The IAFOR
Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 5

In this edition
Practicing Peace: The
International Okinawan Martial
Arts Community as a Communityof Practice
Aspects of Italian Buddhist
Presence and Poetry
Jeanette Winterson’s Stone Gods
as Trans-world and Trans-gender
Dystopia
Becoming-other to Belong:
Radical Eco-Cosmopolitanism in
Jeff Noon’s Nymphomation
Confinement and Transgressionin Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape
and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Interdisciplinary
Perspectives within
Cultural Studies
ISSN: 2188-9570

THE IAFOR ACADEMIC REVIEW

1CONTENTS
1-2

8

3of the Ryukyus, Japan

University, Opava, Czech
Republic

Editorial Committee
Introduction

8-12

An introduction to the

Aspects of Italian

18-21

latest edition of The IAFOR Buddhist Presence andBecoming-other to

Academic Review byPoetryBelong: Radical Eco-

Michael Liam Kedzlie

Roberto Bertoni, Trinity

Cosmopolitanism in Jeff

College Dublin, Ireland

Noon’s Nymphomation
Emma Nicoletti, University

3-7

of Western Australia

Practicing Peace: The

13-17

International Okinawan

Jeanette Winterson’s

Martial Arts Community

Stone Gods as Trans-

22-27

as a Community ofworld and Trans-gender

Confinement andPractice

Dystopia

Transgression in Eugene

Samantha May, University

Michaela Weiss, Silesian

O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape

THE IAFOR ACADEMIC REVIEW

13

22

18
and Arthur Miller’s The
Crucible
Hui Chun Li, National Sun
Yat-sen University, Taiwan

The IAFOR Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 5

Editorial Committee

Rev. Professor Stuart Picken – Chairman of the IAB
Dr. Joseph Haldane – IAFOR Executive Director
Mr. Michael Liam Kedzlie – IAFOR Research and Policy

28-31
Table of References

Manager
The IAFOR International Academic Forum Advisory

Board Conference Chairs and Cultural Studies
Program Advisors

Professor Baden Offord - Director and Professor, Centre
for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia
Professor Koichi Iwabuchi - Director of the Monash Asia

Cover Image
Yoga
Image © Giuseppe Chirico
https://www.flickr.com/photos/
g-useppe/

Institute, Monash University, Australia
Professor Donald E. Hall - Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel
Dean Lehigh University, USA
IAFOR Publications © Copyright 2015

ISSN: 2188-9570 (online) www.iafor.org

Editorial Committee Introduction
	
  

	
  
translated a number of Irish authors into the Italian
language. In the first, shorter section of his paper Aspectsof Italian Buddhist Presence and Poetry, he briefly informs
on how Buddhism was imported into Italy. Bertoni notesthat the Italian form of Buddhism involves, about 90,000
Asian migrants, and 100,000 Italian nationals. He
suggests that as a cultural borderland, Italian Buddhism,
like all forms of Western Buddhism, implies anadaptation to living abroad for Eastern migrants on one
hand, as well as a conversion away from Christianity to a
new religious dimension, for Westerners. Becoming is
also a pronounced aspect since the Buddhist spiritual
itinerary is one of transformation and sharing is shown by
a sense of community in the various Sanghas and lay
associations. Bertoni shows that Italian Buddhism is inmany cases a socially committed construct, and this also
constitutes a sharing dimension. He views the‘Borderlands’ in this context as being mainly re connectedto the reworking of identity. The second and longer
section of Bertoni’s paper focuses on a particular case ofborder identity that can be seen among the contemporary
poets inspired by Buddhism. Some of them are shown toacquire new Asian-influenced writing identities whilst
others leave their Buddhist spiritually in the backgroundof their poetics or have built inter-texts of Italian classics
and Asian spiritual texts. The theoretical background of
Bertoni’s paper, in addition to the exploration of texts
that deal with the diffusion of Buddhism in the West, ismainly on the concepts of hybridization, neoOrientalism, and intertextuality.

One of the central missions of The International
Academic Forum or IAFOR is to provide avenues foracademics and researchers to explore international,
intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches. One of theways in which we do this is through our in-housemagazine Eye, our various conference proceedings, ourpeer reviewed journals, and now beginning in 2015, our
special editions of the IAFOR Academic Review.
In this, the fifth issue of the IAFOR Academic Review,
we bring together a selection of the most interesting
contributions from our two most recent Asian
Conferences on Cultural Studies. The papers selected by
the editorial committee for this special edition certainlyreflect
theinternational,
interculturalandinterdisciplinary approach of the forum.
Samantha May is a Canadian anthropologist and linguist
attending the Comparative Regional Culture doctoral
program at the University of the Ryukyus, Japan. Her
current focus is on the revitalization of Uchinaaguchi, an
Okinawan language, and its place in the Okinawan
martial arts community. In her paper, Practicing Peace:
The International Okinawan Martial Arts Community as aCommunity of Practice, May addresses how both
economists and academics have noted the simultaneoustendency towards globalization and localization in recent
decades. May contends that, with the increasingly
globalized economy, advances in communications
technology seem to bring us together only bring us closeenough to recognize our fundamental differences. In thissituation, internal divides along cultural, linguistic,
political and economic lines become as sharp and clear as
geographic boundaries used to be. In such circumstances,"peace" is often thought of as merely the absence of
conflict between divergent groups. May argues that withthe emergence of worldwide media we have also fueled a
new ability to form globally connected communities ofpractice based on activities with local cultural roots.
Using Wenger's (2014) community of practice theory,
May examines the domain, community, practice andlexicon of the international Okinawan martial arts
community through participant observation andinterview and survey data, and reveals the potential rolecommunities of practice have in facilitating transnational
cooperative structures. May proposes that in this way,
peace may be visualized not as a passive state of nonconflict, but as an active and creative practice based onvoluntary membership in a worldwide community.

Michaela Weiss teaches American literature and Literary
Criticism at the Institute of Foreign Languages, SIlesianUniversity in Opava, Czech Republic. She works also as atranslator and editor. Her research concentrates on
Jewish American fiction and gender identity. In the past
she has published a monograph Jewishness as Humanism
in Bernard Malamud’s Fiction (2010) and essays on bothethnic and gender identity in contemporary fiction.
Wiess’s paper Jeanette Winterson’s Stone Gods as Transworld and Trans-gender Dystopia published in thisedition, analyzes the dystopian apocalyptic vision ofhuman civilization in the novel The Stone Gods by thecontemporary British writer Jeanette Winterson. This
postmodern narrative blends the world's colonial pastwith its potentially colonial future, as mankind is
attempts to colonize a new planet. Wiess contends thatwhile Winterson's novel is not innovative when it comesto the formal aspects of dystopias, she manages to createa sense of fluid and omnipresent history that is constantly
blended into the present, bringing into focus men's selfdestructive tendencies. In her critique, Wiess points out
the narrative that Winterson develops is not linear or

Roberto Bertoni is Associate Professor in Italian and
Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. He has previously
published on Italian post World War 2 topics, and has
1

cultural conditions of an Industrial society and Salem's
theocracy. In it she adopts Michel Foucault's concept of
utopia and heterotopia to look at Yank's transgression
and his critical position in criticizing the bourgeois
society. Li argues that the commercialized bourgeois
space is a realized utopia whereas the cage on the ship,
the prison, and the zoo are heterotopias, which serve as a
critique to the degenerated utopian society itself. She
suggests that while Yank exchanges his life for a noble
protest against a state of inertia manufactured bycapitalism, Proctor exchanges his life for others' lives
imperiled by theocracy. Li filters this through the light ofFoucauldian rarefaction of discourse, and analyzes how
Salem's theocracy silences Proctor's discourse throughjudicial inquisition and exclusion of the deviated. She
reveals that, as much as Yank's subversion to a capitalist
space incessantly silences his voice, Proctor's defiance tocourt's order and God's will transgresses the totality of
theocracy and strives to give a voice to truth.

chronological and consists of several stories set in various
times and spaces which are interconnected not only by
the common theme of human greed and irresponsible
economic and anti-ecological behavior, but also by thecentral character Billie/Billy Crusoe. Wiess outlines how
Winterson in The Stone Gods follows the main genderbending motif of Virginia Woolf's cult novel Orlando, as
the character Billie chooses her partners according totheir personality, not gender or biological sex. She
develops the paper through the lens of the dystopian,nonlinear and often didactic tone of the novel, and how it
is interwoven with poetic passages depicting homosexualromantic love, a constant theme explored by Winterson,
even though in this case it concerns love between ahuman and a robot.
Emma Nicoletti is a doctoral candidate in the School ofSocial and Cultural Studies at the University of Western
Australia, her research interests include science fiction,
ecocriticism, cyberculture and poststructuralism. Her
paper Becoming-other to Belong: Radical EcoCosmopolitanism in Jeff Noon’s Nymphomation, focuses on
the science fiction novels of British author Jeff Noon,and their representation of the relationship between thehuman and nonhuman other in cultures dominated byvirtual reality technology. Nicoletti reads Jeff Noon's
Nymphomation as offering a model of a radical ecocosmopolitan subjectivity that enjoins a sense ofcommunity and belonging, traversing the geographicaland ideological boundaries associated with nationality,
ethnicity, race, gender and species. She argues that theeco-cosmopolitan subjectivity represented in this novel
requires the hero to dispense with his self-possession andself-assured independence, and instead open himself tothe human and nonhuman other in a relation of interdependence, so as to be able to belong to a globallyrendered, human-changed environment. Her contention
is that the process of opening oneself to the other astransformative for the individual, the society and theenvironment.

Finally the editorial committee of the IAFOR
International Academic Review would like to thank ourconference chairs and advisors Professors Baden Offord,
Koichi Iwabuchi and Donald E. Hall for their continual
guidance with our Cultural Studies conference programand publications. We also would like to thank the manydelegates who attended our conferences and who
submitted academic papers to our previous proceedings.
Michael Liam Kedzlie
Editorial Committee
The IAFOR Academic Review

Hui-Chun Li from the Department of Foreign
Languages and Literature, at the National Sun-Yat Sen
University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan researches within theacademic space of cultural and literary studies withrespect to the post-human, Cyberspace, Utopian
Imagination, and postmodernism. In her paper
Confinement and Transgression in Eugene O’Neill’s The
Hairy Ape and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Ms Li
considers that society is an institution which, in order toachieve its goal, executes violent measures to discipline orconfine the deviant. This collision between self andsociety is depicted in Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape andArthur Miller's The Crucible in which John Proctor andYank, each of the play's protagonists, is defiant
respectively to theocracy and capitalism. Li’s paper aims
to situate both Yank and Proctor as cultural products
manufactured by utopian desires, respectively under2

Practicing Peace: The International
Okinawan Martial Arts Community as aCommunity of Practice
SAMANTHA MAY, UNIVERSITY OF THE RYUKYUS, JAPANare often construed as part of secessionist movements thatthreaten governmental authority and national unity, states haveoften in turn “aggressively promoted a single national language
as a means of reinforcing sovereignty, national unity andterritorial integrity” (United Nations, 2013) Most critically,“Ms. Izsák...noted that protection of linguistic minority rights
is a human rights obligation and an essential component ofgood governance, efforts to prevent tensions and conflict, andthe construction of equal and politically and socially stablesocieties.” This leads to another important question: If thepromotion of minority languages as an aspect of selfdetermination is essential to conflict prevention and thepromotion of peace between groups, what is the definition ofpeace?

Introduction: Cleaving Together andCleaving Apart
Those from the diverse fields of language maintenance tobusiness have noted simultaneous tendencies towards bothglobalization and localization. Our use of computers and theinternet has resulted in an extremely powerful masscommunications ability, unprecedented in all of human history.
However, this ability to connect to anyone, anywhere, often
seems to bring us only close enough together to like each other
less; geographical barriers have been supplanted by often
deeper cultural, linguistic, economic and political divides. The
expansion in the membership and influence of multinational
political and apolitical bodies such as the European Union andthe United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) has also come with the recognitionof such meaningful differences. The United Nations took theoccasion of its' 50th anniversary to “[c]ontinue to reaffirm theright of self-determination of all peoples” (1995), which has
led to subsequent political changes. The former Yugoslavia, forexample, is now six separate countries, but it is uncertain
whether we should say it has “expanded” or “split” along preexisting self-determined divides.

Although peace may be defined as the absence of war, mostcurrent peace scholars and activists argue that this definition isinadequate. Höglund & Söderberg (2010) assert “merely
looking at the frequency of peace agreements that lead to theending of large-scale violence does not tell us much about thereality of peace beyond the absence of war...[P]eace is a termthat encompasses a whole range of meanings and has highly
subjective connotations” (p. 367-368, 370). In a post on Sharethe World's Resources’ website Shirin Ibadi (2007) of Open
Democracy cites the number of deaths that occur in developing
countries, particularly among children, due to malnutrition,
inadequate health care, and poor sanitation. He writes “[p]eacemeans serenity. One can only feel serene if one's human rights
are not violated and one's integrity is protected” (Share theWorld’s Resources website). Goetze & Bliesemann de Guevara(2014) observe that “[c]osmopolitanism has been frequently
put forward as the political ideology that should underpin
peacebuilding missions... [because of] the connection that is
made between the tolerance and universalism of
cosmopolitanism on the one hand, and the idea of peace asreconciliation and justice in war-torn societies on the other” (p.
1-2). Given UNESCO's support of linguistic and culturalrights and freedoms, peace could be defined as the freedom ofindividuals and groups to have and maintain their own selfdetermined practices without threat of personal harm. Thus,
instead of being a passive state describing the absence ofnegative conflict, we can arrive at a definition of peace as anactive and dynamic practice.

This begs the question of where constructive divides begin andend. Culturally and linguistically, Okinawa is certainly
different from Japan, but Miyako Island is different from therest of Okinawa. However, even within Miyako, there is no
guarantee that two people from opposite sides of the island will
share a common culture or mutually intelligible language
besides that of Japanese. Sharing a distinct culture, language,
and ancestry may foster group identity, but also has thepotential to strengthen already existing boundaries between
Self and Other. The word “cleave”, meaning both “to cleave
together” and “to cleave apart”, may best describe these current
trends.

