Blockchain Papers

Ysabel Muñoz

In recent years, small islands have faced the increasing dangers of worsening natural phenomena and rising sea levels due to climate change. Several reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have recorded this (Mycoo et al. 2068) and warned about the consequences of unsustainable practices leading to ecological crises primarily affecting those who contribute least to it. Such documentation is crucial for policy-making and preparatory work. However, besides material threats, small islands also face a discursive challenge in politics and communication with the overuse of the “disappearing islands” trope, announcing that small islands will sink and disappear due to climate change. As museologist Fiona Cameron writes, “‘disappearing islands’ are operationalized as proof of climate catastrophe; as a means of concretizing climate science’s statistical abstractions and as a signifier of the urgency and uneven impacts of global climate change” (873). Similarly, environmental humanities scholar Elizabeth DeLoughrey denounces the “climate determinism” (“The sea is rising” 191) that often haunts the representation of islands, as if they only “enter[ed] the future […] via climate change” (188). Such overly reproduced images, they argue, risk ignoring local perspectives and desires, taking islands simply as tokens to better describe the climate crisis. Hence, a more critical approach to the futurity of small islands is necessary and relevant. Although studies of this trope have been mostly connected to islands in the Pacific regions, such imaginaries also haunt the material spaces of Caribbean islands.1 Responding to this, digital humanities scholar Schuyler Esprit affirms that “the decolonial project of home is to assert that the Caribbean is in the future, that we resist and persist” (emphasis added). In these spaces, the possible physical disappearance of islands in the future also echoes discriminatory discourses that have actively denied the future of certain bodies deemed different based on race, sexuality, or gender. Literary practices, performing and nurturing speculation and imagining otherwise, are important platforms where authors who experience these overlapping threats can articulate their concerns for the future. Notably, examples from queer and trans Caribbean speculative fiction disrupt the simplified and linear visions the “disappearing islands” trope proposes. They address how both islands and marginalized bodies face growing social and climate change challenges but still imagine these bodies and places having a stake in the future. By revisiting the histories and concerns of these spaces and their inhabitants, they project the Caribbean into a future, to paraphrase Esprit, of resistance and persistence. In this study, I delve into how contemporary Anglophone Caribbean speculative fiction grapples with these questions, especially in two short stories: Jamaican-Canadian Nalo Hopkinson’s “Repatriation” (2020) and Barbadian Ada Maricia Patterson’s “Broken from the Colony” (2022). These texts envision a future where Caribbean islands are not disappearing but transforming and surviving, together with the flourishing of queer and trans Caribbean subjects. Hopkinson presents the return of a same-sex couple to Jamaica to take part in the reconstruction of the island with local technologies. Patterson meanwhile brings a sunken island that reemerges, allowing new relationalities where transgender subjects can feel safe. In both accounts, non-heteronormative characters play key roles in island survival and illustrate how ecological balance and gender justice are inextricably connected to achieving its mutual realization. They contest the “disappearing islands” trope by daring to imagine islands in the future as transitioning and changing rather than simply ceasing to exist. Moreover, they foreground agency and responsibility as the collective effort needed to create social ecologies of justice where land and lives can thrive. Choosing short stories for the analysis is also a critique of gendered dimensions of Caribbean literature that traditionally have deemed the canon of male novel writers as “the pinnacle of formal achievement” (Brown and Rosenberg 22), disregarding short stories as “minor literature.” I defend that with its capacity for language subversion and deterritorialization (Awadalla and March-Russell 5), short stories also show the possibility of imagining plurally and yet collectively, as they often appear in compilations and decentralized open-access online platforms. With this in mind, attending to the diversity of practitioners of this genre in the Caribbean is also essential. Hence, this study purposefully brings Hopkinson—a multi-awarded and trailblazing figure in science fiction, with an extensive list of novels, short stories, and accolades—and her work next to the first incursion in speculative fiction of the young artist Patterson, signaling different trajectories and experiences but similar interests. Their stories coincide in the centrality of queer and trans folks in Caribbean ecologies through various examples of what can fall under the rubric of climate fiction, or “cli-fi.” However, as this term coined by Dan Bloom (Baysal viii) is increasingly popular in ecocritical studies, I emphasize that climate is an already widely present category in the Caribbean’s vast literary tradition, especially with the figure of the hurricane (Deckard) as a ubiquitous leitmotif. While acknowledging the challenges of climate change’s worsening of natural phenomena, such as hurricanes, it is paramount to recognize a long Caribbean tradition of periodically dealing with disaster and restoration. These experiences reaffirm that disaster does not define Caribbean existence and propose novel perspectives for understanding and grappling with catastrophe. Considering these contexts and genealogies, multiple rich theoretical apparatuses already active in the Caribbean enable researchers to analyze future-oriented narratives. For example, Caribbean temporalities can dispel the linear and singular thinking behind the “disappearing islands” and its alienation from other notions of time.2 As Cameron reflects, “constructed as both a climate front line and a microcosm of a planet in crisis, a perception has been created that low-lying islands will disappear before climate impacts manifest elsewhere” (883) (emphasis in original). By contrast, past, present, and future collapse in Caribbean narratives and bring a more capacious understanding of temporality outside conventional linearity. This nonlinearity is embodied in the work of many Caribbean writers. Jamaica Kincaid, for example, considers how “To the people of a small place, […] an event that occurred one hundred years ago might be as vivid to them as it were happening now. No action in the present is an action planned without a view of its effects on the future” (54). Accordingly, Odile Ferly, Tegan Zimmerman, and Joshua Deckman have recently coined the term chronotropics, reframing the Bakhtinian chronotope through narratives that “actively challenge the anthropocentric and androcentric logic propelled by European capitalism according to which space is delimited, privatized, tamed, and subject to extraction and time is measured, linear, singular, arbitrarily standardized, and teleological” (2). To focus on the plural ways Caribbean people experience time and place does not respond solely to an interest of moving away from “eurochronologies,” which Eric Hayot defines as “a progressive history of aesthetic innovation in which the contributions of the non-West remain supplemental, or constitute thematic appendixes to form” (6). Instead, it emphasizes the intrinsic value of the narratives emerging from the vibrant Caribbean chronotropics. This concept is part of a homonymous edited volume that addresses the persistent preoccupation with time and place in Caribbean women’s writings, thus providing a framework for my analysis. The concept includes time, temporalities, and gender, articulating “a new Caribbean, where bodies and imaginations come together to propose other modes of being in the world, ways that dissolve and break through the sediment of colonial-heteronormative patriarchy” (7). I argue that the chronotropics can also enable imaginative pathways toward island survival