scholarly journals “I see what I have been dreading”:Witnessing Food and Violence in Waiting for the Barbarians and In the Heart of the Country

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-35
Author(s):  
Nimisha Sinha
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Narrative Frame ◽  
Waiting For The Barbarians

This paper explores the presence of a food and consumption related gaze in J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) and In the Heart of the Country (1977). Through the phenomenon of food witnessing, I argue that the food-related gaze is tied with the narrative frame through which torture and violence is witnessed and recorded. The act of watching people eat or other metaphors of food (largely examined throught the idea of 'food witnessing') serve as a way to identify, observe and obliterate the Other.

Martyrs and Life-Writing in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 374-385
Author(s):  
Koen De Temmerman ◽  
Danny Praet
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Narrative Representations ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Narrative Frame ◽  
Traditional Scholarship ◽  
The One

This chapter explores martyr accounts. Scholars traditionally divide these texts into two types: narrative representations of the suffering and death of martyrs (the so-called passiones) on the one hand, and dramatic representations of the trial preceding this (the so-called acta or praxeis), on the other. The exact semantic range of both labels is debated, but in any case the distinction does not capture the textual reality in its full complexity: even the predominantly narrative texts often contain an interrogation scene, whereas most so-called acta always have a narrative frame, however minimal it may be. In addition, there is no formal unity across the board. This chapter first addresses some of the intellectual premisses that in traditional scholarship on martyr acts were for a long time conducive of historical questions, much to the detriment of the study of these texts as narratives in their own right. The chapter then observes that many martyr acts recount not only the deaths of their protagonists but also cover (parts of) their preceding lives, and it explores how these texts adopt and adapt narrative and rhetorical protocols from traditional life-writing to shape the lives of their protagonists. Finally, attention is paid briefly to the thematic cluster of erotic love, desire, marriage, and the preservation of chastity that drives many such narrative elaborations. It is concluded that whereas research on these texts has long been driven by historical interests, they are also treasure-troves for scholars interested in narrative in general and life-writing in particular.

scholarly journals The Unruly, the Mut(ilat)ed, the Ailing: Corporeality as a Space of Subversion in J. M. Coetzee’s Fiction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Kamel Abdaoui
Keyword(s):  
Active Site ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Textual Construction ◽  
Waiting For The Barbarians

This paper addresses corporeality as a space of subversion to hegemonic discourses in J. M. Coetzee’s fiction. The body is not only elusive to representation but it is also entrusted with a certain degree of authority that allows it to contravene the systems of normalization imposed by dominant discourse. The paper tends to appropriate poststructuralism and postcolonialism as its main theoretical grid to argue that corporeality in Coetzee’s novels is deployed as a fluid construct that offers a space of interaction between subjectivities beyond the rigid contours of discursive representation. In Dusklands, the clear-cut demarcations erect between the Self and the Other often blur and disintegrate while facing the permeability and extensiveness of the body. In Waiting for the Barbarians and Foe, however, the mutilated and silenced body of the Other is presented as a space of resistance to the Empire’s attempts to inscribe its statement of powerviolently. It is only the diseased body of Mrs. Curren, in Age of Iron, which transforms into an intersubjective space of reciprocity between Self and Other that is capable of overcoming the fixed barriers between subjects. Being an active site of contestation between subjectivities, the textual construction of corporeality in Coetzee's aforementioned novels offers creative opportunities of becoming and grants an imaginative understanding of otherness outside the limits of the logic of binarism encapsulated in colonial and imperialist discourses.

scholarly journals The Paranoia of Colonialism in Coetzee's Waiting for Barbarians

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-13
Author(s):  
Jihad Jaafar Waham ◽  
Wan Mazlini Othoman
Keyword(s):  
State Building ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Points Of Interest ◽  
The Boondocks ◽  
Waiting For The Barbarians

In Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), J. M. Coetzee cross examines the points of interest of grand states by significance the distinctions from the savages that the strange Empire keeps up. The Empire characterizes itself and strengthens its personality by developing a separation from the brutes on numerous grounds. It keeps up state foundations and keeps records, since itself as a cutting edge express, an advanced story of "crude" brutes. Coetzee's tale uncovered the Empire's tricky endeavors at setting up the other and its confounded ideas of state building. In spite of the fact that the basic elucidations of the novel spotlight on mistreat and the body, this article breaks down the novel's inclusion with royal state building and patriotism. Torment and the body are significant to the extent that they uncover the Empire's endeavors to distinguish it and construct a country. The Empire's disappointment in the greater part of these compliments―as suggested by the end with the Empire down its hang on the boondocks settlement and the settlement's kin sitting tight for the landing of the barbarians―makes us question the bogus presumptions on which numerous magnificent ventures are based. The Empire's inability to safeguard its outskirts, its disadvantage to its heartland, and its breakdown to protect cultivated conduct in its treatment of its subjects and savage detainees are appearances of a confused, beginning organization as opposed to a recognizable and acculturated royal country. In hair-raising the temperamental refinements capturing countries use to pardon their continuance, Coetzee's work affirms an elective ethic of commitment with the other established on the possibility of basic humankind and tolerant acknowledgment of contrast.

scholarly journals Nguyen’s The Sympathizer and Coetzee’s Early Fiction: Representation, Grievability, Framing

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-77
Author(s):  
Mahdi Teimouri
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
World War ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
The Us ◽  
Waiting For The Barbarians ◽  
The Way

Viet ThanhNguyen’s The Sympathizer(2015) is an intriguing novel for anyone familiar with the early fiction of J.M. Coetzee. Nguyen’s debut novel has as its theme the war in Vietnam, which is not surprising given his background and his scholarly work preceding its publication. Interestingly, Coetzee’s first novel, Dusklands(1974) comprised two novellas, the first of which,called “The Vietnam Project”, is also related to the US invasion of Vietnam. Both works offer critical insights into US war-mongering in the post-World War II era. Additionally, Coetzee’s third novel, Waiting for the Barbarians(1980), bears thematic resemblances with both his and Nguyen’s debut novels, as they, in one way or another, are concerned with imperialism’s modus operandi and its continuation through the subjugation, intimidation,and annihilation of collective subjects. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the parallels and overlaps that can be detected among these three novelsthat are germane to the stratagems adopted by an imperialist power to sustain its dominion, legitimize its presence,andjustify brutality. These stratagems mediate the way the imperial force relatesto or conceivesof the other. Of the concepts employed in this article,the following areof particular significance: representation, grievability, and framing.

Stromatoporoids from the Famennian (Devonian) Wabamun Formation, Normandville oilfield, north–central Alberta, Canada

1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (03) ◽  
pp. 411-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin W. Stearn
Keyword(s):  
Patch Reef ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
The Other ◽  
North Central ◽  
Biotic Crisis

Stromatoporoids are the principal framebuilding organisms in the patch reef that is part of the reservoir of the Normandville field. The reef is 10 m thick and 1.5 km2in area and demonstrates that stromatoporoids retained their ability to build reefal edifices into Famennian time despite the biotic crisis at the close of Frasnian time. The fauna is dominated by labechiids but includes three non-labechiid species. The most abundant species isStylostroma sinense(Dong) butLabechia palliseriStearn is also common. Both these species are highly variable and are described in terms of multiple phases that occur in a single skeleton. The other species described areClathrostromacf.C. jukkenseYavorsky,Gerronostromasp. (a columnar species), andStromatoporasp. The fauna belongs in Famennian/Strunian assemblage 2 as defined by Stearn et al. (1988).

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