Self-Determination and the Definition of
Peace
With regards to self-determination, minority language rights
are a particularly sensitive issue. Rita Izsák, an independent
expert for the UN on minority issues, argues that “[l]anguage isa central element and expression of identity and of key
importance in the preservation of group identity” and that“[l]anguage is particularly important to linguistic minority
communities seeking to maintain their distinct group andculturalidentity,
sometimes
underconditionsofmarginalization, exclusion and discrimination” (United
Nations, 2013). While she acknowledged that language rights

Peace as a Practice
What does the practice of peace look like? The answer came to
my attention before the question, and from an unlikely source.
While searching for terrible music on youtube.com, I saw whatlooked to be a very promising video of a girl singing Ozzy
Osbourne's “Crazy Train.” However, watching the video made3

plain that not only was the girl extremely talented, but theequally talented musicians who accompanied her were eachfrom a different country, collectively representing USA, Japan,
Mexico and Spain (Sabrina Carpenter, 6:24-6:40). We canimagine how these people overcame vast geographic, cultural,and linguistic distances in the production of this music video.
Certainly, this accomplishment would not have been possible,
or at least would have been much more difficult, without peace
between these countries. Watching the music video producedby people working together across numerous distances, I had asudden realization: this was what peace looked like. My
question became: If many areas and peoples around the world
have achieved relative peace, what can we now do together?

community. “Imagination” is the ability to abstractly envision
the placement of oneself and others in the community as well
as future possibilities. “Alignment” refers to bringing local orindividual practice in line with those of the larger community
to assist in the achievement of mutual aims. Thus, using thesemodes of belonging, people voluntarily form peacefulcommunities across geographical, social, cultural and linguistic
boundaries in order to successfully improve joint practices. It is
the potential of communities of practice to draw people
together that has great relevance for peacemaking, and it isthis, which is the focus of this paper.

The Okinawan Martial Arts Community asa Community of PracticeCommunities of Practice
Of course, we may hope for Big Answers, such as ending
poverty, disease and war (and we are working on them), but
before we can get to those, let's first look at the smaller
answers. In other words, what kinds of transnational,transcultural and translinguistic cooperative activities are
already happening, and how do they function?

a. Community: Structure and Identity
The international Okinawan martial arts community is afascinating community of practice made up of karate andkobudo practitioners. This group shares a community, domain,and practice. The Okinawan martial arts community includes
approximately 50 million members in over 150 countries
worldwide (Okinawa Prefecture, 2014). The Okinawan martial
arts community can be said to be a “trans” community in that itis transcultural, transnational, and translinguistic, uniting its'
members across many often problematic barriers. However,unlike other communities of practice, because Okinawan
martial arts are deeply connected to Okinawan culture and the
majority of the martial arts community is not Okinawan,
frequent “border crossings” are necessary to the practice of the
Okinawan martial arts community. This largely entails thealignment of non-Okinawan students with their Okinawan
instructors and their Okinawan students. The Okinawan
martial arts community is heavily dependent on positive
interpersonal relations. Because it is a knowledge-based
community, it relies on face-to-face communication forimprovements in practice. Therefore, knowing andmaintaining good relations, particularly with high-level
instructors in the community, is essential, and this cannot bedone if cultural, national, or linguistic barriers are allowed tostand in the way.

Working with others at a company, going to school, making a
youtube video, or pursuing a favourite pass time are allactivities where people engage with one another for a specificpurpose in their daily lives. In his article “Communities ofPractice and Social Learning Systems” (2000), Etienne
Wenger outlines a “social definition of learning” in which“[l]earning...is an interplay between social competence andpersonal experience. It is a dynamic, two-way relationshipbetween people and the social learning systems in which they
participate. It combines personal relationships with theevolution of social structures”(p. 227). Wenger focuses on“communities of practice” as “the basic building blocks of asocial learning system because they are the social 'containers' of
the competences that make up that system. By participating inthese communities, we define with each other what constitutes
competence in a given context: being a reliable doctor, a gifted
photographer, a popular student, or an astute poker player”(p.
229).
Communities of practice are composed of three elements: 1)
mutuality or a community that encompasses the various
interactions between community members, 2) a joint enterpriseor practice that represents how a community strives to achieve
its' goals, and 3) a shared repertoire or domain that defines thecommunity's area of expertise, including “language, routines,
sensibilities, artifacts, tools, stories, styles etc.” (p. 229) as wellas access to these resources, and the ability to use themappropriately. “Communities of practice grow out of aconvergent interplay of competence and experience thatinvolves mutual engagement. They offer an opportunity tonegotiate competence through an experience of direct
participation. As a consequence, they remain important social
units of learning even in the context of much larger systems”(p. 229, emphasis added).

Marking the martial arts community as a quintessential
community of practice (Wenger, 2000), the emphasis inmartial arts practice is on learning, rather than achievement.
Although there is an extremely strong hierarchy within themartial arts community, it is based on individual skill andlength of membership in the community; it is inclusive rather
than competitive. For example, the rank of nanadan, orseventh degree black belt, is very difficult to achieve, but there
are no limits on the number of nanadans in the world and therank is open to anyone who meets the criteria. Thus,
traditional hierarchies are broken apart as martial arts
membership supersedes the importance of sex, race, class, andgeneral social standing outside the dojo. Although the highest
status Okinawan karate and kobudo practitioners tend to beelder Okinawan males, it would be expected, for example, thata young African woman would give commands to an older
Japanese male in the dojo if she were his senior student. It isfurthermore significant that, unlike membership in a sex orrace-based group, membership in the Okinawan martial arts
community is voluntary. Therefore, if a martial artist does not

Because communities of practice are social learning systems
structured around social competence and personal experience
resulting from direct participation, they do not define
belonging according to geopolitical boundaries, but in terms of
three modes of belonging to a community. “Engagement” isthe ability to engage or accomplish things with others in the4like his or her position in the hierarchy, he or she may simply
change schools or opt out of the community entirely, which isseldom an option for race, sex, or class-based discrimination.

c. Practice
The practice of the martial arts community has physical,
mental, spiritual, and cultural components. Most martial arts
practice takes place within a private group class, but may also
occur in public for a demonstration, seminar, or tournament.
The physical practice of Okinawan karate and kobudo , which
differ from dojo to dojo, may include kata, or forms, basic
blocking and striking techniques, the use of weapons, kumite,or sparring, wrestling techniques, joint locks and so on,
performed singularly or with one or more partners. Though thephysical component may form the bulk of the class, it is usuallyframed within formal meditation practice at the beginning andend of each class, and is structured with the regular usage ofJapanese terms that mark the different techniques practised ineach phase of the class, such as “kon tiki tai”, “renzokumite”
and so on. The use of formal Japanese, such as “arigatou
goazaimashita” and “onegaishimasu”, as well as frequentbowing and standing at attention facilitate a sense of disciplineand mental focus. Often cultural information about Okinawa
or explanations of the meaning of particular techniques or dojo
symbols is introduced throughout the class, or before the final
formal “bow out” at class end. Because karate and kobudo
techniques include meditation and learning about martial arts
as well as the physical practice of techniques, martial arts may
be practised individually at home as well as in a dojo.

b. Domain, Lexicon, and Symbols
The domain of Okinawan martial arts includes knowledge of
Okinawan culture, language, and symbols in addition toknowledge of martial arts techniques. Because it is thebirthplace of karate and kobudo, information about Okinawa is
not only explicitly taught, but implicitly learned through thepractice of Okinawan martial arts and highly valued.
Movement forms do not spontaneously occur, but areculturally embedded. For example, many martial arts
techniques bear a great physical resemblance to movements of
Okinawan dance (Juster, 2011). However, the similarities
between martial arts and other Okinawan art forms only
become apparent after familiarity with both arts. The
understanding of Okinawan martial arts, including forms ofaddress, etiquette and so on in addition to the interpretation of
movements, is therefore incomplete outside of an Okinawan
cultural context. Thus, martial arts tourism to and from
Okinawa is highly desirable by members of the community
because it helps facilitate a more complete understanding of
the cultural context in which karate and kobudo occur (May,2012).
Like the members of other communities of practice, themartial arts community also has a shared lexicon comprised ofJapanese terms for counting, techniques, and dojo etiquette,
mixed with the local language of the practitioners, and oftensome Uchinaaguchi, or Okinawan language, terms. It isfrequently the case that all the members of a multinational
karate group have only martial arts-related Japanese or
Uchinaaguchi words as their sole common language, but as thislexicon also includes some basic vocabulary such as “sensei”,“sumimasen”, “arigatougozaimasu” and the numbers one toten, as well as some kanji, there is certainly enough language incommon to conduct a class together. However, in order tofurther improve their technique, many foreign martial arts
students wish to learn Japanese, and occasionally
Uchinaaguchi, so they can receive detailed instruction directlyfrom their Okinawan instructors.

Still, if martial arts techniques are designed to kill or disable an
opponent, even if this is being done in a structured
environment within the context of an international communityof practice, one might wonder how the practice of martial arts
can lead to peace. To answer this question, it is necessary tounderstand the intended goals of martial arts practice. Masteryof the physical techniques might first appear to be the mostdifficult goal to accomplish, but in order for this to happen,
instructors from many different countries must first train
together in Okinawa, and this is not always easy. In the words
of one Okinawan instructor “[s]ometimes foreign instructors
don't get along” (A. Yagi, personal communication, January
26, 2014), which leads to frequent situations where people
with deadly combat skills, who may dislike each other intensely
and cannot speak the same language, must physically interact
with one another. Fortunately, the various karate and kobudo
practitioners in the martial arts community ultimately mustfind a way to cooperate because it is the only way to improvetheir technique. Thus, the most important goal of martial arts
practice, as stated by both Okinawan and overseas instructors,
is not in fact mastery of the techniques, but self-control. In
other words, members of the martial arts community are notpractising violence, but rather how to be peaceful in potentiallyvolatile situations; this is the essence of serenity found in
Ibadi's (2007) definition of peace.

In addition to verbal and written language, the Okinawan
martial arts community has a shared set of symbols related totheir practice. For example, there are several karate and kobudo
styles, and within each style there are several schools, which areeach represented by a crest that is usually sewn or embroidered
onto the karate uniform, over the heart. Dojo in different
countries might be affiliated with a particular dojo ororganization in Okinawa, with some Okinawan dojo having
over 200 branch dojo abroad (International Okinawa GojuRyu Karate-Do Federation, 2014). In this case, there are often
similarities between the crests, where the same image or kanji
is used with different text representing a particular location. In
this way, members affiliated with the same honbu, or main,
dojo in Okinawa can instantly recognize one another, which isparticularly useful for organizational or social purposes at large
international events.

How Do Martial Arts Promote Peace?
In addition to the international friendships that are formed
through regular interactions between members of the martial
arts community, several studies demonstrate that martial arts
encourage peaceful behaviour. For example, Troyer (2011)
correlated martial arts practice with the concept of
mindfulness. Mindfulness is “positively related to anindividual’s ability to sustain attention, focus, and regulate
negative emotions...[and] is necessary for higher or more
effective LOC [Level of Consciousness] or the degree of5responsiveness to the stimuli in the environment” (p. 291).
Troyer further notes that training in self-awareness and LOC
would encourage students to “better solve difficult problems byrevealing to them the part they play in the problem solving
process” allowing them to “potentially catch mistakes quicker,
change strategies for quicker and more accurate analysis, avoid
using up valuable working memory space with unnecessarystress or worry, and overall process information more efficiently
and accurately” (p. 293). The benefits of mindfulness andenhanced LOC would be extremely useful in the peacebuilding process.

Boundaries and Borderlands in Okinawan
Martial ArtsThe Okinawan martial arts community is a large internationalgroup practising control of violence. As karate and kobudo aredesignated as intangible cultural properties of Okinawa andJapan, this community is Okinawa-centred even though the
majority of its members are not Okinawan themselves.
Therefore, not only must practitioners of Okinawan martial
arts frequently cooperate across cultural, linguistic, andpersonal borders, but also they must accept and respect the
Okinawan Other as the pre-eminent authority within theircommunity. However, rather than viewing the Other's culture
from an abstract distance, members of this community are,albeit to a limited extent, involved in the Other's cultural
practices.

Trulson (1986) and Twemlow and Sacco (1998) observed thatmartial arts practice was connected with a decrease in bullying
and delinquent behaviour among adolescents with a history ofviolence. In “The application of traditional martial arts practiceand theory to the treatment of violent adolescents”, Twemlow
and Sacco illustrated how violent adolescents, often with ahistory of criminal activity and gang involvent, greatly
benefited from a therapeutic martial arts program, writing that“[t]he training strongly supports synthetic ego functions,particularly control of aggressive impulses. It may be especiallyhelpful in assisting verbally limited students in mastering
leadership skills,” (Conclusion section, para. 1) which may
assist with non-violent problem solving. They concluded, that“martial arts taught in a traditional way also offer an organizing
framework for understanding the world and a sense ofhistorical connectedness, helping violent adolescents overcome
their dysfunctional circumstances” (Conclusion section, para.
2). Lakes and Hoyt (2004) also demonstrated a connection
between martial arts participation and increased selfregulation, and Nosanchuk’s (1981) study on traditionalmartial arts practice and aggressiveness showed an overall
decrease in aggression among long-term martial arts
practitioners.

Wenger (2000) wrote that a social learning situation “combines
personal relationships with the evolution of social structures”(p. 227). The Okinawan martial arts community is a primeexample of a social structure that evolved out of personal
relationships, but it is the ongoing process of cross-culturalalignment, whereby martial artists around the world strive to
make their practice as close as possible to that of their
Okinawan counterparts, that makes this community
particularly worthy of study as a model of peacefulinternational relations. As a small kingdom which relied oninternational trade for hundreds of years, Okinawa itself has along history as a peaceful “bankoku no kuni” or “bridge to all
nations”, and several scholars have agreed that this peacefulimage reaches beyond the realm of myth to shape a possible
future for Japanese international relations. Hein (2001) writes
that Okinawans may “spearhead a national policy thattranslates the strong pacifist sentiments of the Japanese
population into an active principle for international
engagement" (p. 35, as quoted in Govreen, 2014). Whether or
not the Okinawan martial arts community derives its' capacity
for peace from its' Okinawan cultural roots, the same desire fornon-violence and peaceful engagement with the international
community underpins the martial arts community, blurring theboundaries between Okinawan and Other within community
practice.

