Archive

The Graduate Symposium, organized and led by graduate students, was open to graduate students, faculty, and members of the public.

Abstract

“A crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place.”
–Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

We live in a world inundated with change and transformation. At every turn, technology seems to be evolving, politics are changing, and each day our social world becomes just a little bit different. In and of itself, change holds no intrinsic moral meaning outside the meaning human agents prescribe to it. For this reason, change and transformation occupy a precarious position within our world. Who are the agents of change, and how do these changes impact our daily life? How do we approach change in the social world? How can we ensure that the change we initiate aims to do the right thing? What transformation is needed to move the dial of humanity forward? With these questions in mind, we would like to invite you to the Humanities Graduate Student Caucus Symposium: “Transformation and Change,” an interdisciplinary, student-led graduate conference to be held on March 25th and 26th. Our conference will be hosting graduate students from around the world to present their research on this dynamic topic. We hope to see you all there!

The Humanities Graduate Caucus wishes to thank the Department of Humanities, the SNF Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Institute for the Humanities for their generous support.

Schedule

Friday March 25th, 2022

9:15–10:00: Registration & Refreshments
10:00–10:15: Opening Address (Zoom link: see link for Panel I)

 
Panel I: (Zoom link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/65362330601?pwd=M3VjTk1MeGFoS29hM1FXQkhKSHQvZz09)

10:15–10:45: “Angels of History and Ghosts of Past Futures: Reflections on the Issue of Imagination in the Socio-Political Sphere,” Natalia Botonaki, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
10:45–11:15: “Breaking Brahminical Realism,” Harsh Trivedi, Simon Fraser University, Canada
11:15–11:30: Coffee/Snack Break

Panel II: (Zoom link: see link for Panel I)
 
11:30–12:00: “Metaphor and Metamorphosis: The Becoming-Animal in Kafka and Apullius,” Gian Carla D. Agbisit, Universite de Picardie Jules Verne, France
12:00–12:30: “Towards an Education of Truth as the Vital remedy in an era of Global Crisis,” Keren Levina, Columbia University, USA
12:30–14:00: Lunch

 
Panel III: (Zoom link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/68804840399?pwd=bnBHcnNEbXdhSnN1SWloYTdRSkZUUT09)

14:00–14:30: “Beyond Binaries Through Queer Archeology,” Moira Riggs, Simon Fraser University, Canada
14:30–15:00: “Crip/Queer Temporalities and potentials for Futurity,” Elk Paauw, University of Western Ontario, Canada
16:00: Pub Debrief 

 
Saturday, March 26th, 2022

9:15–10:00: Registration & Refreshments
 
Panel IV: (Zoom link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/63505550907?pwd=UUhJTUh3NlZOR1FiK3F0YkkvejQyZz09)

10:00–10:30: “Digital Technologies: Dystopia or Potential?”, Giannis Perperidis, University of Ioannina, Greece
10:30–11:00: “Anthropocide: A Moral Breakdown,” Gaspard Lemaire, École Normale Supérieure, France
11:00–11:15: Coffee/Snack Break

Panel V: (Zoom link: same link as Panel IV)
 
11:15–11:45: “Hinge Ecology: An Interspecies Approach to Understanding Knowledge Landscapes,” Nikita Prokhorov, University of California Irvine, USA
11:45–12:15: “Our Emotional Environment: Emotion-Based Knowledge as a Project of Environmental Resistance,” Ashlynn Whalley, McMaster University, Canada
12:15–14:00: Lunch

 
Panel VI: (Zoom link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/68839777209?pwd=VjIrNmtJR015TWV6c3hPS3piYnptQT09)

14:00–14:30: “The Grammar of Oppression: How Word Viruses Contribute to the Subjugation of Indigenous Groups on the Canadian Prairies,” Daniel Kemp, University of Regina, Canada
14:30–15:00: “Punk in Absentia: Lessons from a Raucous Revolution,” John Foerster, Simon Fraser University, Canada
15:00–15:15: Break

Panel VII: (Zoom link: same link as Panel VI)

15:15–15:45: “Women About Development: On Ethel Wilson’s Female Bilungroman ‘The Innocent Traveller’,” Guifen Jiang, University of Victoria, Canada
15:45–16:15: “‘Ever so Far Away in the Palm of Your hand’: Spatial Disjunction and Echoes of Courtly Love in George MacDonald’s Lilith: A Romance,” Julia DaSilva, University of British Columbia, Canada
16:15–16:30: Closing Address
16:30: Pub Debrief

Abstracts

Natalia Botonaki, “Ghosts of past futures: toxic nostalgia and the rise of fascism in the Global North”

“What haunts the digital cul-de-sacs of the twenty-first century is not so much the past as all the lost futures that the twentieth century taught us to anticipate.” Fisher, M (2012) “What is Hauntology?” 