and gender justice, attending to how queer and transgender practices are deeply entangled with processes of futurity. Attesting to this, for example, Cuban-American cultural theorist José Esteban Muñoz reflects that queer lives already drastically reject the constraints of a present notably marked by pervasive homophobia and dare to imagine otherwise (169). Likewise, Puerto Rican anthropologist Yarimar Bonilla concludes in her analysis of transgender performers in post-hurricane Puerto Rico that many the future is thus a future” Although deeply entangled in their I queer studies scholar by I to that which of the and to the challenge of gender on embodied experiences and Moreover, I the with in queer and trans ecologies to the contributions from the Caribbean in such I and in with the the authors in and literary In their writings, I the of both queer and trans as that actively the future of the “disappearing as by the two short and are that have traditionally in to by novel to gender and As aesthetic Hopkinson and Patterson and to contribute to the that the “disappearing islands” trope In they about islands as “a of in not disappearing but rather and for the survival of islands and They the of that the of islands, and also that be a disappearance islands other in the Caribbean This does not climate change’s and material threats to islands’ and I not that these stories in which islands are Instead, I argue that in these Caribbean islands have multiple of being in the future via and While the faced by small island and queer and trans they challenge and of the present with and more capacious of the Caribbean chronotropics. 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Hence, it is to the that climate on queer of these the two in this are not or but on their to in the needed change in their the of the Caribbean as only moving toward the global narratives have a long in Caribbean and in this queer subjects in to the and also the of island disappearance rather than an land the emphasizes Jamaica as a place of and and in without being As and in to the of Caribbean are by the from an and by the from land Hence, the Caribbean and its as a home that has not been with more of ecological The rich for the future of queer and Caribbean in “Repatriation” a new futurity that and of to a place for new and more Such a approach to an by also queer By this, I not only that queer characters are crucial in these processes but also that the to imagine otherwise, not to the and also play roles in of as the the couple that processes being of the of to the with and by of them often to in the people that are more and to local and their for the future. This is for a home that does not with and as the this futurity only through and The that and and the the of new together with the this to the also in the with the “the the under and many As Caribbean of them are in the space as one of agency and the challenges of but other relationalities that away from and The new island survival in with queer folks and also a on a The of sunken for and the future of the as a to the and of with and not the In these the of islands and not as I have also in queer ecologies on futurity. the of queer time has been as and not in the future this presents imaginative a to the survival of island spaces and the flourishing of queer Hence, both “Repatriation” and “Broken from the as I challenge the of as the only to imagine futurity. 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In this Patterson the of the to the a trans that the of and the of more in this to and her The as trans scholar challenges notions of as the and the enable a and the of new from a to the of the to change practices that the future to the of global and it can the lives of trans people of Moreover, in the of the means that and such can also be how they have been as an for the of many bodies also in this of Caribbean as the of the land that place on these islands only possible with the extraction of of of Patterson that a of is to new of of on this new land to be one of and “Broken from the The of these is to understanding the her emphasizes the of perspectives on islands that are not disappearing but Patterson that a critical of what islands are In “Broken from the the land emphasizes the of new and that from the people what who or what on or This with a tradition of understanding the of in the Caribbean, as the hurricane is as both a disaster and a of change to As Patterson and hurricane With the new it can create a in the of with place for is a for this not a but a reconstruction of ecological and and of the does not toward the from the that to dissolve her Instead, new for especially with the only of the They are a who the the the time her and they new with other who the The island a space of not only as an but as work and for the of the future. I this in the of decolonial that place land the as to the of islands and trans bodies in The that this time can be and in this new land before the In the Patterson in actively islands toward and with and and In of for the future of the and its small islands, Patterson’s to the preoccupation with islands’ disappearance to the in those spaces as a for futurity. in this for changing what to be a of and critical and a for the survival and flourishing of and The two of contemporary Anglophone Caribbean speculative fiction in this challenge the of the “disappearing islands” by islands as spaces in processes of and change. Hopkinson’s “Repatriation” and Patterson’s “Broken from the Colony” narratives of and that break Caribbean as of and extraction and Caribbean Muñoz To they articulate narratives of gender and and critical to with climate and social through narratives of in the now. they describe of and the “disappearing islands” trope by ecological with a more capacious the of based on gender or Their the of environmental collapse in with a critique of gender and Considering and the of narratives is paramount for understanding and a and future. of the with politics of and the or the roles in these in to and such as and Moreover, they as an for islands and The is also a that the capacity of to other possible a that and taking of Caribbean by its These narratives imaginative practices that for who will in them by revisiting of the with a as they present is not ecological but also the and of and transgender subjects. a future address and such the processes of bodies and from This is possible by the of and on the islands, toward that respond to and from These texts propose and for their mutual They foreground queer and trans with their ecologies that growing from and of providing more than In both the sea an that can or take lives but also an for into Caribbean and such as the islands also these in the Hopkinson’s that a can its if land is an By contrast, Patterson presents an island being to In both land is a as and histories on it. than simply into of Caribbean, or these stories are examples of in queer and trans ecological new in the face of discursive and material The islands present of to of and enable their through and Such are important to vibrant contemporary speculative work and recognize practices as other for to a rich tradition of speculative the authors that such a genre in the of and a for in understanding how such as gender and ecologies are connected in the of these to climate is key to futurity not solely based on and but also on imaginative and cultural these practices are more through a growing of decentralized digital platforms that and the of In of environmental and social crisis, the collective imaginaries of futurity to the perspectives queer and trans narratives and Caribbean speculative fiction places on the of thinking about climate change through gender and queer and trans narratives to the Caribbean in the future. my analysis has the contributions of such I emphasize that these not and I not that queer or trans authors are more to or in ecological I to that queer and trans stories often respond to and denied to them through as in the of these two short stories, they can articulate new relationalities that as for the of important is that they land from discursive and physical this action the and to the Caribbean which to and By of gender and “Repatriation” and “Broken from the Colony” imagine where Caribbean spaces and subjects and different ways of in with their ecological