Supporting the idea of social acceptance being broadly foundwithin the martial arts community, Rao (2008) conducted astudy of a karate dojo that included children with physical andmental disabilities in regular classes. He writes, “[w]hile theliterature on inclusive strategies has continued to burgeon andinform our focused efforts in creating inclusive schools andcommunities, we are also learning more about how somecommunities as well as settings come to so naturally ‘accept’ or‘include’ people who are different” (p. 294). Ultimately, Raoattributes the inclusiveness of the students in the dojo to themain instructor, who questioned “the existence of the dual
categories of ability and disability [and saw] his students as
more complex human beings. The ways, in which such aperspective shapes his pedagogy, his interaction with students
as well as the community that he creates within his school is
profound” (p. 295). Though it was not the focus of his study,
Rao acknowledged the possibility that the instructor's practices“may have also been fostered by his interpretation of themartial arts tradition of karate” (p. 296).

Problems in the Martial Arts Community
Despite its’ potential to greatly contribute to peace, theOkinawan martial arts community is not without problems.
Firstly, it is a very diverse community, incorporating manydifferent styles of karate and kobudo. Consequently,
participants' different nationalities are often less of an issue
than the lack of cooperation and disunity between styles, oreven within the same style. Though part of martial arts practiceis self-improvement, martial arts skill may not always beequated with personal merit.
Thus, the interpersonal politics between teachers, even thosewithin the same school who operate different individual dojo,
can be extremely complicated and problematic. Furthermore,
although some individual karate or kobudo classes may have
50% or more female participants, the very few female
Okinawan instructors who exist are rarely publicly recognized.
This may contribute to sexism within the community. Someforeign female practitioners have reported foreign male

The literature shows a correlation between martial arts practiceand increases in mindfulness and self-regulation, withdecreases in aggression and violent behaviour, as well as theability to foster inclusive communities. It is likely that thesebenefits result from the current practices of the international
Okinawan martial arts community as well, and certainly they
contribute to the practice of peace.
6

students’ refusal to interact with them; interestingly, Okinawan
male instructors were not reported to be sexist.

[to] promote this language.” (L.
communication, October 16, 2013)

The martial arts community abroad is largely a youngcommunity that grew significantly during the 1980s. It may
not sustain itself forever, especially given the fact that there area limited number of Okinawan teachers to go around for a verylarge community of 50,000,000 students. It is possible that the
Okinawan instructors will not be able to keep up with theirworldwide following, and all the personal travel thisnecessitates. Furthermore, although Okinawan martial arts are
one of many cultural arts in Okinawa that all have connections
to Okinawan history, language, and lifeways, the overseas
martial arts community may hyperfocus on their practice.
Without a complete picture of the Okinawan cultural context
of the martial arts, foreign martial arts practitioners may beprone to misinterpretation of cultural cues, leading to overpoliteness and miscommunication.

“If Uchinaguchi is lost, Okinawan culture will also be lost...So
let's use Okinawan dialect...let's start teaching Okinawan
dialect to children...'If you don't understand your country's
language, you will forget your country.'”(Okinawan martial artist, personal communication, February
20, 2013)

Marchant,

personal

Preliminary results from a survey of the international martial
arts community triangulate these findings. The average ratings
on a ten-point Lichert scale for “learning about Okinawan
culture is beneficial for martial arts practice” were 9.48, and for“learning about Okinawan language is beneficial for martial
arts practice,” the average was 7.48. Thus, it appears that themartial arts community as a whole has a stake in the promotion
and maintenance of Okinawan culture and language, especiallyas it is connected to their practice.

Finally, in some cases martial arts participation may arise out
not out of genuine interest and a desire for self-improvement,
but from the fetishization of Japanese and Okinawan culture(Said, 1978). This has lead to the commodification of
Okinawan martial arts as some instructors seek to takeadvantage of students’ desires to “buy in” to their image of thiscommunity (Brown & Leledaki, 2010).

Conclusion
Paralleling the trends among international political and nongovernmental agencies, the tendency in communities ofpractice is also towards greater transnational cooperation, as
already exists within the international Okinawan martial arts
community. That a transnational community so skilled ininflicting damage on others can so successfully cooperate andmobilize on such a massive scale should give hope for otheractivity-based collaborations.

Applications of the Martial Arts
Community as a Community of Practice
Peace is often associated with cosmopolitanism, including thepreservation of local cultural diversity. The hierarchicalstructure of the Okinawan martial arts community, and its'alignment with Okinawan culture make it an ideal community
in which to promote Okinawan cultural interests. Since
Uchinaaguchi, an indigenous Okinawan language, isendangered within Okinawa and many karate and kobudo
instructors wish to revive it, the Okinawan martial arts
community may be highly receptive to using it in their practice.
As predicted by Wenger's concept of alignment withincommunities of practice, interviews with both overseas andOkinawan members of the Okinawan martial arts community
revealed strikingly similar attitudes towards Okinawan
language preservation:

The conception of peace as a practice in which something is
produced or learned may directly assist the international peacebuilding process using indirect or oblique methods. Much likean immersion approach to second language acquisition, theContent and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
methodology (Dalton-Puffer, Nikula & Smit, 2010) involves
using the target language to learn another subject, rather thanstudying the language directly. If this idea is applied to peacebuilding through communities of practice, peaceful relations
are not the stated goal, but a by-product of other forms ofborder-crossing, co-constructive learning practices. Thus,
peace is not the absence of war, but the learned successful
negotiation of interpersonal conflict in potentially volatilecircumstances. As in the Okinawan martial arts community,
peace may be found in the palpable presence of joint creative
activities that enrich human existence and our sharedenvironment.

“I really want to keep the Okinawan connection alive
and...as the art of Okinawa is Goju Ryu, then the language
goes with that..[It] brings us a little closer to keeping this art
alive and helping to promote the Okinawan culture as well,

Full references can be found in the Table of References
section.

7

Aspects of Italian Buddhist Presence andPoetryROBERTO BERTONI
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, IRELAND
Introduction

2. Buddhism as an Oriental import

The theoretical background of this paper, in addition to
texts on the diffusion of Buddhism in the West
(Batchelor, Baumann and Prebish, Harvey, MacMahan),confronts the Asian Conference on Cultural Studies’s
theme of sharing through the concepts of hybridization(Kraidy), neo-Orientalism (Said), and intertextuality(Bloom). The first section of the paper will briefly informon how Buddhism was imported to Italy (Bertoni,
Pasqualotto, Stortini) – the theme of becoming is
implicit here in the practice of conversion. The second
section will touch on belonging under the guise of the
new spiritual and cultural identities that can be seenamong contemporary poets inspired by Buddhism(Candiani, Carifi, Niccolai). In general, Buddhism in a
Western country like Italy can be seen as a borderland,since it takes place against a cultural background that
included this vision of the world only very marginally
until recently, as it will be briefly hinted below. Let us
start with some considerations on Buddhism in relation
to hybridization and neo-Orientalism.

The presence of Buddhism in Italy dates back to Marco
Polo’s time, and onward to Matteo Ricci and othermissionaries who commented upon Buddhism partly infavorable but mostly in unfavourable ways. Some moredetailed and sympathetic commentaries were written in
the 19th century, when the first properly Orientalist
studies were published in Italy (Pasqualotto). In the 20th
century, a number of scholars wrote about Buddhism in
informed ways and within the context of a scientific view
on East Asia - namely Tucci who explored Tibetan
culture in depth, and Maraini, originally his pupil, who
lived for a time in Japan. The latest and most prolificimport of Buddhism into Italy, however, has taken placein the last five decades. Buddhism in Italy presently
appears to involve about 89,000 Asian migrants, and100,000 Italian nationals (Stortini). Some comments
follow below on this recent phenomenon.
An aspect of cultural borderland, and partly also
hybridization, is that Italian Buddhism, like all Western
Buddhism, implies adaptation to living abroad for
Eastern Asian migrants; and conversion fromChristianity, or at any rate to a new religious dimension,for Westerners.
There are actual differences in religious mentality andloyalty to traditions as expressed by practitioners fromcountries where Buddhism is an official religion, and by
newly converted Italians who hybridize the Dharma
teachings to a higher extent with Western philosophies.
On the one hand, to cite a statement by Weber (1918, p.
139), in modernity “the world is disenchanted. One
needs no longer have recourse to magical means in orderto master or implore the spirits”. By contrast to this wellestablished interpretation of modernity, Beck maintains
that it has become apparent that the pairing ofmodernization and secularization is not as accurate as it
seemed to be only a few years ago. This is due a processof “re-enchantment” that consists in the appearance in
the West of new types of spirituality, i.e. of social andpersonal systems of feeling and thought other than
Christianity. Such an interpretation is rather interestingin general, and perhaps newly converted Buddhists areindeed motivated, in Italy like elsewhere in Europe, by aneed for a re-enchantment of the world. Yet, one

Photo by Gustavo Farraon (Creative Commons)8Orientalism. A revival of Eastern religions took place inEurope, the US and other Western countries in the
1960s and 1970s in connection with liberation ideologies,
the hippy movement, and other anti-institutional
philosophies. Hinduism, yoga, Buddhism, among otherreligions, were adopted by admirers of Asia who idealized
ahimsa by presuming peacefulness existed in countries
that in reality were not too rarely pervaded in those
decades by social conflict and violent political strife. Asia,
in line with Said’s concept of Orientalism, at times
provided a supposedly exotic framework of reference to
Italians. Marginal communities and individuals
additionally adopted Asian religions as an attitude ofprotest, in opposition to a Christianity that seemed tohave links to vested power and tradition.

wonders to what extent this hypothesis is fully tenable,
given the need for an uprooting of delusionary visions ofreality and a confrontation with the sheer fact ofsuffering as a starting point in meditation on the Four
Noble Truths.
On the other hand, with its insistence on impermanence,and because it is a non-theist religion, Buddhism appears
to respond, once again in terms of borderland
hybridization with Western theories, to the rather secularneed to come to terms with modern temporariness andflexibility in liquid modernity (Bauman), and with a nonstrictly religious need for spirituality. In the last thirty
years, some of the interest in Buddhism has been causedby its capability of “communicating with a post-industrial
modern society” (Obadia, p. 19). Buddhist persuasions
would appear to coincide, at least in some respects, with
anti-materialism and rejection of consumerism by socialgroups and individuals, while also responding to the needfor happiness expressed by Western late-modern
ideologies. In brief, Buddhism would seem to combinesocial “well-being” and “spirituality” (Obadia, p. 93).

Some Western interpretations see Buddhism as moretolerant than Christianity. Discussion has taken place, forexample, on the Buddhist concept of error, or blindness,
as different from the Christian concept of sin(Kornfield). This obviously applies to Italy, too, since thehegemonic religion there is Catholicism.
Beck has also identified the search for a “personal God”
that for a number of Western people would seem to have
replaced collective formal representations of Christianity.
An embryo of rediscovery of Buddhism took shape andcontinued to develop in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s inconnection with new types of spirituality such as the
Aquarian Age and the New Age accompanied byimaginative and not explicitly political traits. In the 21st
century, though, Buddhism in Italy, as well as more in
general in Europe, took distance from these practices anddeveloped in independent and more conventional ways as
it kept growing in numbers.

Some scholars go as far as to doubt that Western
Buddhism is motivated by typically religious needs, andthey maintain that at its roots we find an undefined quest
for spirituality:“It might as well be that the attraction of Buddhism in
the eyes of Westerners is rather a push towards
spirituality than a way back to religiousness, and thisBuddhist-like type of spirituality offers a credible
response to the anxiety created by the modern world.
This idealized and purely spiritual variety of Buddhism iswhat I call ‘neo-Buddhism’ as distinct from other types of
Buddhism which have kept contact with tradition, in thebad and the good, in Asia” (Faure, p. 113).

In short, in a number of cases, the West has developedmodes of approaching and importing Buddhism that are
not only suitable for religiously oriented people but for
secular mentalities influenced by the Enlightenment.

This may be seen either as a fact, or merely an opinion,
however what one can say is that Buddhism is a religion
but in the West a number of sympathisers emphasize themoral rather than metaphysical teachings. Even the Dalai
Lama does not seem to exclude this possibility when he
explains that a life based on ethical principles is notnecessarily founded on religious convictions: “I havecome to the conclusion that whether or not a person isreligious does not matter much. Far more important isthat they be a good human being” (Gyatso 1999, p. 20).

Nonetheless, Buddhism and Catholicism in somemeasure share aspects on a borderland. For instance,
there are similarities and common features between
Buddhism and Catholic monasticism with regard to theconfiguration of communities of the practising religious
and the need for meditation. The Dalai Lama (Gyatso2012) states: “Christians are very close to the Buddhist
spirituality. I am thinking, for instance, of Christianmonastic life where attention and time are devoted tomeditation”. We can find further connections between
the evangelical concepts of charity and altruism, and the
Mahayana tradition of the Bodhisattva.

One aspect of Buddhist moral behaviour that iscompatible with Western mentality is a practical attitude,
based on the persuasion of usefulness of certain acts.
Goodness, in brief, is not only morally andpsychologically rewarding, but also useful, and acting
well is beneficial because it creates well-being by making
one feel at harmony with the universe.
The ideological context, in particular for Italian converts,
is connected to the reworking of identity in terms of neo-

Concerning re-working of identity from a morepolitically oriented perspective, after the wavering of neoMarxist utopias in the 1980s, Buddhism was one of theways to provide some Italian radicals with a forward9

this religion. The mentality of Italian poets, willingly or
unwillingly, and by acceptance as well as rejection, is
receptive of several nuances of Christian philosophy.
Nevertheless, it is more of a tabula rasa (or colloquially aclean slate) towards Buddhism, the principles and ideasof which have penetrated literary culture gradually andoften incompletely for reasons of non-traditional
belonging of Italians in this vision of the world.

looking vision of the world, based on a consideration ofhuman beings as unhappy, and yet on an ability toprogress towards a socially positive dimension.
In this respect, in the 1980s and 1990s, Buddhism
configured itself in Italy as a predominantly sociallyaware approach, and Buddhist organizations haveincreasingly become involved with ecological issues,
peace movements, protection of human rights at home
and abroad, as well as with specific Asian issues such as
the Tibetan diaspora.

