15 giaduaUiig lioin CAS this May (2012) with a degree in Comparative Literature and a minor in Linguistics. She will be returning to NYU in the fall to pursue her MA in ELnglish Literature. Her interests include poetics and dieory, Shakespeare, philosophy, and die intersection between literature and die law, specifically within Latin American and Peninsular works.

Aurora Bell

Paul Anagnostopoulos

Paul is a junior in Steinhardt majoring in Studio Art with a minor in Art History. He has been creating art his entire life; after a chance encounter with Lichtenstein’s Droivning Girl at an early age, he has made art his primaiy priority. Paul has been a part of many exhibitions within the NYU community as well as in several galleries and museums in die Meatpacking District and the Lower East Side. (www.panagnos.com)

Janies is a second-year Master's student studying English and American literature at NYU. He enjoys reading, writing, traveling, and playing sports. Growing up in New Mexico instilled in him an appreciation for die outdoors, good food, and exploration, but he has lived in New York for almost two years now and has loved every minute of it. He plans to stay in the city and pursue his dream of a career in writing.

Wlien she grows up, Aurora wants to be Princess Belle, Lily Bart, a female Charles Ryder, or a book editor. Any of these futures would insure her access to magnificent libraries. For now, she is a Comparative Literature major widi minors in French and Creative Writing, graduating from the College of Arts and Science in May 2013.

Joshua Borja Joshua is a sophomore Physics major at NYU’s College of Arts and Science, and he works widiin die Writing Center's Undergraduate Writing Tutors Program. This is liis third semester as part of the Minelta Review community, for which he reads, eats, and does art tasks maybe. In the next life, he might become more himself. Or an orange tree. He hasn't yet decided.

tliat creative willing translates into journalism. One of her favoiitc books is The JouniaJist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm.

Emily Budcr Emily is a Senior in Tisch with a major in Film Production and a minor in Compara tive Literature. Althougli she'll most likely spend her lifetime writing screenplays for money, her heart can ultimately be found in die act of writing short fiction. She cuiTently works for an independent film production company as a Creative Executive, but she will always find time after work for indulgence in short fiction.

AnMOl HcllC’’

Anatol is an internation-al student from Germany and spends Ids spring tenn at NYU attending random classes throughout the College of Arts and Science. Officially, he is majoring in Aineiican ture but gained life changing insights through his media department in Berlin. He should be graduating from Humboldt University this July. If not discussing Carbonara recipes at Friend's Deli on Waverly Place you might find him writing poetry on toilet paper at Joey’s Pepperoni Pizza on Broadway.

Will Carington

Will is a senior at NYU majoring in Comparative Literature and Romance Languages. He is from San Antonio, Texas.

Alison Hoffman Alison is a senior in Steinhardt's Studio Art department and hails from the north shore of Massachusetts. She is a painter who likes to write, cook, wander around the city, and watch faj- too many movies. After graduating in May, she plans to work at an ait gallery and continue her lucrative waitiessing career. She also hopes to eventually get a cal.

Alyssa Clear

Gee Eun Maria Jung Alyssa Clear is a Studio Art major at Steinhardt. She works in sculpture, photography, and mixed media. She graduates in 2013.

A freshman, Maria plans on majoring in Studio Art at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development and minoring in Business of Entertainment, Media and Technolog)'. She expects graduate in May of 2015. Though her first choice of medium is without hesitation graphite, Maria recently found a new medium she is testing out and loving—oil paint Aside from art, Jung enjoys long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners and chortling witli her friends.

Zcynap Eda Haksal

Eda is a junior at the College of Arts and Science majoring in Economics. Her minors are Business Studies and French. From Istanbul, Turkey, ELda likes traveling, discovering new wiiters and online ventures. She enjoys examining the way

Eun Jin Kang

mostly a poet, but occasionally writes short prose too. She also speaks several languages, collecting tliem like an easily distracted magpie. Wlieii she is not writing on her w'ebsite, she can be found reading or watching her favorite dramas.

Eun Jin is a CAS senior who majors in Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies, with a minor in Studio Art. After her graduation in May 2012, she plans to venture outside die boroughs to gather more insights about art, growth, human interaction, and die secrets of making the best Bloody Mary—that is, until she sits down again to pursue her studies.

Delia K.O5C Mandia

Delia is a CAS junior (originally LSP!) majoring in History (honor's thesis on American photographer Alice Austen) and Language & Mind, and rninoring in American Sign Language and Web Applications & Programming. She is the Founder and President of the global nonprofit Night Night Monster, which makes dolls for children locally and abroad who suffer from severe nighlmare,s and night terrors caused by trauma. She loves the Stargate series, baking, taking photos, writing poetry nobody ever is going to read, WoW, fictional languages, sewing, and staying completely too busy to tliink properly. (She’ll sleep when she’s dead.) She’s going to go for a Ph.D. in eitlier Cognitive Science or History (one study that deals \ritli die future, die other with the past. She’s in two worlds and can't pick which one she likes more.)