Mark Fisher spent a good part of his academic career exposing the ways in which our culture – aesthetically, politically, economically speaking – is devoid of creativity and imagination, of any sort of what Franco “Bifo” Berardi might call futurability. Berardi in the eponymous book speaks of techno-linguistic automatisms shaping future behaviour; with that term he describes the technical speech acts which determine, and most often cap, the potency of action or thought. In light of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, and the somewhat stunted responses of global “watchdogs,” the repercussion of this imaginative drain have become dangerously eminent. In a text published on February 27th, Berardi suggests the term “psychotic geopolitics” to describe the situation unravelling in Ukraine, while Naomi Klein (March 1st) opts for “toxic nostalgia.” This presentation will be considering the intoxicating effects that imperial pasts – real or imagined – appear to be having, as inextricably linked to the inability to conceive of viable futures. Focusing on the Global North, we will first be looking at Fisher’s schema of an impotent and unimaginative Left in conjunction with the spectre of Marx that Derrida invokes in the homonymous book. The evocation of spirits of past glories, will neatly lead us into the terrain of toxic nostalgia as the bitter antidote to increasing feelings of impotence and loss – again, both real and imagined – which we will be applying to interpret the rise of far-right ideology. Last, we will be tentatively touching upon some possible remedies for this malaise by suggesting a two-way approach: first, a reckoning with the past, inspired by Benjamin’s seminal text Theses on History and Ariella Azoulay’s recent publication Potential History; both texts speak to the necessity of acknowledging the horrors of a history written by winners as the first step in the process of mending the world we live in. Second, we will be looking at the present as the site of immanent futures following Berardi and reflecting on his proposal that it is cognitarians (like ourselves) who have the ability, via careful examination of the current moment, to create the ground for new futures to emerge.

Harsh Trivedi, “Breaking Brahminical Realism”

Abstract to be added soon.      

Gian Carla D. Agbisit, “Metaphor and Metamorphosis : the Becoming-animal in Kafka and Apulius"

In the recent years, there has been a discussion regarding the idea of the anthropocentric epistemic bias, and together with it, there is a growing awareness in relation to the over-privileging of the human perspective. We have been pushing forward ecological awareness, and also animal rights. But even before these, we have already seen these ideas figure in literary texts, tackled in addition to the problematization of the human condition.  

Both Apulius and Franz Kafka wrote on the subject of a human becoming animal. In this paper, I will be exploring the dual dimensions of this interpretation. I argue that taken as a metaphor, becoming-animal explores a more profound understanding of the human condition, and yet, on the other hand, taken as a literal metamorphosis, this becoming-animal sheds light to animality and nature, which reverses the privileged priority of the anthropocentric logic. I will be using the concept of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in reading the two texts. In this paper, I will talk about: first, (1) the bifurcation of animal and human and how we privilege the human point of view, second, (2) the metamorphic process, and the metaphorical reading of that specific animal in the texts of Apulius and Kafka, and third, (3) becoming-animal as a concept.

Keren Levina, “Towards an Education of Truth, as the Vital Remedy in an Era of Global Crisis” 

In the unprecedented modern period, when the pressures and challenges of reality are overwhelming, philosophical wisdom indicates a path forward by tapping internal resources of the human being, resources to be found in social bonds, the social-moral realm of experience, or simply put, the connections between people. 

Some of the most outstanding philosophers, from Socrates, Kant, Schopenhauer, James, to Dewey, have put forth the radical idea that our knowledge and experience of reality in its default, external forms of separation, is entirely false and misleading. And that the root of this false knowledge of reality is the incapacity of feeling reality through others, experiencing and knowing one’s continuity with others. This view is coherent with Eastern or spiritual teachings as well.  

As John Dewey points out repeatedly in his profuse writings, education’s primary aim should be to nurture positive experiences in the social-moral realm. Other philosophers support this view, emphasizing that human beings are destined to know and experience a sublime, true reality of beauty, perfection, timelessness, and continuity that is achieved as a result.