Yet, philosophical concerns are frequent among Italian
Buddhist poets. A question is also posed on how aneophyte can propagate his new believes. On this plan,some neo-Buddhist writers exhibit the intellectual
freshness of newly received ideas.

Sharing, in the above context, is therefore shown bysocial participation, while a sense of community is also
noticeable both in Buddhist sanghas and secularassociations, with varying accentuations of theory andpractice depending on the particular schools chosen –Tibetan and Zen schools, but also other Mahayana
traditions and Theravada teachings. These were either
imported from Asia, or they were now and thenintroduced into Italy via European monasteries. A
particular case is that of Soka Gakkai, originally fromJapan, inspired by Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings, butdeveloped autonomously on the peninsula in Italy in thelast decades.

With reference to intertextuality, understood here as an
aspect of cultural borderland sharing, some of the Italian
Buddhist poets have acquired new Asian-influenced
writing identities, and in this field the haiku isparticularly conspicuous with cross-reference to classics
such as Basho but also to more modern Japanese verse.
Buddhist poetry from a number of other Asian traditions
has been translated into Italian and has influenced local
writers – just to mention two illustrious intellectuals,
11th/12th-century Milarepa from Tibet and 20th/21stcentury Ko Un from Korea.

Individual becoming is relevant, since a Buddhist
spiritual itinerary is one of personal transformation ofnegativities into positive attitudes (selfishness into
altruism, and so on). On this level, interconnections,mutual borrowings and shared views are visible between
Buddhism and psychology. In Italy, like in other
Western countries, a number of psychologists use theBuddhist meditational practice of mindfulness in
depression therapy. Italian analytical psychologists
inspired by Jung adopt symbols such as the mandala andother Buddhist notions within the therapeutic frameworkof the process of individuation, on the ground that bothJung and Buddhism aim at the transformation andrebirth of the individual (Moacanin, 1986). Bonecchi
maintains that non-Buddhist therapy is probably
preferable to meditation in order to deal with psychosis,
but Buddhist awareness of suffering, due to disease,getting old and disappointments of all kinds, are useful inthe treatment of neurosis.

Certain Italian poets leave Buddhist spirituality mostly inthe background as an additional aspect of their poetics, asis the case with Candiani. Intertexts have been built from
Italian classics and Asian spiritual texts, as it occurs with
Carifi who reads the Tibetan Bardo Thodol (Liberation
through Hearing during the Intermediate State) throughthe linguistic mediation of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno.
Others have moved from a previous variety of secularpoetics to a different one based on spiritual themes, as
Niccolai did. More details on some of the works of thethree authors just mentioned will be given below,
accompanied by the present writer’s translations of thepoets’ statements and texts from Italian into English.
Chandra Livia Candiani (born in 1952) practices
Theravada Buddhism, teaches Vipassana meditation,translates Buddhist texts, and writes poetry. Her identity
as a resident in Italy with Russian ancestry, and a user ofdifferent languages, belongs in a borderland accentuatedby her cross-reference to Western and Eastern
intellectual persuasions.

3. Italian contemporary Buddhist poets
The second section of this paper focuses on a particularcase of borderland identity that can be seen amongcontemporary poets inspired by Buddhism.
One premise here is that, in relation to mentality studies(Sorokin), whereas in Asian countries Buddhism
permeates the attitudes and reflections of people
consciously and unconsciously since it has shaped thosecivilizations, in Italy it is a relatively recent acquisition
and it influences writers in more oblique and perhaps
superficial ways due to their more limited knowledge ofShe stopped writing for some periods when Vipassana
meditation seemed in conflict with the act of producing
literary scripts, and at those times it was “important tounderstand what counted most in my life” (Candiani2014, 2), yet poetry always re-emerged, and in fact her
process of growth in Buddhism helped to also renew her
poetical language and ideas.

10Related to her Buddhist views are also, of course, some ofher outlooks on life. She says that Buddhist “practicecoincides with welcoming life as it is, and us as we are”
(Candiani 2014, 2).

Even though she states that Buddhism does not explicitly
pervade her poems, “or else my poetry would be strictly
ideological”, this religion is clearly her predominant viewof the world even though what she seeks for is essentially“human qualities” (Candiani 2014, 2). With regard tosolidarity, she expresses a concept of mutual charity that
seems somehow shared with Christianity (Candiani2014, 1, p. 11):Her minimalist style touches upon deep existential areas
in light language and imagery that are at times
reminiscent of the haiku. One example (Candiani, 2005,
p. 27):“The universe has no centre,
But humans, in order to embrace, act as follows:
They approach one another slowly
And yet without any apparent reason,
Afterwards they open arms,
Show the disarmament of wings,
They finally disappear
TogetherIn the space of charity
Between one
And the other”.

“Black Birds
Across the glass of the window
It looks as though they are driven
The Lady teaches them how to fly
And then forsakes them –Let it snow
On the Japanese magnolia
On the gate
On the shadows of the meadow”.
Summing up on Candiani, we notice several
Asian/European interactions in her work, an explorationof the unconscious, and a sense of belonging in themeditative tradition of Buddhism but also a claim to
freshness, simplicity and originality. In her view, poetry
appear to discover and renew rather than express sheer
theological truths.

Buddhism and poetry interact in her view of the latter as
nothingness (Candiani, 2005, p. 81):
“In the light bones
The vacuum is written,
In the immature voice
An unattained life is written,
Due neither to premature death
Nor to laziness or cowardice
But to devotion to the nothingness
Of poetry”.

A somehow different case can be made for Roberto
Carifi (born in 1948), one of the members of a school of
poetics called myth-modernism (Bertoni 2006). In the
1980s and 1990s he formulated his interest in spirituality
discerned as myth and as an intertext including reference
to European 19th-century Romanticism and early 20thcentury Western Modernism. In the last two decades,
after conversion, he has often devoted his work to
Buddhism.

The most evident aspect of a direct influence of
Buddhism on her poetry is probably impermanence,
underlined by the alternation of life and death (Candiani,
2005, p. 17):

His Tibet is a collection of poetry inspired by Tibetan
philosophy and landscape, and in particular, as
mentioned above, by the Bardo Todol, or the book
exploring the borderland between the word of the deadand rebirth.

“Dust already chases
The Lady who was born yesterday
In order to return her to dust
As though she is a cloud –This is an evening when the Lady is OctoberThat occurs to someone
Because leaves fall”.

Tibet is a cohesively spiritual volume that avoids any trite
approach to becoming, makes the transition todeath/rebirth both personal, enigmatic, and somehow
coherent with Buddhist teachings (Carifi, p. 9):

Another clear reference to Buddhist teachings is thediminishing of the ego through the principle of the nonself and a projection into the wholeness of nature(Candiani 2014, 1, p. 119):“Find out where nothingness is,
Where your disguise and your snow are,
Then start climbing
Upper and upper, until you reach an open space
Where you hear a weeping,
A weeping howling You feel transformed,
The arms wide open”.

“At times
I am just not there
I am the entirety of the air
And specks of dust
Vibrating under the impact of others,
Under the impact of others’ gestures and breath
[…]”.
11

applied to metamorphosis of human beings into better
persons during the course of their earthly lives.

One culturally shared link between West and East is theterm “souls”, depicted as a memory of Dante’s Inferno
but also as Buddhist entities dispersed in plural Hells,
and Jungian symbols situated in the depths of theunconscious (Carifi, p. 30):

Such an emphasis on becoming is also accentuated in
Giulia Niccolai’s work. Born in 1934, she belonged in the
Italian neo-Avantgarde literary movements in the 1960s
and 1970s when she wrote experimental poetry
concerned with language innovation, anti-establishment
satire, and expression of extraverted vitality. A majorchange took place in her life and texts in the 1980s. She
converted to Buddhism, and she finally became a
Buddhist monk from a Tibetan school in 1990.

I set camp by the stupa,
There seemed to be live souls
While they were transporting me towards the heights.
From up there they showed me the Earth.
Close to the stupa there is a gaze
That teaches how to look from near
Under Hells and swamps, under illnesses
Under strokes that take root and skulls that break,But elsewhere souls passInto the indiscriminate deep end of things”.

Buddhist meditation acted on Niccolai’s creativity
initially as a block to writing in general and in a second
phase to writing in her previous humorous and secularregister. In the latter stage, she wrote prose work, forinstance essays including texts on her motivations tobecome a Buddhist and on coincidence and sincronicity(Niccolai 2001), and some spiritual poems. One exampleof these is “Three meditations” (Niccolai 1999-2001),
where we find lines such as the following:

The Buddha comes as a borderland figure into the
dreamy, mountainous landscape. Defined by being
undetermined in terms of matter, the Buddha asserts his
identity, and asks to be just one of us. By doing so, heprovides a new identity: “[…] / He who comes is neither
earth nor water / But says I am the Buddha, / Take meamong yourselves”. The route of this book includes theachievement of “Samadhi” (Carifi, p. 35), a
disembodiment when “the body […] became prayer”(Carifi, p. 38), the overcoming of suffering by“Embracing all wounds / Mine as well as the blood ofother. / There will be no suffering in all of this. / There
will only be endless conifer trees” (Carifi, p. 51).

“A mole in its den,A seed in a pumpkin,
Isolate from any external stimuli,
Slowly calm down
The tyrant blazing
Of the five senses, and become acquainted
Sweetly with death[…]”.

Finally, peace takes over through rebirth of the narrative
voice as a follower of Bodhisattvas:

However, she has more recently returned to her original
inspiration in a new light by expressing jovially ironic
observations on daily life in old age, this time, rather
than in polemical ways, in terms of acceptance of things
as they are and of a joyful presence in a content existence(Niccolai 2012).

“The country is full of deeds, yaks
Sheep and Kumbum smile, the one hundred thousand
images of the Buddha,
I find myself there and listen to the silence
After having seen cliffs, followed the images of evil,
Eavesdropped at doors that open onto the dead.
Later on, snow falls slowly. The bodhisattvas,
Those enlightened beings, show the path to all,Men and animals, and I follow them, too”.

4. Conclusion
The present essay had the main purpose to show how
Buddhism has become a relevant cultural reality in Italy.
Within the framework of borderlands of becoming,
belonging and sharing, Italian Buddhists, and the poets
mentioned here, have added interesting cross-culturaland transnational dimensions to the Italian literary canon
and to society at large.

In brief, becoming is a strong dimension of Carifi’s
Tibet, and it takes place through transmigration andrebirth as a spiritually oriented being after the Bardo.
This is both a metaphysical persuasion that life continues
after death, and a symbolic dimension that might be

Full references can be found in the Table of References
Section.

12

Jeanette Winterson’s Stone Gods as Transworld and Trans-gender Dystopia
MICHAELA WEISS, SILESIAN UNIVERSITY, CZECH REPUBLIC
the history of Easter Island, while the third is set in nearfuture. The stories are interconnected not only by thecommon theme of human greed and irresponsible
economic and anti-ecological behavior, but also by thecentral character Billie/Billy Crusoe and Spike/Spikkers
whose gender and sex change throughout the texts, yettheir characters remain; thus adopting a motif first
employed by Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) in her fictional
biography Orlando (1928), which addresses the issues of
androgyny, bisexuality, homosexuality and gender
performance, illustrated on a life story of a a young
nobleman Orlando who lives for four hundred years,
unchanged at the age of thirty and during his life turns
biologically into a woman.

Dystopias have been gaining on popularity, especiallysince the publication of Aldous Huxley’s (1894–1963)
Brave New World (1932), followed by George Orwell’s(1903–1950) Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Such criticaland apocalyptic narratives stemmed out of the twentiethcentury reality and as such can be considered a modern
genre. Reflecting the dehumanizing effects ofmechanization and globalization, dystopias presented awarning from the future that could be even more
destructive than the present. The original optimism andbelief in science and progress that is a characteristicfeature of modernity collapsed into the sense ofalienation and fragmentation, uncovering the darker sideof the utopia. Needless to say, these concepts are notopposites, as professor of history of science Michael
Gordin et al. observed:
A true opposite of utopia would be a society that is either
completely unplanned or is planned to be deliberately
terrifying and awful. Dystopia, typically invoked, isneither of these things; rather, it is a utopia that has gonewrong, or a utopia that functions. only for a particularsegment of society (Gordin 2010, p. 1).
In modernity utopias and dystopias were mainly locatedon an island or hidden city, yet, due to the increasingly
unprecedented level of internationalization, the world has
become too small for ideal communities or plans and thecrisis is reaching and affecting whole human race, notonly its fraction. That is why Winterson locates her
potentially saving ground into space, being aware of thefact that our planet cannot offer substantial space thatwould enable the whole mankind to relocate safely anddoes not trust in betterment of the existing nations as isshown on the repeated cycle of the same destructive
decisions. On the other hand, as the planet project isdoomed, Winterson questions and undermines the ideaof space colonization, pointing out the devastating
cultural and ecological consequences of conquering othernations and spaces, adopting a more critical view towards
the social system, yet, at the same time, suggestingalternative spaces or communities that could
counterpoint the dominant rule.