Paul D. KoUmc-r Paul is a junior majoring in Comparative Literature and rninoring in Gennan at the College of Arts and Science. This summer he will study language and culture in Bielefeld, Germany, with the help of a DAAD grant. Paul is interested in teaching English abroad after college and enjoys taking long walks through the city. Jennifer tapper Jennifer i,s a senior in NYU’s College of Arts and Science, studying Italian language, art, and culture. She will be graduating in September 2012 with a BA in Comparative Literature and minors in Italian and Studio Art. When she’s not busy building ceramic sculpture or reading Italian novels, Jennifer enjoys exploring her East Williamsburg neighborhood, spending time with friends and family, and working on her yoga moves. She loves learning about other cultures and hopes to find a career that helps her travel the world.

Gabriel Miller

Gabriel is a sophomore Film and TV student at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. ’Poetent' was made into a short radio drama last year and is currendy seeking an animator. If interested in hearing die piece or know someone who may wish to animate it, please visit https://vinieo.com/23393748

Faustina Lim Faustina is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science, class of 2014, majoring in Journalism and ELast Asian Studies with a minor in French Studies. A Singaporean, she is

Francesca York

Lissi Sanchez Lissi is a prose and poetry writer, currently finishing a hybrid project that explores the relationship between fantasy and fiction. She worked as a journalist in Spain for ten years, having contributed to £7 Mundo, ABC Mujer de Hoy and Cosnuffxddan Magazine, where she was part of the editorial team. She received her BFA in Film and Television from Tisch School of tlie Alts, NYU, in 1998. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish, which she will complete in May 2013.

Francesca York is a junior at Tisch, majoring in Cinema Studies with minors in Italian and Philosophy. She will be graduating at the end of the fall 2012 semester, and hopes to attend grad school in the likely event that there isn't a great need for freshly-graduated Cinema Studies majors in tlie job market come next winter. Her favorite movie is Rules ofAttraction, and the movie she hates the most is Fight Club.

Alex C. Scdlcr Alex is graduating in May witli an honore B.A. in French and Gennan. He was a DURF recipient this year for his honors thesis, “KiauLs witli Attitude: Hii>Hop as a Dialogue of German Identity.” Alex is tlirilled to be attending tlie University of Batli in September for the Euromasters Program and can hardly wait to move to Berlin. Alex would like to thank tlie French for their wine and their language, but mostly for tlieir wine.

Christina Varipapa Christina is an Italian Literature major and German minor in the College of Arts and Science, set to graduate in May of this year. She will be pursuing a Master’s Degree also in Italian Literature at NYU next year. Aside from writing, her life is all about the three fffs: fun, fashion, and films (only tlie good ones).

.Creators. Bditor-tn-Chief Roxana Roya Soroudi Ongiiially lioiii lx>s .Kiigclcs, Roxana will gratlnalc in May uiili tlcipccs in (.’oinpanilivc I jieniKirc and Kcononiics, having coinplelcd her nndergi-adnale career in ihree years’ lime. A lover ol language, iravel and lhe excileinenl ol .New York City, Roxana ho|Ks i<» pursue a law degree and one day iKcome a published novelisl. Bringing ihis journal Io life for the past two semeslers ha.s Ikch for her an uiiforgetlable pleasure. Ti nh. she aspires lo lhe name—smile, l(ne, and live life co// hriif.

Editorial Team Sarah Caldwell Sarah (. :il<hvell is a senior who just linished her honors thesis. She hopes to pursue a career in television wrilitig or journalism. She helped gel /inb oil'die giound four years ago. and she is ihrilled lo see it nourishing in such capable hands.

Nafeesa Dawoodbhoy Naleesa is a junior siiidying C omparative Lileraiure and Philosophy. She dabbles in jHietn , cooking and collecting soft animals. She plans lo enter academia and face post-Ph.l). unemployment, with a hojK- that a higher underslanding of lhe world will be worth lhe possible stanation and/or hiding out in lhe Midwest.

Megan Myscofski Meg;in is a CAS junior majoring in C omparative Literature and Ciennan and minoring in C reative Writing. She comes Irom a town outside of Chicago, where she literally lives on the etlge of lhe prune. Meg:ui plays lhe ukulele.

Alexa Rosselli .\lexa is a junior in lhe C omparative Literature depanment. studying Italian language an<l culture.

Laura Yalenza kiura is a Ireshman at NYC an<l is a Comparitive I Jleriture major. She is from Newjersey and loxes him and art. She aspires to be a xxriter.

BK.10 /BKEE-oh/, noun Vivacity: liveliness: spirit. An individual energy. The discipline of Comparative Literature is based on the assumption that the study of single texts and cultures is enriched by a knowledge of the texts and cultures surrounding them. It views literature from a broad and inclusive perspective in which philosophy, anthropology, history, language, and literary theory come together, and where drama, the visual arts, and modern media suggest crucial — comparisons. This journal aspires to embody these ideas.

Spring 2012