Love Enough! Dionne Brand and Rosi Braidotti’s Affective Transpositions

Authors

  • Libe García Zarranz Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Keywords:

Rosi Braidotti, Dionne Brand, Transpositions, Feminist Philosophy, Affect

Abstract

Abstract
This article puts Dionne Brand’s novel, Love Enough (2014), in conversation with the vitalist philosophy of Rosi Braidotti, as illustrated in the study Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics (2006). I look at how both poet and theorist insist on the centrality of affective relations in the transformation of subjectivity, political alliances, and ethical spaces under processes of uneven globalization, rampant neoliberalism, and feminist backlash. Dionne Brand’s cross-border material poetics proposes alternative figurations of the subject through exercises of creative repetition, zigzagging between temporal and spatial frameworks, signaling the constant transformation of material, political and social bodies. Brand’s transposable moves follow a similar pattern to Braidotti’s nomadic cartographies in that both resist a naïve return to sentimentality or nostalgic love to advocate instead a turn to sustainable affects and passions; a call for love as a mode of action that can reorient the system by embracing our potential as feminist subjects.


Résumé
Cet article engage le dialogue entre le roman de Dionne Brand, Love Enough (2014), et la philosophie vitaliste de Rosi Braidotti, telle qu’illustrée dans l’étude Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics (2006). J’examine comment la poétesse tout comme la théoricienne insistent sur la centralité des relations affectives dans la transformation de la subjectivité, des alliances politiques et des espaces éthiques dans le cadre de processus de mondialisation déséquilibrée, de néolibéralisme rampant et de réactions féministes. La poésie matérielle transfrontalière de Dionne Brand propose des figurations alternatives du sujet par le biais d’exercices de répétition créative, qui zigzaguent entre les cadres temporels et spatiaux, pour signaler la constante transformation des corps physiques, politiques et sociaux. Les mouvements transposables de Brand suivent un modèle similaire à celui des cartographies nomades de Braidotti en ce sens qu’elles résistent toutes deux à un retour naïf à la sentimentalité ou à l’amour nostalgique pour préconiser plutôt un tournant vers des affects et des passions durables; un appel à l’amour comme moyen d’action qui peut réorienter le système en embrassant notre potentiel en tant que sujets féministes.

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Author Biography

Libe García Zarranz, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Dr. Libe García Zarranz is Associate Professor in Literature in English in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Norway). She is also Research Affiliate for the Canadian Literature Centre at the University of Alberta (Canada), Scholar in The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and member of the international research project "Bodies in Transit: Making Difference in Globalized Cultures". Dr. García Zarranz is the author of TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Cross-Border Ethics (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2017). She has also published and edited special issues on Canadian and American literature, transnational studies, feminist and queer theory, affect, and film. Dr. García Zarranz has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and the Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies at the University of Manitoba (Canada). Prior to joining NTNU, Dr. García Zarranz taught critical theory and gender studies at the University of Cambridge (Magdalene College, UK).

 

References

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Published

2017-12-01

Issue

Vol. 38 No. 2 (2017): Affecting Feminist Literary & Cultural Production & WHOOPS I AM A LADY ON THE INTERNET: Digital Feminist Counter-Publics

Section

38.2- Affecting Feminist Literary and Cultural Production

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