Rides of Insight

Kritika „metodološkog nacionalizma” i razvoj transnacionalnih pristupa doveli su u pitanje relevantnost nacionalne države kao istraživačke jedinice. Štoviše, brojne pojave i kretanja koji se uočavaju u nacionalnim državama rezultat su interakcija s drugim društvima te se čini da je postojanje sličnih elemenata u različitim kulturama često plod cirkuliranja modela i razmjena, a ne posljedica usporedivih uzroka (kada nije riječ o zajedničkom nasljeđu). Utječe li na koncept „polja” promjena perspektive s nacionalne na transnacionalnu, i ako da, na koji način? To će pitanje biti postavljeno u ovom promišljanju, koje je još uvijek provizorno. Iako se koncept polja općenito koristi unutar nacionalnih okvira, do te mjere da su mnogi istraživači koji se bave transnacionalnim i internacionalnim temama odustali od njegove upotrebe, dajući prednost manje ograničavajućem konceptu „prostora”, Pierre Bourdieu nigdje u svom opusu ne kaže da su polja nužno ograničena na područje nacionalne države. Pol...

Pritisnula je kvaku. Vrata su bila otključana. Ušla je.Trenutak je bio slojevit i zamršen, gotovo kao bajka, ali gdje su bila tri medvjeda? Bili su gore, lajali. Zar medvjedi laju? Ne, ali psi laju, i o tome se tu radilo, psi su lajali i grebli svojim sjajnim crnim noktima – kandžama? – po zatvorenim vratima na vrhu stepeništa, koje je bilo tapecirano i prekriveno blagim, poznatim sjenama raznih predmeta u prigušenom svjetlu lampe iza kauča koji se nalazio samo par metara od nje. Na kauču su bili jastuci, cijela flotila jastuka, i dvije fotelje s oba krila, stolić, police za knjige, crna mrcina od TV-a postavljena na zid nasuprot nje. Kad se pomaknula, a pomaknula se samo koračić ili dva u sobu – šuljala se, to je radila, šuljala se – u ekranu TV-a pojavio se njezin odraz, previše nejasan da bi ga se moglo razaznati.Neki se glas možda čuo iz sobe na vrhu stepenica – „Cameron, jesi to ti? Halo? Ima li koga?” – ali izgubio se u lavežu, uostalom, nije se mogao odnositi na nju, jer ona se ...

Bašić called him early that morning, just after seven.It was an autumn Saturday, lead-grey light seeped in through the shutters, and Niko was idling in bed, troubled by sleeplessness, observing Maja’s body move in tune with her breathing under the duvet. He was watching the light conquer the corners of the room when the ringing of the telephone broke the silence. He dragged himself over to the device and heard a raspy, elderly baritone from the other side. “Bašić speaking.”He didn’t immediately work out who he was talking to. He stood in the hallway, barefoot, telephone in hand, sifting through his memory, hoping to connect the name he’d just heard to a voice and a face. “Bašić, your former neighbour,” the man on the other side added, as if he’d realized what was going on. “Apologies for calling so early, but I think you should come over to Sts. Cyril and Methodius Street.” In that moment, Niko connected the voice coming from the receiver with a face which surfaced from the past. He kn...

Research into humour in Indigenous Australian fiction is strikingly rare, even when compared to studies on humour in traditional Indigenous societies. As a consequence, when channelled through fictional prose, Indigenous humour rarely “receives any echo” (Bergson). One case in point is Gayle Kennedy’s novel Me, Antman & Fleabag (2007). Kennedy’s text, despite being marketed as humorous and winning the prestigious 2006 David Unaipon Award, has attracted a handful of minuscule reviews. The paper discusses distinctive “elastic polarity” of humour (Boskin) in Kennedy’s text, which simultaneously denies and affirms. By analysing the way in which her narrative debunks social and racial stereotypes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, the paper argues that her double-edged humour produces a site of cultural negotiations necessary for understanding complexities of contemporary Indigeneities and contemporary Australia. Keywords: Gayle Kennedy, Me, Antman & Fleabag, humour, elastic polari...

In the novels published in the course of the nineties, Every Light in the House Burnin’ (1994), Never Far from Nowhere (1996), and Fruit of the Lemon (1999), Andrea Levy (1956–2019), a British writer of Jamaican origin, focuses on the experiences of British-born daughters of first-generation Caribbean immigrants in Britain. This paper will examine how Levy’s young protagonists struggle to come to terms with their highly hybridized identities, which resist reductive racial categories of ‘white’ and ‘black.’ Experiencing racial bias on the one hand and confronting silences about their Jamaican heritage on the other, Levy’s protagonists often find themselves in liminal spaces and are constantly compelled to negotiate private (Jamaican) and more public (British) spheres of existence.Keywords: Andrea Levy, Stuart Hall, womanhood, British, hybridity, identityIn Jackie Kay’s 1984 poem “So You Think I Am a Mule,” the lyric speaker is an unapologetic mixed-race woman. She responds very assertiv...

the family hair
spills over lunch
after we’ve become
weak and thin

my hair ends up in the plate
and pretends to be drowning
I silence it
with shyness behind my ear

the teeth are the answer
to the childish carelessness
when I splash water on the hair
bound around my waist
barely pulling out my hands
I offer them the remaining drops