Jeanette Winterson (Chris Boland - Creative Commons)

Stone Gods consists of three seemingly independent
narratives reaching a time span over several centuries.
While the first section is set in the future and deals witha colonization of another planet, the second returns to

While Woolf ventured into the past and gradually shifted
towards the present, Winterson does not observe any
chronological or linear pattern. The novel opens in a
distant future when the world is divided into three13

Even seemingly equal distribution of wealth is stillviewed as unsatisfactory as it becomes utopian only for aruling fraction society, whereas the others are limited intheir freedom of thought or expression. According toHabermas: “Liberation from hunger and misery does notnecessarily converge with liberation from servitude anddegradation, for there is no automatic developmental
relation between labor and interaction" (Habermas 1973,
p. 169). That can be one of the major reasons why
dystopias often attack the originally utopian leftist world
visions. Even Winterson undermines the seemingly
socialist establishment by creating a society without
private ownership based on ecological awareness andrenting. Moreover, humans are genetically fixed atcertain age of his/her choice so nobody gets old, sick or
ugly. Yet, as she points out, even this state does not leadto fulfillment or happiness, but rather causes multiple
deviations and perversions, especially in the sexual sphereas most people look the same: young and beautiful, only
celebrities are enhanced to look even better. Equal
distribution of beauty, youth and wealth leads toalienation and boredom: “All men are hung like whales.
All women are tight as clams below and inflated likelifebuoys above. Jaws are square, skin is tanned, muscles
are toned, and no one gets turned on” (Winterson 2007,
p. 23). As sexual adventures present the only form of
release of self-expression, the women try to comply withvarious male appetites, especially concerning their looks
and age, while men have small girls imported from theCaliphate, as the Central Power outlawed pedophilia.

political segments: the Central Power, Caliphate andSino-Moscow Pact that are negotiation the system ofcolonization of a new planet Blue. Even though theplanet is in its early stage of development and ishabituated by dinosaurs, the Central Power governmentis presenting it as ideal and life-saving to gain public
support for the colonization:“The new planet offers us the opportunity to do things
differently. We’ve had a lot of brilliant successes here on
Orbus – well, we are the success story of the universe,aren’t we? [ . . .] But we have taken a few wrong turnings.
Made a few mistakes. [ . . .] Conflict is likely. A newplanet means we can redistribute ourselves. It will mean abetter quality of life for everyone – the ones who leave,
and the ones who stay” (Winterson 2007, pp. 4–5).
The ruling elite thus imposes the image of the bright
future on the masses. By making the new world publicly
attractive, the government creates a utopian vision for themasses by connecting it to the nation’s colonialist past,
especially of Indies, Americas and Arctic circles. The
image of future paradise has to be perfect so that no
opposition towards the mission could arise. As theCentral Power regulates and controls the seemingly
democratic and ecological distribution of resources, itschief interest is to keep the majority satisfied andreassured of the common good it would produce,
preventing any suggestions concerning the saving of thecurrent planet. According to Horkheimer and Adorno,such government prevents independent thinking andencourages “diversion and amusement, the security ofidentification with authority, and the comfort ofconformity. The ‘world of administered life’ creates suchindividuals and efficiently meets their needs. Within sucha world the capacity to think that things might beotherwise, or even to feel such a need, has been
repressed“ (Alway 1995, p. 42). To avoid any accusationof potential violence, the government proclaims that the“‘[m]onsters will be humanely destroyed’” (Winterson
2007, p. 6). The extermination of local inhabitants, nomatter what they are, as long as they are hostile tomodern “civilized” life, is generally accepted as necessary
for the survival of superior species: the white Western
capitalist society.

The utopian image presented to the masses can be thus
seen as a political and ideological tool for manipulationof dependent subjects. Moreover, as the new world is
ruled by technology and all human activities weretransferred onto machines, the humanity is slowly
degrading, while the robots are growing moresophisticated, especially a new kind called robo sapiensthat looks human and is capable of evolution, though
within limits. While humans rely on the technology inevery aspect of their lives, they gradually lose their skills
and abilities, ending up defenseless against the
manipulative rule, confirming Horkheimer’s andAdorno’s claim that the masses “insist on the very
ideology which enslaves them“ (Horkheimer and Adorno
1972, p. 136), and are readily trapped into the cycle ofpre-given social frame, as long as they can follow theirentertainment. They prove to have an almost “enigmatic
readiness […] to fall under the sway of any despotism”(Horkheimer and Adorno 1972, p. xiii).

Since utopia has become mainly associated with the elitethat would come up with the ideal distribution of power,
wealth and material, it has acquired a rather negative
connotation. According to Gordin et al.:Similarly to other feminist dystopias, Stone Gods address
not only the destinies of individual characters, but focus
on the very structure of the ruling system and the origin
and causes of both dys- and utopian visions, affirming
Patricia Melzer’s claim that “[science fiction female
writers] create explicit political narratives that do not justcenter on an individual’s subjectivity but address systems

It carries with it the trappings of an elaborate thought
experiment, a kind of parlor game for intellectuals who
set themselves the task of designing a future society, aperfect society—following the pun on the name in Greek(no place, good place: imaginary yet positive) (Gordin
2010, p. 1).
14

pornography for introverts” (Winterson 2007, p. 22),
woman with mouths instead of her nipples and one leg
for easier access, children, or a dog woman with animals
included. The husband loves young children and isprepared to have fixed a nine-year old girl from theCaliphate, even though it is illegal. He supports his wife’s
wish and even proclaims his deviation as acceptable andnormal: “‘It’s like every other Civil Rights and Equal
Rights battle, OK? You had Blacks at one time. You had
Semites at one time. You had mixed marriages, you had
gays. All legal, no problem. We’re just victims ofprejudice and out-of-date laws’” (Winterson 2007, p. 25).

that shape our world: social, technological, economic,
and political systems” (Melzer 2006, p. 179). In contrast
with the predominantly predatory and destructive natureof men and their ruling system, women are mainly
portrayed either as victims or active opponents of thesystem, using their common sense, emotions and insightto save the planet or restore the natural order andbalance.
The protagonist Billie Crusoe works for the
Enhancement service that is responsible for making
people know what is good for them and theircommunity. Yet, she only accepted the position to beable to keep her small farm, a little utopia of her own,
which was considered archaic and even anarchic. She
does share the general enthusiasm for re-settling andbelieves in restoration of the old planet: “‘We didn’t doanything, did we? Just fucked it to death and then kicked
it when it wouldn’t get up’” (Winterson 2007, p. 8).
Feeling responsible for the environment, Billie tries tohide in her limited natural preserve and believes in reestablishment of the ecological balance. The same is true
for women on the Easter Island from the second
narrative, who try to prevent the local chiefs from putting
down the last tree. Yet, the men are deaf and blind totheir cries, beat them up and collectively take the tree
down. Winterson here again refers to potentially saving
and healing community of women that has the capacityand feeling to save the Earth, in opposition to men’s
strength and reason, which is often destructive.

Winterson may present bizarre sexual appetites andadaptations, yet, she operates within the bi-polar genderand biological sex system. Her characters, no matter if
gay or heterosexual, are always males or females, men or
women. She thus challenges only the heteronormative
system, which is typical for all her writing, yet does not
go beyond it. Even her robo sapiens Spike has a bodythat’s looks female while under the upper tissue there is
fully mechanical construction.
The effect of imposed social roles upon women is further
demonstrated on the relationship between Billie andSpike that develops on the space mission to planet Blue.
Spike starts to feel emotions and breaks the limits
designed for keeping the evolution of robo sapiens undercontrol. Captain Handsome hopes to enrich her emotion
scale by starting an affair with her and Spike is more thanwilling to learn, yet only from Billie. The novel starts tofollow their romantic relationship that graduallystrengthens and overcomes any prejudice. The originallyhighly political and ecological tale thus turns into alesbian interspecies romance, in which Winterson once
again distorts and challenges gender expectations.

Winterson also questions the future of women withinsuch a system: “We don’t breed in the womb anymore,
and if we aren’t wanted for sex…But there always will bemen. Women haven’t gone for little boys. Women have a
different approach. Surrounded by hunks, they look forthe ‘ugly man inside’. […] So this is the future. F is for
Future” (Winterson 2007, p. 26). The victimization of
women is illustrated on a case Billie is assigned to. Mrs.
Pink McMurphy wants to be genetically reversed to theage of twelve to revive her husband’s sexual interest. Even
though such is procedure is possible, it is not common or
supported; Billie is supposed to investigate the case andpersuade the woman to change her decision. Yet, allattempts at rational reasoning are hopeless as Mrs.
McMurphy behaves like a small girl, turning their houseinto pink teenage dream, willing to comply with her
husband’s pedophilic desires: “‘Y’know, I’d be fucked up
and miserable anyway – and if I’m going to be fucked up
and miserable, I’d rather be young, fucked up andmiserable. Who wants to be depressed and have skin thatlooks like fried onions?’” (Winterson 2007, p. 70)

In the space Spike starts to understand the social natureof gender and by choosing Billie rather than Captain
Handsome asserts a right for choice of partners. Whereas
on her previous mission she served not only a perfectintelligent machine but her construction correspondedwith the image of a perfect female body so that she could
provide sexual services. Moreover, she programmed insuch a way as to be willing to perform her role.
Throughout the text, Spike is viewed and classified as awoman, Winterson here echoes the theories of Simone
de Beauvoir. While de Beauvoir who claimed that “[o]neis not born, but rather becomes a woman. No biological,
psychic, economic destiny determines […] the human
female. […] It is civilisation as a whole that produces thiscreature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which
is described as feminine” (De Beauvoir 1949, p. 281).
Her views were further developed by Monique Wittig,
who undermines the whole concept of a woman, which
she aims at destroying and deconstructing. According to
Wittig, the concept of woman is “still imprisoned in the

While she fusses about her appearance and desperately
tries to become attractive, young and beautiful, herhusband is frequenting Peccadillo, a bar for unusual
sexual services. It offers translucent waiters, “[w]hen you
fuck them you can watch yourself doing it. It’s
15

categories of sex (woman and man), but holds onto theidea that the capacity to give birth (biology) is whatdefines a woman” (Wittig 2003, p. 250). Wintersoncompletely omits the biological basis of woman as neither
Billie nor Spike desire pregnancy. Moreover, the robo
sapiens cannot conceive and has only an exchangeablesilicon-lined vagina, still, she is treated as a woman, yet
her exploitation is not based on reproductive but solely
sexual purposes. Paraphrasing de Beauvoir, Spike was notborn, but constructed a woman. Being a woman thus
turns out to be both social and technological construct,which leads to naturalizing the social (male) needs. As
Wittig observes:

She has no blood. She can’t give birth. Her hair and nails
don’t grow. She doesn’t eat or drink. She is solarpowered. She has learned how to cry (Winterson 2007, p.
83).
Both “women” reject the traditional bipolar genderdivision, which Spike dismisses as “human concept” and“not very interesting” (Winterson 2007, p. 76). Changing
the way of Billie’s constrained thinking, Spike can now
be loved and celebrated as a woman she read about inpoetry, fulfilling Wittig’s ideal of lesbian being a “notwoman” and “not-man” (Wittig p. 251).
However, Winterson pushes the boundaries of femininity
or humanity even further in the last narrative, whichchronologically predates the opening one. In the worldthat faces the consequences of the third world war, ayoung scientist Billie is responsible for the first robo
sapiens, Spike, who was created to ensure the world’s
piece and sustainability. Though still beautiful as in thefirst section, Spike has no body, only a head. Theirrelationship with Billie is thus purely platonic, yet equallystrong.

But what we believe to be a physical and directperception is only a sophisticated and mythic
construction, an ‘imagery formation,’ which reinterprets
physical features (in themselves neutral as any others but
marked by the social system) through the network of
relationships in which they are perceived (Wittig pp.
249–250).
Being aware of the mechanical and un-natural
construction of Spike’s body, which is “sophisticated andmythic”, Billie does not want to get involved with acreature she does not perceive as a woman: “‘I don’t wantto get personal,’ I said, ‘but I’ll say it again – you are arobot. Do you want to kiss a woman so that you can add
it to your database?’ ‘Gender is a human concept,’ said
Spike, ‘and not very interesting. I want to kiss you.’ She
kissed me again” (Winterson 2007, p. 76). Despite hermechanical nature, Spike is deeply inspired by and isdetermined to find out what it is like to be loved the way
it was presented in the poem, ignoring Billie’s protests
that she does not want to be a robot enhancement.

Spike as an intelligent robo sapiens understands thenature of oppression and is prepared to help to establish a
new, more democratic system, as she is aware of the factthat humans degraded to such an extent that they cannot
stand up for themselves anymore:
Humans have given away all their power to a “they”. You
aren’t able to fight the system because without the systemnone of you can survive. You made a world without
alternatives, and now it is dying, and your new world
already belongs to “they” (Winterson 2007, p. 79).

Billie is trapped within the imposed understanding of
femininity, even though she, as a lesbian, does not fit theheteronormative system. She still upholds the prescribed
norm of a natural, biological woman, even though there
are close to none in the world she lives in. Most females
are genetically fixed or transformed, superficially reachingfor the new social ideal they cannot fit in. Even though
Billie did not undergo any genetic alteration, she tried tohide it and besides, looked beautiful and looked young
enough to pass. While she is critical to the trends
dictated by the system that women have followed, shedoes not directly oppose them.

As she realizes that man/womankind is too comfortablewithin the established system that it cannot effectively
resist it, she stands as an example of breaking the rules
fore-set for her by shifting her evolutionary limits beyond
her predefined possibilities. She rejects the categories
based on the political system requirements that are stillfounded on the obsolete biological distinction.
Winterson realized that for a change of a system,
individual changes of thinking and perception have tocome first:
In the days before we invented spacecraft, we dreamed offlying saucers, but what we finally built were rockets:
fuel-greedy, inefficient and embarrassingly phallic. When
we realized how to fly vast distances at light-speed, wewent back to the saucer shape: a disc with solar sails.
Strange to dream in the right shape and build in thewrong shape, but maybe that is what we do every day,never believing that a dream could tell the truth(Winterson 2007, p. 75).

After initial mistrust and following the limited view of
the concept of a sex and gender, Spike persuades Billie toget beyond the obsolete definitions and constructions andrely on her emotions instead:
My lover is made of a meta-material, a polymer tough as
metal, but pliable and flexible and capable of heating andcooling, just like human skin. […] She has no limbic
system because she is not designed to feel emotion.
16

legs and one of my arms and one of my kidneys and halfof my liver and four pints of my blood and all easy for I
had already given him my heart. Do not die” (Winterson
2007, p. 139).

Placing an emphasis on dreams, intuition and openness
towards love and emotions, corresponds to Horkheimer’sand Adorno’s claim that the regression of subjectedmankind is caused by their “inability to hear the unheardof with their own ears, to touch the unapprehended with
their own hands” (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972, p. 36).
The belief in technology also leads to a destruction of theplanet and the explorers, as the asteroid that is meant toexterminate the dinosaurs, sends the planet into Ice Age.
This mission exemplifies just another case of colonizationthat brought disasters both to the space and its
inhabitants, similarly to the Easter Island, where thenatives used up all wood and stone available on the landto build large moai statues of faces of deified ancestors.
As a result, the island turned into inhospitable dessert:“The island was stripped and bare, with few trees or
shrub-bushes of any kind. Nature seemed hardly to haveprovided it with any fit thing for man to eat or drink(Winterson 2007, p.118).

