“The World Had Forgotten about Us”: Heterotopian Resistance in Richard Flanagan’s Wanting and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip

This article explores how the different forms of heterotopias present in Richard Flanagan’s Wanting (2008) and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip (2006) articulate problematic identity politics and cultural memory. In Wanting, the collocation of Mathinna’s story with that of the lost Franklin expedition offers a form of reclaiming. This article argues that Flanagan’s novel moves from heterotopias of deviation to a crisis heterotopia, displacing and debunking the compensation function of the colonial heterotopia to highlight the crushing of Aboriginal identity. This shifting heterotopia is doubled by Mathinna’s heterotopic carceral body, that is, body as confined space, which qualifies the act of reclaiming. In Mister Pip, heterotopias concern cultural memory as the island of Bougainville, secluded from the rest of the world, turns into the repository of the villagers’ culture juxtaposed with the reading of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (1860–1861). This article argues that Jones’s creation of a palimpsestic heterotopia allows him to resist Eurocentric views as well as to actualize postcolonial concepts. Jones’s novel calls for a dynamic appropriation of literature. Matilda’s ‘Pacific version’ of Pip’s story reflects the cracks in the Victorian and contemporary exploitations of the island. Readers’ immersions in these heterotopias do not provide an escape from but a thoughtful commitment to the past.

Does the concept of genetic ancestry reinforce racism?

Genetic ancestry is seen as an alternative to the problematic concept of race and is positioned against abusive racist and nationalist perspectives. The concept of genetic ancestry is nevertheless not free of racial categorizations. Increasingly, it is becoming an integral part of identity politics. Genetic ancestry is promoted as a way to give identity and visibility to marginalized groups but is also rejected as a form of biocolonialism. In xenophobic and racist discourses of right-wing groups, the concept has found fertile ground. The field of genetics is partly to blame for this since it opens the door to problematic identity discourses through a careless use of archaeological, ethnic, and genetic categories.

A Nature Deity? The Ṛgvedic Savitṛ Revisited

The problematic identity of the deity Savitṛ in early Vedic religion has sparked more than a century of discussion. Harry Falk, for instance, argued that this god, whose name literally means the ‘impeller’, can be identified with the Milky Way and associated with the rainy season. According to Falk, this association was also responsible for the employment of a verse addressing Savitṛ (a so-called sāvitrī) in the initiation of the Vedic student, whose studies originally began at the onset of the rainy season. The aims of this paper are (a) to review the various theories about Savitṛ’s manifestations in nature and (b) to explain how different natural phenomena and celestial luminaries could be associated with this god. In discussing the theories proposed so far, I not only consider the Vedic sources but also re-evaluate the archaeoastronomical arguments with reliable software. As it turns out, there is no conclusive evidence that Savitṛ was associated with any single phenomenon or luminary at all, nor can he be connected with the rainy season or water in general. Rather, he was an anthropomorphic deity essentially independent of the various natural phenomena and celestial luminaries he impelled.

PROBLEMATIC IDENTITY OF THE SMALLEYE HAMMERHEAD (CARCHARHINIFORMES: SPHYRNA) OCCURRING IN COLOMBIA

The presence of Sphyrna tudes in Colombian waters is supported by a 506 mm total length male collected in the southernmost corner of the Caribbean Sea, the mouth of Atrato river. A short discussion on the confusing taxonomic and nomenclatural history of the smalleye hammerhead is included.