These philosophical directions for education are radical and oppositional to the default, external, neoliberalistic or self-centered path of social progress, which entrenches and furthers all sorts of social divisions, dualism, or lack of continuity. The approach of the philosophers toward social continuity as a means of true knowledge and social progress, is thus a revolutionary one. Its implementation would destabilize and undermine the very foundations of Western society and its societal, political, economic, and other institutions, which are grounded in neoliberalistic, external, self-centered values. 

The threats and crises of the modern reality provide a setting in which philosophical wisdom, with its radical approaches to education and social progress, may finally become relevant, practical and useful, despite its extremely adversarial position to the status quo. By institutionalizing practices of social continuity, positive social connections, as the most important skills and values to be nurtured in schools and beyond, education can shift, for the first time, to a focus on truth. This would, indeed, undermine and even replace the narrow, false, former reality of dualism or externality. In the modern times of global crisis, it is possible that society and its institutions may finally be ready and willing to embrace such a radical change.

Daniel Kemp, “The Grammar of Oppression: How Word Viruses Contribute to the Subjugation of Indigenous Groups on the Canadian Prairies”

The death of Colten Boushie at the hands of Gerald Stanley on August 9th, 2016, once again brought into focus the deep fault lines that exist between Indigenous groups and the descendants of white European settlers on the Canadian Prairies. Storying Violence, by Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt, reframes Boushie’s death from an Indigenous perspective, thereby highlighting the grammar of oppression that upholds the entrenched white settler power structures which led to Stanley’s eventual acquittal. Oppressive language strands have proliferated on the Prairies, spreading through white settler society much the same way viruses would, infecting their hosts with the harmful ideas contained within them. 

Citing specific language strands identified in Storying Violence, I analyse how such word viruses have infected every sphere of settler colonial society. My inquiry will show that the true origin, meaning and effects of these word viruses are well-hidden from scrutiny as they are unquestioningly regurgitated by their hosts. This hidden nature of word viruses poses an enormous challenge to any effort at disrupting the oppressive language that is reproduced from one generation to another. 

In providing a tentative proposal that might lead to healing, I suggest that a turn towards Indigenous languages, which are closely connected to the land, would provide a constructive starting point in establishing a more balanced power dynamic on the Prairies. This recommendation is informed by my experiences as a South African living in post-apartheid South Africa, where a recognition of the importance of promoting Indigenous languages has been useful in furthering the ongoing process of reconciliation.

John Foerster, “Punk in Absentia: Lessons from a Raucous Revolution”

It is clear that in 2022 the world stands at an impasse. The realities of late Neoliberal Capitalism decades after its inception have spelt out a variety of social, political, and economic issues for many living under its influence. This reality has only been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. While contextualizing these issues, it becomes imperative that we analyze different periods of political unrest to better understand our current situation. If the adage of history repeating itself holds true, then one can look to the political movements spawned in response to Neoliberalism’s inception. Specifically, the Punk movement of Vancouver during the late 1970s through mid-1980s. In conversation with many of its prolific figures, my research seeks to generate a wholistic understanding of youth and social movements against neoliberal structures and policy. Through understanding how resistance actors functioned during Neoliberalism’s creation, one can better learn about the realities of our current environment of protest and popular upheaval. 

Giannis Perperidis, “Digital Technologies: Dystopia or Potential?”

In the past twenty years radical changes have happened regarding technology. Digital technologies have penetrated every dimension of public and private life. The recent conditions of COVID-19 that pushed many people to digital work or the technological advances such as the project of Facebook (Meta) show that what we need today is a careful approach to the digital world and its consequences. The first part of the announcement will try to present the significance of approaching the Internet through some of the ideas developed by Mark Coeckelbergh. The Belgian philosopher of technology has focused on how digital technology affects the lives of people and uses examples drawn from performative arts to present it. The main idea is that we no longer think of technology as distinguishable from personal or social life but it co-writes and co-directs our lives. A very important question that arises is “who” is the co-director? Who creates the technology that co-directs the lives of people? This question can be approached through the Critical Theory of Technology of Andrew Feenberg. The second part of the announcement will focus on Feenberg’s approach to the Internet. Through his theory, Feenberg examines the interests that shape a technology’s design, something which is directly correlated to the social consequences of the specific technology. Regarding the Internet and the digital world, some think of it as a huge market, focusing on its economic implications. But many recent social movements have become strong through this huge network. It seems as the Internet as technological system is in flux and hasn’t yet been granted a specific social meaning. Feenberg refers to the technological artifacts’ hermeneutical dimension following the Science and Technology Studies field and expands this view to the Internet introducing its “consumption” and “community” models. Each model has specific participant interests and tries to establish a specific meaning to the technosystem, the Internet. Feenberg’s approach to the Internet focuses on the “community” model. His analysis brings out the potentials of this technology toward democratic rationalization of society. Are we going towards a digital dystopia or are there any alternatives arising from the very technologies we use every day? This is one of the most important questions of our time.