As long as there are Billies and Spikk/ers, mankind willremain human, as for Winterson same-sex relationships
disrupt not only the heteronormative system but also thesocial constructs of man or woman: “Truth tell, anywhereis a life, once there is love” (Winterson 138). In both
sections it was homosexual love freed from prejudice andsystem requirements that led to at least individual andsubjective redemption, while the rest of humanity did not
oppose the establishment, they complied with theimposed limitations and entered just another destructive
cycle oh human history, often closely linked todevastating colonization and “civilization” of both theland and its inhabitants. As in most of Winterson’s
novels, Stone Gods consists of parallel stories fromvarious times and spaces, suggesting a cyclical view ofhuman history. “Everything is imprinted forever withwhat it was once was” (Winterson 2007, p. 246). The
pattern from past colonizing of the unknown lands andislands is repeated with the new planet, while thecharacters and consequences are always the same.

Winterson, however, manages to combine the social
criticism with stories of common individuals, showing
the effects of the destructive power on human lives. To
prove her trans-gender attitude, this narrative features asailor and member of the colonizing crew Billy, whoselife is saved by one of the natives with European origin
Spikkers. Yet, their relationship becomes immediately
more intimate as Spikkers expects a reward: “I put myhand down to where he was stiff and soon had him tidy
and soft again (Winterson 2007, p. 128). Similarly to theother narratives, their romance slowly develops into
mutual love, care and understanding, emphasizing theuniversality of human experience.

Yet, the main theme of the book is not the colonizationof other planet suitable for life as it may seem from thefirst part; Winterson shows great awareness of the roots
and causes of dystopian thinking. As anti/dys/u-topias
reflect the state of contemporary and historical events,
she is tracing the human qualities and generalcircumstances leading to the state of crisis. While thefirst part of the book deals with catastrophic
consequences of colonizing a new planet, the second partgoes back to the time of Easter Island’s exploration andthe third part returns to near-future, where Billie finds amanuscript in a metro called The Stone Gods, the wholeplanet Blue is thus suddenly turned into fiction, what
remains is the desolate past and equally hopeless present.
What is mankind left with is a planet that used to beblue, and a capacity for poetry and love. By providing
redemptive models and alternatives, Winterson confirms
the dystopia’s corrective function of idealized societies;
even when her characters failed in their politicalmissions. Their realization of oppressive social constructs
and politics creates a space for negotiation between new
utopian possibilities and fully hopeless and negative
dystopian future.

While Billy offers an outsider’s and observer’s
perspective, Spikkers explains the events from the inside,
though the fact that he can speak English, Spanish andcan write, partly excludes him from the community. As
the robo sapiens from the previous section, he is more“technically developed” and dreams of the peace andorder on the island, yet as he cannot step out of thesystem, he is choosing between two chiefs who bothproved destructive in their leadership. On the other
hand, Billy who lands involuntarily on the island and isleft behind by his crew, only learns of the effects of“civilizing” other lands from the native’s narrative. Still,even their good intentions and attempts to bring theisland back to its tradition and order fail, not due to theirlack of abilities, but male competiveness that leads to
Spikker’s death. Their only legacy is their mutual love:“[I] licked the blood from his mouth and tried to givehim my breath and I would have given him one of my

Full references can be found in the Table of References
Section.

17

Becoming-other to Belong: Radical
Eco-Cosmopolitanism in Jeff Noon’s
Nymphomation
EMMA NICOLETTI
UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA
By reading the novel from this perspective, I am
engaging in the practice of ecocriticism. Ecocriticism isan analytical perspective that emerged as a movement in
the mid-1990s in response to an increasing awareness ofanthropogenic climate change, and a concern that thisissue was not being adequately addressed in the work ofhumanities’ scholars. Ecocriticism seeks to explicitly
address these issues by interrogating the ways culture andcultural products mediate humans’ relation to thenonhuman. In particular, it seeks to do so by focusing on
the nuanced ways culture and cultural products reinforce
and/or challenge dominant values and attitudes regarding
humans’ connection to the nonhuman. This analysis
engages with Nymphomation from such an ecocriticalperspective. It seeks to elucidate the ways this novel
reflects upon, challenges and offers alternatives to thevalues, attitudes and understandings that currently
dominant the relation between the human andnonhuman (in our current globalised economy).

In Jeff Noon’s Nymphomation (2000), the reader isconfronted with a fictional Manchester city where
swarms of mobile, flying adverts increasingly pollute the
air and piles of discarded lottery tokens increasingly litterthe streets. This undesirable environment is the result of
the technologies of post-industrial capitalism turned
rampant, where the imperative to turn a profit also turns
theenvironment
uninhabitable.
However,Nymphomation has a “hero”, Jazir, the son of Indian
migrants, whose 1) ideological transformation fromentrepreneurial capitalist to social justice advocate, and 2)
ontological transformation from human to posthuman,
reduces and reverses the city’s decline into an
uninhabitable anthropogenic climate.
This discussion will focus on Jazir and the way the novel
can be read as pairing his cosmopolitan, migrant
perspective with his ability to perceive his embeddedness
within a more-than-human community. This ability
allows him to negotiate and mitigate the increasing
hostility of his anthropogenic climate. Moreover, I will
discuss how the novel envisions responding toenvironmental crisis as requiring more than technicalsolutions. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” is not enough in
Nymphomation. Instead, Nymphomation suggests that
responding and adapting to anthropogenic climates
requires a radical reconsideration of the way humans
perceive themselves and their relation to the human andnonhuman other. What I call a radical eco-subjectivity.
Here too the novel suggests that it is Jazir’s cosmopolitan
perspective that enables him to enter into this ontologicaltransformation. In short, I will argue that in the characterof Jazir, Nymphomation envisions a model for a radical
eco-cosmopolitan subjectivity that combines 1) the
emancipatory potential of the cosmopolitan perspectivewith 2) an ecological understanding of theinterconnectedness of the human and nonhuman. And
furthermore, that this reading of the novel suggests thatthe dual cultural perspective of cosmopolitan subjects
better enables them to perceive their dual species
citizenship—that is, that they belong to a more-thanhuman community. This altered perspective leaves the
eco-cosmopolitan subject well-positioned to negotiate
and mitigate anthropocentric climates.

Furthermore, in the reading of Nymphomation I present
here, I will borrow and elaborate upon ecocritic Ursula
Heise’s concept of eco-cosmopolitanism (2008). Heise’s
concept draws upon theories of cosmopolitanism that are“concerned with the question of how we might be able todevelop cultural forms of identity and belonging that arecommensurate with the rapid growth in political,
economic, and social interconnectedness that has
characterised [contemporary globalisation]” (2008, p.6).
And she seeks to extend the concept to include the“‘more-than-human world—the realm of nonhumanspecies, but also that of connectedness with both animate
and inanimate networks of influence and exchange”(2008, p.61). Heise extends the idea in this way toconstruct a more robust conception of cosmopolitanism,
which she deems necessary for anthropocentric ecologies.
This ecocritical reading of Nymphomation is divided into
the following three sections: firstly, I offer a brief
introduction to Nymphomation and discuss how
globalisation figures in the novel; secondly, I present anargument highlighting how Jazir can be read as
representing a cosmopolitan subject position; and thirdly,
I demonstrate how Jazir’s belonging to a more-thanhuman community destablises his ontological status as18

to profit from its technology, at another point hacking
into the company’s database to uncover its nefarious
activities, and at another point destroying the company’s
factory headquarters. This last action, destroying thefactory, is central to this argument as it sees the blurbflies
emancipated from their contract with the AnnoDominoCompany, it is associated with the release of the
Mancunians from the regency of the materialist values
engendered by AnnoDomino, and both of these together
ameliorate the city’s environmental problems.

human and enables him to negotiate his anthropogenic
climate.

Nymphomation and Globalisation
Like Jeff Noon’s other science fiction novels of the
1990s, Nymphomation is set in a fictionalised version of
the author’s hometown of Manchester. The plot centres
upon a lottery newly introduced to the city by the
AnnoDomino Company as a test run before the lottery’snational launch. The lottery is run weekly and players
enter the draw by buying tokens called domino bones.
The ultimate cash prize of “10 million lovelies” is won if
the dots on the domino bones settle on the same dots as
those broadcast on the televised draw (16).
The AnnoDomino Company and how it came to be in
Noon’s fictional Manchester provide some tellingintertextual connections. In the novel, the Manchester
city council successfully bids for AnnoDomino to test
their lotto game in the city, recalling Manchester’s
multiple Olympic and Commonwealth Games bids
(Cochrane et al. 2002). Also, the company enters into
“partnerships” with the city’s public institutions, recallingthe same strategy employed by the real Manchester’s
local council to be able to compete for national funds (astrategy which departed from the city’s long-standing
commitment to public institutions and welfare) (Quilley2002). These connections draw attention to the ways thenovel engages Manchester’s changing identity fromglobaliser—centre of trade and industry, to globalised—vulnerable to losing its socialist-leaning identity. Indeed,
AnnoDomino represents one negative tendency of
globalisation—its propensity to instantiate globallyhomogenised cultural values. In this case, the values ofmaterialism and post-industrial capitalism.

Importantly, Jazir and his family, the Malik’s, represent
another intertextual link to the real Manchester and its
place within global networks, that is, as Peter Dickin’s
notes, the “large-scale in-migration of people [toEngland] from the former colonies” (2002, p.23). The
Malik family are migrants of Indian origin and run acurry restaurant located in Rusholme. In the real
Manchester, the Rusholme area is known for its highconcentration of Indian restaurants, earning it thenickname “curry mile”. Nymphomation points to theintercultural tensions arising from this situation, which isplayed out in confrontations between Jazir and white
supremacist Nigel Zuze. Nigel’s personal blurbfly
advertises the following message: “English schools forEnglish tools. No foreign muck. Vote for Purity!” (36).
Nigel represents the attitude that migrants are a threat tothe integrity of England’s national identity andManchester’s local identity. Noon, however, encourages
the reader to be unsympathetic towards Nigel and his
perspective—he is a racist bully-cum-coward and allround objectionable character. Jazir, on the other hand, iscomplex and sympathetic character. Indeed, hisincreasingly deft ability to combine his dual experience ofIndian and English cultures is the avenue through which
the novel’s conflicts are resolved. Jazir thus represents acontradictory tendency enabled by globalisation, that is,
its propensity for heterogeneity. The novel inscribes themelding of cultures as producing new ways of knowing
and being that can resist globally competitive
corporations and anthropogenic climates.

In the novel, AnnoDomino aggressively advertises its
lottery game via insect shaped broadcasting systems thatcan fly: these mobile advertising units are called blurbflies
and are designed to communicate the AnnoDomino
advertisement—“play to win”—“alive and direct to thepunters” (75). Driven by the blurbflies’ relentlessly
repeated advertisements, the Mancunians buy several
dominoes each week. However, after failing to be thewinning token, the losing domino pieces are invalidated.
The Mancunian’s toss away their losing tokens: thenumbers of discarded dominoes become so numerous
they create a “second pavement that crunche[s]underfoot” (254). The blurbflies thus pollute theenvironment in two ways: they are too plentiful and so
pollute the air, and the advertisement they broadcast
promotes the materialistic message of over-consumption,
driving further pollution.

Jazir and Cosmopolitanism

Jazir operates as a foil to the AnnoDomino Company.
Jazir seeks to discover the mysterious technology thatpowers the blurbflies and domino tokens, and discover
why the company is having some of its players murdered.
These motives see Jazir at one point capturing a blurbfly
19

Indeed, it is Jazir’s cosmopolitan perspective that allows
him to perceive the interconnectedness of the human andnonhuman via his altered relationship to the blurbflies.
As already mentioned, at one point in the story Jazir
hacks AnnoDomino’s computer system. This covert
activity results in his being bitten by a blurbfly, and, inturn, this corporeal connection instigates his
understanding that he and the blurbflies belong to thesame ecosystem and are both subject to the same fate.
That is, their survival is threatened by the values ofmaterialism and post-industrial capitalism espoused by
AnnoDomino. Here I will demonstrate the centrality ofJazir’s cosmopolitanism to the novel’s resolution byforegrounding how it is his dual Indian-English
perspective that brings him into corporeal contact with

inability to accommodate the racial-ethnic otherfrustrates his ability accommodate the nonhuman other,leading to his complete vulnerability and subservience tothe virus. On the other hand, Jazir’s ability to negotiate
between and incorporate aspects of different cultures is
associated with his ability to accommodate the virus, andsimultaneously belong to both the blurbfly and humancommunities, as well as resist AnnoDomino’s
materialism.

the blurbfly in the first instance, and that it is this dual
cultural perspective that underpins his ability to become amember of the blurbfly community.
Firstly, Jazir is able to hack the AnnoDomino system,
something which other Mancunians are unable to do, byincorporating and adapting aspects from his dual IndianEnglish heritage. Notable in this respect is his “InfoJosh” password hacking program—an amalgamation of
his knowledge of computer coding and Indian cuisine:

Becoming-otherCosmopolitanism

INFO JOSH[:] Ginger, garlic water. Put them all into akarahi. Add chunks of information to brown.
Cardamom, bay leaves, cloves. […] Stir and serve. The
wanted knowledge will be revealed. Heat rating: red hot”.
(71)

and

RadicalEco-

Finally, I will address the cornerstone of my reading of
the novel’s model of radical eco-subjectivity—what I call
Jazir’s becoming-blurbfly. Jazir’s ability to productively
incorporate aspects of two cultures—Indian and English,
underpins his ability to incorporate aspects of two
species—human and blurbfly. I want to make two points
about Jazir’s blended or hybrid subjectivity: firstly, itreplaces the either/or dualisms that support traditional
Western models of subjectivity with a both/andfoundation, and secondly, it suggests that reconfiguring
the foundations of subjectivity in this way is necessary forcontinued existence and belonging in anthropogenic
climates.