Graham Busby, Maximiliano E. Korstanje, Charlie Mansfield

This study selects novels from French and Spanish language traditions, which may not be available to English-speakers, in order to determine if specific aspects throw light on our understanding of Madrid as a destination. Marc Lambron's L'Impromptu de Madrid and Antonio Munoz Molina’s Mysteries of Madrid are taken as proof of the influence the narrative can exert on social daily life and consumption. Narrative foregrounds the fictions which are at stake in imagining the city as destination and also provides a vehicle for presenting the much broader social forces that converge in the author at the time of imagining and writing.

Isabelle Lachance

The Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (1609, 1611, 1612, 1617, 1618) by Marc Lescarbot (v. 1570--1641) is read as a symbolic foundation for the young colony of Port-Royal, Acadia (Annapolis, Nova Scotia), a construct which functions as a valid genesis for French America (thus, "New France" in the title refers specifically to this habitation as well as to the men who contributed to its making). Chapter I is devoted to a reading of the work's abundant paratext and identifies the topics at stake in the unfavourable rumours about the Acadian expeditions as well as about the lieutenant of Port-Royal, Jean de Biencourt, sieur de Poutrincourt. Moreover, this chapter explores the subjective marks, disseminated in the paratext, that build up the historian's ethos, which works as a proof of the validity of his object. This chapter investigates as well the metadiscursive comments on the writing of history and their incidence on the referentiality of the work. Chapter II compares the compilation of travel accounts contained in the Histoire with its sources. This comparison shows how the alteration of these accounts of travellers---who recorded themselves the result of their American expeditions---strengthens the division of the stereotyped dichotomy between the man of letters and the man of action, two functions respectively assigned to Lescarbot and Poutrincourt in the Histoire. The order of this compilation as well as the organisation of its various parts according to a diegetical logic shape specific places where a tension emerges between a reliable discourse, intended to a readership interested in the actual conditions of a colonial establishment, and the production of a textual "coating" aiming at attracting a courtly readership, to which the Jesuits, who challenged Poutrincourt's colonial project, addressed their requests. In chapter III, where are confronted the written and mapped representations of Port-Royal, this tension is even more manifest.