Gaspard Lemaire, “Anthropocide: A Moral Breakdown”

As they have become the primary force of change on this planet, human beings have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Today, fossil fuels are alone responsible for more than one in five premature deaths worldwide: air pollution causes at least 8 million deaths each year. Even more worrying are the effects of climate change, which threatens in the medium term several hundred million human lives. This condition is the result of a set of actions carried out knowingly, the criminal dimension of which cannot be denied. The exact nature of the crime in question, however, needs some clarification. While genocide consists in set of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people, the victims of anthropic environmental changes face death or intense suffering regardless of their nationality, religion, or ethnicity. The term of crime against humanity is no less inadequate, since the victims of climate disruption are not killed intentionally. As for the more recent notion of ecocide, it certainly captures the destruction or irreparable damage of ecosystems, but it fails to account for the destruction of countless human lives. In order to account for the novelty of the impending moral breakdown, a new concept has to be coined: anthropocide. This word is from the Greek anthropos, “human”, and the Latin suffix cide, “to kill”. The term of anthropocide refers to a set of deliberate actions or omissions that result in the destruction of the essential foundations of life of multiple human groups, and that are likely to ultimately lead to the extermination of these groups. These actions or omissions are characterized by the fact that they significantly contribute to climate disruption and consequently to the increase and intensification of climatic disasters (droughts, hurricanes, extreme precipitation, coastal flooding, etc.), so that they are simultaneously at the origin of the following phenomena: land degradation, destruction of ecosystems, decrease in food production and shortage of basic resources. As a consequence, these criminal actions or omissions lead not only to the disorganization of economic life, of political and social institutions, and of the culture of the groups they harm, but also to geopolitical instability and massive forced migrations, as well as the violation of fundamental rights of individuals: right to life, health, freedom, personal security and dignity. Anthropocide thus prejudices the majority of the members of the human community. While states are the only organizations that can pass legislation to prevent anthropocide, they fail to do so and should bear responsibility for their inaction. The concept of anthropocide must therefore be integrated into international law so that the responsibility of states is finally recognized.   

Nikita Prokhorov, “Hinge Ecology: An Interspecies Approach to Understanding Knowledge Landscapes” 

Placing knowledge in the environment through the synthesis of contemporary Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology, process philosophy, and various theoretical works on interspecies relations, this presentation articulates a way in which to bridge epistemological gaps between human, non-human animal, vegetal, and broadly animate beings. Ludwig Wittgenstein articulates hinge commitments as hinges, like those on a door, upon which the rest of our knowledge system turns. Hinge commitments allow for us to have certainty in fundamental beliefs without justification. Utilizing this concept of hinges as commitments to world-pictures, which can be presented through action, it is argued that one can see knowledge and culture developed in beings which may otherwise prove difficult to relate to for contemporary humans. Using the cosmology created throughout Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy this presentation articulates a view where knowledge exists in the environment, all living things are constantly performing intelligent and creative decision making, and animacy is broadly expanded. In a world where the actual existing things are the events occurring within it, the data required for each event exists in the environment and is selected by the event itself in creative self-assertion before releasing new data back into the world. Thus, each event or collection of events which comprise bodies of organisms, ecosystems, and all active things is continuously processing information and expressing intelligent choices for pursuing its own novel purpose. These actions and the data processed can be viewed through a Wittgensteinian lens to attribute certain basic epistemic notions to all events and animate beings, going as far as claiming that each event has its own epistemic system without sinking into relativism. In dialogue with indigenous knowledge systems this epistemological system places the basic commitments of all animate beings at the same foundational level and forms a creative space from which speculative philosophy can begin an attempt at assembling knowledge systems of the non-human without imposing prevalent anthropocentric notions. This mode of understanding interspecies relations and spaces allows for a reevaluation of what constitutes animacy, knowledge systems, and culture into a broadly non-anthropocentric reality.

