The Albatross

Full Issue

The Albatross — 2023-04-15

Frontmatter

The Albatross — 2023-04-15

Editors' Note

Maya Linsley — 2023-04-15

Introduction

Maya Linsley — 2023-04-15

Feminist Narratives of Mid-Century America: Reading Aesthetics in Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness Through Lolita’s Lens

Nicole Paletta — 2023-04-15

The portrayal, or lack thereof, of feminine power in Ursula Le Guin’s 1969 novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, is contentious: scholars either praise the text for portraying
a feminist utopia or criticise it for a failed attempt at equalising genders. Using aestheticization in Nabokov’s Lolita to illustrate that mass consumerism and female subjugation are inextricably linked in mid-century America, I argue that, in The Left Hand of Darkness, the absence of aesthetics—from the material objects, atmosphere, and Gethenian attitudes toward sexuality—strengthens its reading as a feminist text.

The Queer Surfacing of Captain Brierly: Examining Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim through Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology

Kara Hagedorn — 2023-04-15

Sara Ahmed’s “Orientations: Toward a Queer Phenomenology” (2006) asserts that queer bodies surface in the heteronormative landscape as disoriented in nature. Her theory of queer phenomenology provides a fresh in-strument for exploring Captain Brierly’s queer character in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim (1899). Captain Brierly’s presence in the text is acute yet fleeting. The abrupt nature of his death by suicide disorients those who speak of his character. The language that describes his temperament breaks through the hetero-masculine mask of the sailors’ disposition and invites a broader queer reading to Conrad’s text.

Yōko Ogawa’s Subversion of the “Normal Life” in The Housekeeper and the Professor

Ella Cuskelly — 2023-04-15

In The Housekeeper and the Professor (2009), Yōko Ogawa explores domesticity and the everyday for an unconventional family. The everyday that Ogawa creates, however, is an intentional subversion of Japanese cultural expectations of a “normal life.” These “normal life” ideals are supposed to be the only path to happiness; however, Ogawa’s novel shows that there is more than one way to achieve fulfilment, despite the social pressure exerted through these ideals. In my analysis of Ogawa’s novel, I engage with Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni’s work on the Japanese “normal life.” I argue that Ogawa breaks cultural expectations and subverts traditionally gendered associations of domestic duty. These subversions demonstrate that the culturally expected and patriarchally motivated “normal life” is not the only way to achieve fulfilment—manifested through the eclectic family in The Housekeeper and the Professor.

“Out here you’re just in the wind”: The Liminal World of The Oil Sands in Kate Beaton’s Ducks

Kalea Furmanek-Raposo — 2023-04-15

This paper examines how Kate Beaton represents the Alberta oil sands in her graphic memoir Ducks (2022). Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws on comics studies and contemporary ethnographies, I argue that Beaton’s visual and textual details make the oil sands a liminal space. I explore how Beaton draws on shades of grey to visually establish this space between the boundaries of life and work, even as she conveys the harsh realities of such a transitory existence within the narrative. However, her solid black panels speak to the emotional consequences (such as disassociation, drug use, and infidelity) of such a life on the workers. Ultimately, Beaton’s memoir demonstrates how the liminal world of the oil sands ignores the humanity of its workers.

“Signs on a White Field”: The Shadow of Ulysses

Erin Kroi — 2023-04-15

This essay employs a poststructuralist approach to James Joyce’s Ulysses through affect: the dynamic method that considers bodies and their sensory experiences along-
side the emotionally-formed forces that motivate them into relation. Through the examination of my own encounter with the Robert Amos painting, Dedalus on the Shore (2016), and the Proteus episode of Ulysses it depicts, I advocate for the novel’s endurance as a global cultural monument beyond its high-literary disposition. Utilising Rita Felski’s discussion of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, I explore reproductions of Ulysses that shift focus from the novel’s stature in literary history to the influential power engendered by its essence, and our delight in its stylistic whims.

Wilted Petals that Loved: Flowers and Humanity in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette

Colleen Bidner — 2023-04-15

This essay discusses scenes in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853) that involve flowers and the relationship between Lucy Snowe and Monsieur Paul Emmanuel. Their romance demonstrates how Brontë shines a light on the humanity of women when mid-Victorian society values their physical appearance and housewife skills. The relationship demonstrates human connection and mortality through the following: offering gifts more meaningful than a bouquet; security through the house that Monsieur Paul gives Lucy for her career; and Biblical origins of man and woman. Lucy achieves autonomous security due to their connection, making her a model for women in Brontë’s desired society.

Belting the Beast: Trans-animality in The Faerie Queene

Jocelyn Diemer — 2023-04-15

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is populated by hundreds of animal figures, many of whom are informed by a vast inherited tradition of medieval bestiary animal
symbolism. Taking these bestiary motifs into account and drawing from current trans and animal studies theory, this article shows how book three’s hyena-beast calls attention to the porousness of species boundaries and collapses animal-human hierarchies. This reading highlights the poem’s ambiguous attitude towards the bestial nature of both its animal and its human characters, and gestures towards a Spenserian eco-poetics which emphasises the possibilities for mutuality and collaboration to be found in the shared creatureliness of animals and humans.

Editors and Contributors

Volume 13 Editors and Contributors — 2023-04-15