Patrick Williams

NO AESTHETICS OUTSIDE MY FREEDOM

Taking as its starting point Edward Saids elaboration of the concept of Late Style in his posthumously published book of the same name, this essay examines the ‘late’ work of Saids friend, the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. In particular, building on Saids perception of Adornos late writing as embodying forms of non-reconciliation, it analyses the ways in which Darwish might be seen as a non-reconciled poet, as well as a poet of modes of non-reconciliation. Darwishs final collections of poetry both confirm and challenge the model of lateness, and this is examined through one of his last great works, the epic ‘State of Siege’, written while literally under siege by the Israeli army. Finally, the essay returns to its starting point – Said and Darwish – in its discussion of ‘a refusal to surrender’.

Black looks/black light: Med Hondo's Lumière Noire 1

While ‘the gaze’ and ‘the look’ are familiar concepts in film studies, the idea of a postcolonial Black Gaze is more unusual and potentially more problematic. In dialogue with a range of theorists from both film and postcolonial studies, this article analyzes in detail one film by the radical African film maker Med Hondo which highlights the problems of looking. Renowned as a ‘difficult’ director, Hondos first foray into more mainstream film making presents its own array of difficulties in its representation of the hidden face of the contemporary African diaspora.

Inter-nationalism: diaspora and gendered identity in Farhana Sheikh's The Red Box

Nationalism and Internationalism whatever else they may be are recognized ways of conceiving and constructing modes of belonging and forms of identity. The particularly difficult relation of the national and the international in the production of identity has been an issue for black and Third World people at least since the period of decolonization in the 1950’s. In The Wretched of the Earth, for example, Fanon writes