Ashlynn Whalley, “Emotion-Based Knowledge as a Project of Environmental Resistance”

The intentional and systematic devaluing of emotions is both a product and requirement of the success of colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal structures. Not only is “reason” held as a requirement for being taken seriously as an epistemic agent, but a particular kind of reason: namely, that which lines up with the accepted standards of those in power. 

Emotions are seen as opposed to reason – but the presence of emotions in testimony must be taken as further evidence that something has happened to elicit that kind of emotional reaction, especially for members of BIPOC or other marginalized groups, rather than evidence against the validity of their testimony. 

By revaluing emotions as an important kind of information, we can establish a common language of resistance and solidarity. This work is significant on an inter and intrapersonal level (by validating our own experiences), but also constitutes a powerful tool for dismantling colonial and patriarchal structures. 

I will take up this project of revaluing emotions as an avenue to revaluing our relationship to the environment. Anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal work is necessary for reconnecting to the inherent and intrinsic value of our natural environment – and I will argue that returning to a practice of acknowledging and valuing our emotions in intricately connected to the work being done in both environment and human wellness. 

My argument proceeds in three parts. First, I will argue that embracing emotions as a kind of information opposes the colonialist and patriarchal emotion/reason divide, and the devaluing of alternate forms of knowledge more generally – this epistemic injustice persists in how those in power designate what can be identified as “legitimate” information and testimony. Second, I will work to expand Alison Bailey’s concept of Knowing Resistant Anger to other forms of emotional experience and expression, and argue that all emotions tell us something, but not all emotions are credible testimony. Finally, I will argue that establishing the importance and validity of emotion-based knowledge provides an opportunity to embrace other ways of knowing – and can act as a common language to support larger projects of resistance and solidarity, especially in relation to reconnecting to and revaluing the environment.

Moira Riggs, “Beyond Binaries Through Queering Archeology: A Poststructual transformation” 

For over 20 years, queer archaeologists and archaeologists employing queer theory have attempted to dismantle strongly rooted systems of heterosexism and heteronormativity within their field. Despite parallels in the emergences of feminist and queer theories throughout the 1980s, political change within the field of archaeology was focused on feminist thinking. While acknowledging the strengths of the feminist approach, queer archaeology emerged in the late 1990s beyond feminist thought to critique the shortcomings of feminist attempts at creating an equal playing field for all archaeologists. Queer theory informs an archaeological method that moves beyond binary thought in which archaeology, its parent field anthropology, and many humanitarian disciplines, are strongly entrenched. 

In this presentation I explore the feminist backdrop of queer archaeology, the move beyond feminist principles, and define the queering method stemming from the poststructural method of deconstruction. Archaeological case studies are applied to demonstrate the method. I further suggest that the queering approach aids in understanding people across space and time and provides a widely untapped research direction for the humanities. Queering indicates resistance to binary societal norms that bind humanity, exclude individuals and communities deemed deviant, and inhibit change. In reacting against these norms, living and studying as queer embodies the principles of transformation and change.

Elk Paauw, “Crip/Queer Temporalities and Potentials for Futurity”

With ongoing environmental collapse, carceral capitalism, and the erosion of democratic systems, the subject of futurity looms large in our lives. Within the fields of queer, trans, and disability studies, there has been a pivot towards looking at the alternative temporalities of those who are differently embodied as opportunities for imagining more radical potential futures for humanity and our planet. While both crip and queer temporalities and futures have been explored in special issues of Transgender Studies Quarterly (Vol 6 #4, Trans Futures), South Atlantic Quarterly (Vol 120 #2, Crip Temporalities), and across many books, looking into the shared history of queer and crip temporalities and where how they inform one another has been overlooked. Commonalities between queer, trans, and disabled subjects historically can be examined to help think of potential futures collectively as acts of revolt. Where queer and disabled subjects are at odds with normal timelines within capitalism and cultural hegemony, this speaks to the creativity of marginalized subjects and their ability to survive and thrive outside of normative systems that seek to crush them. I combine notions of crip and queer time as delineated by Ellen Samuels in her essay “Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time”, and Elizabeth Freeman in her book Time Binds: Queer Temporalities and Queer Histories” and show how chrononormativity is disrupted by both queer and disabled embodiments. How timelines and historical records of disabled and queer/trans people have been disrupted through active destruction (for example, the eradication of disabled and queer people in the Holocaust, the AIDS crisis, and the destruction of the Institute of Sexology in 1933), and how queer and disabled subjects break from chrononormative timelines for general participation in society such as work and reproduction. Then I argue for radical negativity by engaging with Lee Edelman’s No Future and queer nihilism as well as the anarchist collective baedan’s Journal of Queer Nihilism, and articulate the notion of jouissance as a rallying point for queer and crip revolt. In conclusion, by bringing together notions of queer and crip temporalities to examine our shared history, we can develop a radical approach to futurity as a site for liberatory struggle.