For Jazir, combining ideas from different cultures anddifferent generations is “the way of the world”: “Father
Saeed Malik cooked up the spices; Jaz, the son, cooked
up the info. Mutual engineering” (71). It is bringing
together different kinds of knowledge in this way that
leads Jazir to being bitten by a blurbfly: Jazir discovers
that running the Info Josh program on a computerpacifies and attracts the blurbflies, making them easy tocatch. The blurbfly that Jazir seizes bites him,transferring some of the mutagenic DNA to Jazir in theprocess. It is this corporeal encounter with a blurbfly theeventually enables Jazir to empathise with their species,
which leads to his involvement in mitigating the city’senvironmental problems.
Secondly, Jazir’s ability to become a member of the
blurbfly community after being bitten is also connected
to his ability to accommodate and combine different
kinds of cultural knowledge. After being bitten, Jazir
notices that he begins to change. He experiences the urge
to “swarm with the [blurbfly] pack” (274). That is, hebegins to perceive himself as belonging to the blurbfly
community. However, he also reports an irresistible
loyalty to AnnoDomino, compelling him “to stand on
the tallest building and shout out loud to the city how
fucking great the Anno-Dominoes are” (274). In otherwords, he begins to perceive his agency being subsumed
by AnnoDomino. Nonetheless, Jazir possesses the desire
to resist his total transformation into a blurbfly advert,
and also the skill to incorporate both humanness andblurbfly-ness into his identity.

However, first it is important to clarify what is meant by
becoming-blurbfly, and explain how this challenges theeither/or dualisms that support the Western model ofsubjectivity. In calling Jazir’s experience “becomingblurbfly” I am referring to the concept of becoming as
developed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in A
Thousand Plateaus (1987). For Deleuze and Guattari,
the process of becoming is intertwined with the radicaltransformation of the Western subject. Traditionally theconcept of the Western subject has been built upon aseries of hierarchally organised binary oppositions,
including self/other, presence/absence, human/nature,
man/woman, etc. As eco-philosopher Val Plumwood
argues, such a dualist and hierarchal organisation hyperseparates each category so that the identity of each termof the binary is defined through its radical exclusion andrepudiation of the opposing term (1993, pp.10–11). In
the case of human/nature, for example, the term “human”
becomes synonymous with the notion of disembodied
mind, and “nature” becomes synonymous with material“stuff”. The consequence of this, Plumwood argues, isthat the dominant group comes to deny their dependency
upon the repressed other (1993, pp.48–9). For thehuman/nature binary, the effect is that humans seethemselves as independent, autonomous agents, able tomaster and control a subordinate, nonhuman nature
without being altered themselves. However, Deleuze andGuattari’s “subject” of becoming exists in a state that isboth partly self and partly other—neither wholly who or
what it was, nor wholly who or what it will become, butrather existing at the threshold between these two

A comparison with the aforementioned character Nigel
illustrates how Jazir’s cosmopolitanism underpins his
ability to resist. Nigel is “infected” with the same
mutagenic material as Jazir, but unlike Jazir, Nigel isunable to resist the contagion and is immediately madeinto AnnoDomino’s slave. Nigel’s resistance seems linked
to his inability to accept the racial-ethnic other, as
evidenced by his blurbfly advertisement’s message ofwhite supremacy. Nigel’s identity is founded upon his
active and violent attempts to exclude the other. Nigel’s
20

which ultimately benefits the well-being of all the humancharacters too). Jazir’s indeterminate, becoming-blurbfly
subjectivity allows him to 1) perceive theinterconnectedness of the situations of the human andnonhuman—both are enslaved by AnnoDomino, and 2)
advocate on behalf of the nonhuman which is linked to
the restoration of habitable environmental conditions—by destroying the AnnoDomino factory.

“selves”. Such in-between-ness is a logically impossible
state of existence for the traditional Western subject. I
argue that Jazir’s existence in the state of becomingblurbfly/becoming-other—where he is neither wholly
human, nor wholly blurbfly—registers his radical
departure from traditional Western subjectivity.
Jazir’s radically reconfigured subjectivity enables him toperceive his belonging to a more-than-humancommunity. This insight is inscribed as necessary for
his—and all Mancunians—continued existence inManchester’s anthropogenic climate. Jazir’s radicallyreconfigured subjectivity is coupled with his new-foundability to empathise with and advocate for the blurbflies.
This insight leads to his taking actions that destroy
AnnoDomino,
which
reversesthenegativeenvironmental impact the company has had on thefictional Manchester city. Jazir’s openness to theblurbflies enables him to see the world from theirperspective: Jazir says, “some of the blurbs want out.
They want their freedom. That’s why they’re attracted tome. I can turn this knowledge against [AnnoDomino]”(274). Witnessing the world from the nonhumanperspective of the blurbflies, alerts Jazir to the destructive
force AnnoDomino exerts over the Mancunians—the
Mancunians, like the blurbflies, are controlled by
AnnoDomino. The company’s promise of wealthenslaves the Mancunians thinking, so that they areblinded to the social and environmental problems causedby the company. This lack of insight renders the
Mancunians unable to resist the company’s materialist
values. In short, after Jazir’s corporeal encounter with ablurbfly Jazir begins to belong to the blurbfly community
both physically by seeing the world from their point ofview and conceptually by foregoing his status as humansubject—that is, he relinquishes his perception that he isable to master and profit from the blurbflies and instead
pledges to advocate on behalf of the nonhuman (an act

Conclusion
In this discussion I have attempted to outline
Nymphomation’s model for a radical eco-cosmopolitan
subjectivity. This subjectivity draws upon the potential of
cosmopolitanism to enable individuals to negotiate
between cultures, and also produce new knowledge
through the experience of different cultures. My readingof the novel suggests that the skills and knowledges that
accompany such cosmopolitan experiences andperspectives enable similarly open and flexible interspecies understandings. That is, Jazir’s cosmopolitan
perspective enables him to exist at the threshold between
human-self and nonhuman-other. Moreover, it is thisradical, indeterminate subjectivity that 1) enables him toperceive the ways the human and nonhuman are equally
implicated in ecosystems, and 2) compels him to
advocate on behalf of the nonhuman—an action that
restores the increasingly uninhabitable anthropogenic
climate. In reading Nymphomation from this ecocriticalperspective, I hope to have highlighted the ways thisnovel can be read as elucidating some importantintersections between cosmopolitanism and radical ecosubjectivity.

Full references can be found in the Table of References
Section.

21

Confinement and Transgression in Eugene
O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape and Arthur
Miller’s The Crucible
HUI CHUN LI
NATIONAL SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY, TAIWAN
judicial practices. This paper aims to situate both Yankand Proctor as cultural products manufactured by utopian
desires, under the cultural conditions of, respectively,
industrial society and puritan theocracy. Societies always
find ways to remove or confine the deviant; the types ofsociety O’Neill and Miller depict achieve their goals byexecuting egregiously violent measures to do so. In
reaction, such society will trigger a will to transgression
and truth in the deviant self.

Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (1922) portrays a groupof workers in the stokehole of a ship who are disciplined
to power up the engine. The leader of the force, Yank, isrepresented as someone who views the privileged class asidlers who do not belong to his world. Douglas Mildred,daughter of the corporate steel company owner¬, who
considers herself useless and wants to make herself usefulto the society, startles Yank by visiting the stokehole.
She, in turn, is shocked by his primitive nakedness. Eacha mirror to the other, they reveal to each other unseen
aspects of their own worlds. When she faints at his
appearance, he feels insulted and angry. Yank decides toland on the metropolis where she belongs “in de windowof a toy store” (183) and prove to the world that he is not
an ape. He enters a world governed by unconscious
desires for commodity, rationality and bureaucracy, andends up being caged in the zoo and killed by an ape. His
death is an ultimate transgression, of not given in to aliving-dead life (either as workers on assembly-line, or ascommodified humans), and a protest against a living
confinement.
The self’s protest against society is also depicted in
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953). Where Yankprotests against commodified life, Miller’s protagonist
John Proctor’s will to transgression is directed against
Salem’s theocracy. Set in the seventeenth century, Miller
rewrites the event of a Salem witch trial and exposes theconflicts between two antagonistic powers: theTopsfield-Nurse faction and old Salemites, the deviant
and the norm. Between these two opposing factions an
absolute religious doctrine functions as an operational
instrument for those in power. Thomas Putnam’s clan
conspires to overthrow Rebecca Nurse’s clan because of
Abigail Williams’s behavior—dancing at night in theforest, an act the theocratic society deems demon andthus deviant from God’s will. Just as Yank is being
rejected and confined by the metropolis, so Proctor(representative of those who are victimized in thewitchcraft scandal) is put to jail and excommunicatedfrom the church of Salem. The metropolis’s utopian goal
is to achieve industrial progress and economic prosperity;that of Salem is to establish a totalitarian theocracy,
manipulated by Putnam’s clan and manifested throughPhoto by Dave Pape (Creative Commons)
In his “O’Neill and the Future of the Theatre” Eugenio
Montale mentions that with the influences of Synge,
Ibsen and Strindberg, O’Neill’s themes oftentimes can be
22

Foucault’s concept of utopia and heterotopia is useful tointerpret this crossing. For Foucault, utopia is aconceptual space encoded with unconscious desires thatcan never be fulfilled. Any utopia that can be realized isideologically formulated. Contrary to utopia, heterotopia
is a real space that is opposed to a manifested utopia. He
states: “The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is aplaceless place” (24). Heterotopia, by contrast, is a mirrorthat reflects reality, and even questions and criticizes it.
This makes the cage on the ship a heterotopia, which
serves as a critique of commercialized society, a realized
utopia governed by bourgeois ideology.

related to “classical myth and the spiritual dimensions of
Greek tragedy” (71). Ralph A. Ciancio in his “Richard
Wright, Eugene O’Neill, and The Beast in the Skull’”sees a similarity between Richard Wright’s Native Son
and Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape: the underlying
message in both plays is that life is a struggle between
Heaven and Hell. Both Yank and the protagonist in the
Native Son are representatives of the working-class who
protest against a society that favors capitalists. Ciancio
takes the two protagonists as “symbolic Everyman who
dangles between animalistic instincts and inchoate,spiritual yearnings” (46). He argues that The Hairy Ape
is a source for Native Son, and that the issues with which
Richard Wright and Eugene O’Neill are concerned sharemany similarities: racial issues, working-class’ living
conditions as well as compassions for the hardship ofhuman beings. Hugo Von Hofmannsthal discovers ananalogy between Naguib Mahfouz’s The Beggar and The
Hairy Ape. He thinks that the beggar and Yank are bothmarginalized people who are “excluded from the orderedworld” (9) and cannot find a place where they belong.
Wright, O’Neill and Mahfouz’s works all express
compassion for the marginalized people and concern forthe sentiments of alienation that all human beings
experience since the Industrial Revolution. In aninterview with Carol Bird, O’Neill says: “I care only forhumanity. I wish to arouse compassion. For theunfortunate. The suffering. The oppressed.” (52)Before looking further into the heterotopic cage, let me
first point out the realized utopia in the play. In Act V
Yank finally reaches New York, one of the mostprosperous cities of the twentieth century, to which
Mildred belongs. Through Yank’s eyes, we observefeatures of modernity in New York, reminiscent ofWalter Benjamin’s nineteenth-century Paris: a society ofcommodified, dehumanized time and spectacle, a utopia
turned upside down. The Bessemer process best
exemplifies Yank’s subjection to the administration oftime, as he cries out: “Speed, dat’s her middle name”(3.161)! In addition to being subjected to theadministration of time, human beings are also
commodified in an economy that only counts exchange
value. As Long exclaims against capitalists, “What right’as they got to be exhibitin’ us ’s if we was bleedingmonkeys in a menagerie? Did we sign for hinsults to our
dignity as ’onest workers? ….’Er old man’s [Mildred’s
father] a bleedin’ millionaire, a bloody Capitalist! .... And
she gives ’er orders as ’ow she wants to see the bloody
animals below decks and down they takes ’er” (3.167)!
Long observes the secret of a capitalist’s utopia, that is,commodification of everything, even of human beings.
And the working class is depicted as animals to beobserved, usurped, and framed into the gaze of thewealthy class.

In addition to discussing the protagonist’s sense of notbelonging, Hubert Zarf analyzes the Hegelian-Marxist
pattern in his “O’Neill’s Hairy Ape and the Reversal of
Hegelian Dialectics.” He remarks that Yank’s antiindustrial action and his brotherly hug with the gorilla in
the final scene shows the impossibility of belonging.
Most critics suggest that Yank cannot find a place where
he belongs because good living conditions on earth andthe existence of heaven are essentially illusions. As theplay unfolds, Yank goes on a madman’s journey in search
for a solution of the problem of society—capitalist
control of labor and commercialization of the society.

At the corner of Fifth Avenue, Yank the stranger of themetropolis
experiences
culturalshocksinacommercialized space: “In the rear, the show windows of
two shops, a jewellery establishment on the corner, afurrier’s next to it….Rich furs of all varieties hang there
bathed in a downpour of artificial light” (5. 173). As theplay progresses, Yank is not only disillusioned, but also
taken as a caged animal, whose “furs” are to be circulated
in the market. As if trying to ward off the artificial
quality of the capitalist constructed space, he keeps
making claims to his “natural” skin colors, and seems tobe proud of his nakedness and his coal dust make-up. By
contrast to Yank’s confinement in the cage and in thezoo, ironically the wealthy class is institutionalized anddisciplined in the Church and confined in Protestantvalues: work more and you will get salvation. They are
rendered “A procession of gaudy marionettes, yet withsomething of the relentless horror of Frankensteins in

Heterotopia as a Critique to a Degenerated
UtopiaWhile some critics focus on Yank’s sense of belonging
and his struggles, I intend to bring to bear Michel
Foucault’s concept of utopia and heterotopia on Yank’stransgression and his critique of bourgeois society. In thislight, the commercialized bourgeois space is a realized
utopia whereas the cage on the ship, the prison, and thezoo are heterotopias, which serve as a critique ofdegenerated utopian society. Before looking at Yank’stransgression, let me return to the scene where Yankencounters Mildred. They are enclosed respectively
within spaces of proletariat and bourgeoisie before eachserves as a lure that entices the other to cross the border.
23

ceiling crushes down upon the men’s heads. They cannot
stand upright. This accentuates the natural stooping
posture which shovelling coal and the resultant overdevelopment of back and shoulder muscles have giventhem” (1.141; emphasis mine). The white ideology not
only confines their body and mind but also disciplines
their labor into a unity of body and machine on the ship
where “there is order in it, rhythm, a mechanicalregulated recurrence, a tempo” (3.160). Thus theimmigrant laborers’ mind is disciplined by the structureof the confinement on bodies. Rather than the Cartesian
subject’s rationality--I think therefore I am—there can be
no thinking at all.

their detached, mechanical unawareness” (5.177).
Benjamin explains that this mechanization anddehumanization of individuals into a collective automatic
machine is the ideological counterpart of the industrial
process where “workers learn to coordinate their own‘movements to the uniform and unceasing motion of an
automation’” (133). In other words, in a degenerated
utopia, spiritual wealth is sacrificed to economic andindustrial progress.
The analysis of a degenerated utopia conveys to us that
Yank’s class solidarity is crushed by the aspects ofmodernity that subject all beings to the laws ofcommodity and the ideology of “speed,” that is, by thebourgeois administration of time in the service ofefficiency. Contrary to the bourgeois society with which
the “white” visitor Mildred identifies is the stokehole that
displays exploitation of laborers. The ship simply cannot
move without stokers exhausting themselves to keep up
with the speed of the ship. Here the stokehole is thereverse of utopia, serving as a critical mirror to Mildred’s
capitalist society. In addition to heterotopia’s function asa mirror to the established utopia, heterotopia is also a
structure of confinement because of its systemic exclusionfrom the realized utopia. Thus the stokehole is not only aconfinement of white immigrant laborers but also amirror-text to the mythic narrative of the bourgeois
utopia.