Guifen Jiang , “Women about Development: On Ethel Wilson’s Female Bildungsroman The Innocent Traveller”

In a pioneering study of Wilson’s work, Desmond Pacey discusses the difficult complexities of categorizing the fiction of Wilson. While some argue that Wilson is a “novelist of manners,” since she possesses a remarkable perception of the subtleties of social conduct in a specific place, others contend that she is a “novelist of character,” since she devotes more of her enthusiasm to individuals than to society (Pacey 16). It can be derived from P. K. Page’s The Blind Men and the Elephant that there is no point in defending the practice of studying Wilson’s work from the perspective of the manner or the character because no single perspective can accurately capture this elephant metaphor. In response to these discussions, this paper first analyzes the general features of Wilson’s novels and then puts forward a salient but partially ignored perspective in the study of Wilson’s work: female development, which demonstrates that she is a female writer with her essential “feminine sensibility” as distinctive as Jane Austin and Virginia Woolf (Pacey 22). 

Julia DaSilva, “Ever so far away in the palm of your hand:” Spatial Disjunction and Echoes of Courtly Love in George MacDonald’s Lilith: A Romance”

“Now and then, when I look round on my books, they seem to waver as if [...] another world were about to break through [...] as if some that loved me were talking of me” (MacDonald 247–8). 

At the end of his spiritual exile-and-return arc in George MacDonald’s 1895 fantasy novel Lilith, protagonist Mr. Vane finds himself in the same library from which he started—except that his inner transformation by his redemptive love for soulmate Lona has left the space of his home transformed. Continual disjunction between Vane’s everyday world and its physically-overlaid overflowing symbolic space uses the standard exile-and-return trope of a space transformed by love to hold out the possibility of a redeemed world where thought and action are fully unified: a world where relationships are life-giving and renewing. Vane’s redemption, which might be read as the process of closing this gap between thought and action, is, however, accomplished by the reclamation of the figure of Lilith, whose repentance and return to God’s love serve to demonstrate to Vane that such a return is always possible (Gaarden 20)—a solution many have argued, given Lilith’s compelling, continual refusal to return, is not wholly convincing (McGillis 47). Alexandra Kollontai’s comparison between the ways ideals of courtly love (in the chivalric romance) and love-marriage (in the modern novel) fail to contain love’s genuinely transformative, revolutionary potential (“Make Way For Winged Eros”), provides an entry point for considering how the echoes of courtly love tropes, in particular those of mutual inaccessibility and transformation through love, characterize MacDonald’s use of overlapping yet separate space in Lilith’s vision for closing the gap between thought and action. I proceed through a comparative analysis of two moments in chivalric poetry, the wild hunt scene in Sir Orfeo (ll. 303-348) and Guy and Felice’s reunion scene at the end of the Stanzaic Guy of Warwick (ll. 3397-3564). These narratives have similarly contradictory resolutions framed as genuine, “whole” returns; but where the primarily allegorical spaces of Guy and Orfeo leaves courtly love tropes in insoluble contradiction with marital relationships, the fantastic symbolic dream-space in Lilith, drawing on echoes of these tropes but creating a space where those contradictions can be held, let in a hint of the more expansive “love-comradeship” towards which Kollontai gestures. Finally, I turn to Frederic Jameson’s work on radical fantasy and Jemma Deer’s work on radical animism to propose how examining courtly love’s trajectory through modern fantasy suggests a more general reading method for accessing this life-giving overflow.

Contours Journal and the Institute for the Humanities at SFU hosted Utopian Spaces, an interdisciplinary, student-led graduate conference that aimed to reinvigorate conceptions of the often stigmatized category of utopia—the notion that things could be otherwise, the collective desire for a radical alternative—as they pertain to social space. The organizers proposed to think utopia in spatial terms, and space in utopian terms, allowing for the elucidation of transformative potentialities. Yet the utopian space or enclave is just as likely to veer into dystopia. Utopia and dystopia coexist, interact, and conflict, reflecting unmet needs and desires. The conference was, therefore, interested in the convergences and tensions between the utopian and dystopian, in terms of both existent and envisioned representations of such spaces.

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