The control of labor not only disciplines workers’ minds,
but also provides the economic prosperity of the state, inother words, the base supplies for the superstructure. As
the play proceeds, Yank’s solidarity put to the test among
various institutions. In Act One, he holds on to thesolidarity of manpower. When Mildred evokes anuncanny feeling towards Yank, he tries to confront it andtraces it back to where it or the Other comes from. In
seeing the dehumanization, commodification, andbureaucratization of the metropolis, he determines todestroy the city in protest to it. His attempt is brave, but
to no avail: he is first put in prison, then in the zoo, andlastly to death. At the end of the play we witness that his
subjectivity is not defined by his physical power; rather, it
is shaped by the institutions. Nevertheless, his search for
subjectivity and his challenge of the institutionstransgresses various confinements of life. His death is theultimate transgression, an act of not given in to a
dehumanized society, and a protest for a living
confinement. Yank’s Nietzschean will-to-transgression
shapes him as a madman who speaks the truth nobody
wants to hear. Quarantined as an animal in the zoo, he isa threat society buries rather than deals with. The play’s
audience, though, might turn their gaze onto the society
itself.

Foucault remarks in his “Of Other Spaces” that a boat isa heterotopia because it “is a floating piece of space, aplace without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed inon itself and at the same time is given over to the infinityof the sea …, the greatest instrument of economic
development…, but has been simultaneously the greatest
reserve of the imagination” (27). Yank’s stokehole islocated on a ship, which is an other space that is not of
the white capitalist world, but a space that confines themadman, whose labor is used to provide economic
progress. The structure of the cage confines the body of acollective labor, which carries certain traits of madness
and bestiality. As depicted in Act I: “The room is
crowded with men, shouting, cursing, laughing,singing—a confused, inchoate uproar swelling into a sortof unity, a meaning—the bewildered, furious, baffled
defiance of a beast in a cage” (1.141; emphasis mine).
The bestiality is the obverse of the dehumanization in thecommodified world, in which the Dionysian spirit isrepressed by the Apollonian spirit in order to achieve theprogress of a civilization. Their bestiality thus can be
related to disruptive madness that a society governed byultimate reason has to administer. As a result, thestructure of the room symbolizes bourgeois ideology thatcarves their bodies and inscribes their minds. “Rivulets ofsooty sweat have traced maps on their backs” (3.161).
This explains why Yank tries to think, but does not
succeed. “The effect sought after is a cramped space inthe bowels of a ship, imprisoned by white steel….The

Subjection and Subversion of Discourses
Yank transgresses the confinement of bourgeois ideology
by venturing out of the enclosure on the ship. Without
his Dionysian force, western culture will be thebourgeoisie’s phantasmagoria but the working class’snightmare. The system of confinement at work in The
Hairy Ape will be seen in The Crucible (1953) in theform of McCarthyism, a prevalent theme of the 1950s in
American theatre and history. They both unveil thedominant power’s utopian desires and their opponents’traumatic experiences. Yank transgresses the confinementof prison, zoo, and existential inertia; the protagonist of
The Crucible, John Proctor, resists to death thedominant social power in Salem.

24

Critics tend to focus on female characters in the play andI certainly do not underestimate the feminist yearning for
power, but my focus will be on the dominant power’s

violent judicial subjection on a larger social scale. As
recounted by the narrator: “…for good purposes, evenhigh purposes, the people of Salem developed atheocracy, a combine of state and religious power whosefunction was to keep the community together, and toprevent any kind of disunity that might open todestruction by material or ideological enemies. It wasforged for a necessary purpose and accomplished that
purpose” (1. 6). By probing into the utopian desire of
Salem, we will discover that it is their “Land-lust” (1.7)
that triggers a series of divisions, inquisitions, andexclusions. Their aim is not to know the truth ofwitchcraft, but to exclude the deviant from the utopia.
We witness how the utopian desire provokes those inpower to charge the innocent by imposing the judicial
system’s “order of discourse” on their behaviors. The
suspects, therefore, are executed based not on legal laws
but on vengeance.
I take Salem as a degenerated utopian society based on
Puritan doctrines in which witchcraft is a demonic aswell as transgressive force. In The Crucible religious
doctrine serves as myth that neutralizes two antagonistic
societies. In time of crisis, those in power establish
judicial measures not so much to find neither justice nor
truth, but to eliminate subversion. This neutralization
process can be analyzed, with Foucault, in terms ofsubjection of discourse through judicial inquisition andexclusion of the deviant—witches. The subjection of
discourse makes clear how history is being written andedited among networks of power.

Photo by Dave Pape (Creative Commons)
Proctor becomes the prey of judicial violence because hestops going to Church. Rather than losing his belief inGod, it is Reverend Parris’s preaching of materialism thatweakens his faith. He is an avid churchgoer until “Parriscame, and for twenty week he preach [sic] nothin’ but
golden candlesticks until he had them” (2.62). Given
Parris’s worship of gold, a just investigator would shift
his subject of interrogation from Proctor to Parris;
nevertheless, as an instrument of judicial discourse, Halecarries on questioning Proctor. Hence, the Inquisition is
not based on will to truth, but truth as an established
Order inscribed in the discourse. The inquisition seeksdeviation from norm, not truth. Hale proceeds to ask
Proctor’s wife: “Then, with the voice of one
administering a secret test: Do you know yourCommandments, Elizabeth” (2.63)? This question iscoded with the message that your belief in God isdecided upon your memory of the Commandments.
When Proctor is asked the same question, he cannot ace
the secret test and goes on to interrogate Hale’s purposeof this inquisition. As a representative of the Church andthe Court, and vested with the power of interpreting
God and the law, Hale replies: “Theology, sir, is afortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small”(2.64) In other words, there is no deviation allowed andevery deviation has to be managed by judicial Order.
After Proctor’s failure to provide the correct code for the
first interrogation, “Hale only looks at Proctor, deep in
his attempt to define this man” (2.64). Does he belong to

In his “The Discourse on Language,” Foucault writes:
What is ‘writing’ (that of ‘writers’) if not a similar form ofsubjection, perhaps taking rather different forms, butwhose main stresses are nonetheless analogous? May we
not also say that the judicial system, as well as
institutionalized medicine, constitute similar systems forthe subjection of discourse”? (227; emphasis mine)
Foucault further notes that “in every society the
production of discourse is at once controlled, selected,
organized and redistributed according to a certain
number of procedures, whose role is to avert its powers
and its dangers, to cope with chance events, to evade its
ponderous, awesome materiality” (216). If History is acomplete project and discourse is the dominant power’s
operational plot, then the violence is only detectablebetween the gap of the norm and the deviant. According
to Foucault, will-to-truth is the most pervasive anddominant form of exclusion that has “been attempting toassimilate the others in order both to modify them and toprovide them with a firm foundation” (219). In the play,Hale’s inquisition to Proctor’s belief is conducted basedon an order of discourse that leaves the subject no otherchance to defend himself but to be subjected by thediscourse itself.
25the dominant power while closing up or orchestrating thedisorder into order. In the case of Salem, thediscrepancies between discourses of accusers and theaccused, the signs of witchcraft activity and the meaningof the suspects’ statement are closed up by Deputy
Governor’s signature in written form, as in “sealed,”
which grants him the power to prosecute them: “And do
you know that near to four hundred are in the jails fromMarblehead to Lynn, and upon my signature” (3.81)?
Served as the same purpose as the warrant of the court,
Deputy Governor’s signature is also the means of judicial
violence, which is “letters de cachet and arbitrary
measures of imprisonment” (38) as Foucault pointed out
in “The Great Confinement.”

the Old Salemites or its antagonist? At this stage,
although the inquisition is not conducted at court, he isalready being branded with the mark of the convicted.
The invisible marking on the suspect can be taken as aform of punishment, as Foucault argues in his “TheSpectacle of the Scaffold” that “The right to punish,
therefore, is an aspect of the sovereign’s right to makewar on his enemies…” (48). The inquisition then is not ameans of seeking truth, but a means of punishment that“reign[s] the active forces of revenge” (48).
Besides reducing will-to-truth to order of discourse,
Hale’s inquisition adds to, interprets, and edits speech,
which suggests his power to overwrite Proctor’s
statements. As Hale remarks: “I do not judge you. My
duty is to add what I may to the godly wisdom of thecourt” (2. 64). Since only those in power have the right tospeak, Proctor’s speech, no matter how truthful, will beignored, silenced, erased, or defined as lies. When
Proctor tells him that those who have confessed do it to
avoid death, Hale hesitates, but resists penetrating thetruth. In Hale’s following question he fulfils his part in
the dominant power’s plot to set up the innocent suspect
into the convict. It is apparently a rhetorical question thataims to link up Proctor’s relation with witches: “It’s said
you hold no belief that there may even be witches in theworld. Is that true, sir” (2.66)? This is a trick question
since positive statement proves that Proctor disbelieves
God (because witches testify God’s power), and negative
statement suggests his alliance with witches. This
question also maps out Proctor’s stand in political sects,
since Salem is governed by theocracy, so an issue
regarding religion is political.

If inquisition manifests the violence of the judicial
procedure, confession completes this violation. As
Foucault further remarks in “The Spectacle of the
Scaffold,” “the confession had priority over any otherkind of evidence [because the act of confession means]the accused accepted the charge and recognized its truth[and through which] the accused himself took part in theritual of producing penal truth” (38). Even though
Foucault considers the confession as an accomplice of
judicial violence, he nevertheless argues for the
production of power in the suspect’s speech. This reversalof power is exemplified in Proctor’s confession. He
confesses his adultery with Abigail to charge her as awhore, using the only thing he has left—speech. “…Ilusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is awhore’s vengeance, and you must see it…” (3.102). By
discoursing back to the law, Proctor opens up the closure
sealed by the signature, and reveals how Abigail
manipulates the others to take her as a saint.

Since the first inquisition has convicted him as pagan,later in the day the Old Salemites transcribe their utopian
desires into a needle-in-the-poppet plot and stage in
Proctor’s house. Proctor’s faith is shattered when herealizes that religious doctrines and judicial procedures
are subjections of discourse that intend to exclude him—a potential threat to the dominant discourse. In thefollowing we will witness how he subverts the order of
discourse. Proctor’s act of “ripping the warrant” (2.72)
transgresses subjection of discourse and reveals the naked
truth in Salem. He cries out: “Is the accuser always holy
now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s
fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—vengeance iswalking Salem. [It is the] common vengeance [that]writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance” (2.73). Is not
the written warrant a symbol of violation that is found inevery culture? Are not our civilization and history built
upon and written by the myth of the state as enforced in
Salem and in O’Neill’s metropolis? The secret of utopia
is voiced out by Proctor: “And now, half to himself,
staring, and turning to the open door: Peace. It is aprovidence, and no great change; we are only what wealways were, but naked now” (2.76). His message alludes
to that every peaceful state is under the administration of

He implies that a saint is the one who accuses the otherso that he or she can protect him or herself from being
identified as devil. “I cannot mount the gibbet like asaint. It is a fraud” (4. 126). If he is not a saint, what is
he? What does a speaking subject do in a society that
subjugates his act and his speech that defines himself as asocial being? “…what is John Proctor? He moves as an
animal, and a fury is riding in him, a tantalized
search….I am no saint” (4. 127). Proctor’s question is not
only for him, but also for the society, and for all humanbeing: What is the significance of Proctor’s position in
the society? Why is Proctor censored by the law? The
reason might be that he poses as a threat to the dominantdiscourse. After he confesses verbally, he is asked to sign
the confession. In addition to making example out ofProctor and laying down the law, the act of signing
makes the confessor an embodiment of truth. Proctor
understands the connotation of the signature and finally
strives to destroy it. “Proctor tears the paper andcrumples it” (4. 133). This act subverts the judicial
discourse and opens the closure of written violence
repetitively perpetrated in our history. At the end of theplay, Proctor sacrifices his own life for that of others.
26

Communists and capitalists now, and in each camp there
is certain proof that spies of each side are at work
undermining the other” (1. 33). Inasmuch as Yank’s
death subverts a capitalist space incessantly silencing his
voice, Proctor’s defiance to the court’s Order and God’s
will transgresses theocracy and strive to give voice totruth.

Hale’s judgment on Proctor’s act conveys to us that he isanalogous to Satan, whose ultimate sin is his pride thatbids defiance to God’s will. “It is pride, it is vanity” (4.
134). What we see in Proctor’s satanic forces is also
embodied by Nietzsche and Yank, whose Dionysianspirit and knowledge, though forbidden, will find ways toarticulate itself. By rewriting the Salem witch trial, Miller
implies that this pattern is to be observed in the
opposition between Communists and capitalists. He
states: “…while there were no witches, there are

Full references can be found in the Table of References
Section.

Photo by Dave Pape (Creative Commons)27

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31

The IAFOR
Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 5

Interdisciplinary
Perspectives within
Cultural Studies

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