#polyvocality

[e-stranger]

language is a dynamic social thing

The CreaTures Glossary is a set of tools for giving meaning to a lexicon of terms related to creative practice and transformational change. The Glossary includes games, a website, workshops, and other interactions that facilitate language as a social practice. It aims to give meaning to a lexicon that is particular to the field of creative practice and ecosocial transformation, but which might also work more broadly. Here, language is understood as belonging to no one in particular and to everyone at the same time.

Reference works like dictionaries, glossaries, and thesauri usually give an elite group of experts the authority to assign meanings to words, even though the language is a dynamic social thing.

The Glossary author, artist Amira Hanafi, brings a radical understanding of “common” to the project. They understand language, as part of the commons, as a site where displays of power are continuously produced and contested. Rather than produce fixed definitions, the Glossary distributes power to define language throughout the community or collective that interacts with it.

[academicallygroves]

Resisting hetero-temporality

In "Lavender Haze" on Midnights, Swift talks about the feelings you experience when you're falling in love and wanting to stay in that feeling as long as possible. It's a vibe of honeymoon phases and is inspired by a line from Mad Men to describe the desire to focus on love rather than be influenced by others. She describes this music video as the one that "helped [her] conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70's fever dream" (@taylorswift on instagram, January 27, 2023).

In it, there's a lyric "all they keep askin' me/is if i'm gonna be your bride/the only kind of girl they see' is a one-night or a wife". This is a message on society's view of women as a binary: a Slut! (iykyk) or respectable, wife material. This is a rejection of this normative binary by Swift. It's not the first time she makes remarks or addresses marriage and societal expectations regarding women getting married either. In her "Bejeweled" on Midnights she has sarcastic criticism of this ideal (see Bejeweled Easter Egg breakdown post on my blog).

[academicallygroves]

Rewriting stories, and polyvocality

Queer time encompasses the ability to rewrite stories or memories or experiences, often to heal from past grief or trauma, due to the ability to flex or bend time and hold space to have multiple identities or perspectives all at once (Halberstam, 2005). Swift's Eras era, Midnights, and the nature of the Eras Tour concept bends time to bring albums back to the present in new ways and bring us back to the past to reminisce over those stories and memories, but with new perspectives. In the work to reclaim her albums, Swift's songs that were originally her way of expressing big feelings; heartbreak, love, grief, anger, betrayal, become about something different. #rewrite

Queerness has "the potential to open up new life narratives and alternative relations to time and space" (Halberstam, 2005, p. 2) and in doing so, opens the ability to flex time so moments exist both in the past and present simultaneously, holding two identities simultaneously, speaking back and forward simultaneously, writing and rewriting simultaneously. In rerecording her albums, they're brought forward while bringing Swifties back to a time they lived in that era with Swift but also what that era held for themselves. They experience the music for the first time in many ways, as the sound, production, sometimes lyrics, but definitely vocals are different, but also experience it again because of the nature of releasing again. However, Swift also drops the curtain a bit for each album and adds "From The Vault" tracks which are songs that didn't make it originally on the album. These tracks are often more honest, more obvious about what they're referencing, as Swift often writes from her own experiences. Sometimes they provide insight or fill in pieces the album was missing in terms of stories that clear up the basis of other songs, and sometimes they give us a clearer look at what happened leading up to that album's original creation. The rerecorded albums hold their original identities, the nature of the original era, the version of Swift (and Swifties) at that time, but also they hold the idneitity of who Swift is now, who the Swifties are now, and the memories and feelings that are rewritten with reclaiming this work and releasing it again. #rewrite #polyvocality

[academicallygroves]

This Tumblr page serves as a final project for my Queer Rhetorics course. This project aims to explore and engage with the concept of queer time through Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, and her rerecording era, or Eras era. The goal of the project is to see how Swift's Eras era enacts queer time to challenge hetero-temporality and the normative ideals of life progress and flexes time to speak to moments as they hold space in the past, present, and future simultaneously.

[interpreterofmaladies372-blog]

When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

The second short story in the collection is told through the eyes of 10 year old Lilia, the daughter of Indian immigrants. Set in 1971, the story revolves around the relationship between Lilia’s family and Mr. Pirzada, a researcher visiting Boston from Pakistan. 

Lahiri offers an interesting insight by including a story with Lilia as a first person narrator. Not only are we able to observe her growth throughout the story, but we also get to hear her private thoughts and observations on more serious subjects like the Partition of India and civil war-torn Pakistan. 

A poignant moment from the story is when Lilia’s father explains to her that Mr. Pirzada is not considered Indian since the Partition. This is important because it is when Lilia first realizes the religious and cultural divides that exist and how they directly affect her life. Before this moment, she had only considered Mr. Pirzada Indian like her parents because they followed the same cultural customs. 

Another important perspective from Lilia is when her father asks her if she knows what is happening in East Pakistan and what she is even learning in school. Not only does Lilia recognize the contrasting viewpoints of her parents (her mother pushes for more assimilation to where they live now, her father wants Lilia to realize where she came from), she also recognizes the Americanization of her school curriculum. This conversation makes Lilia more aware of her bicultural identity as well as the disparities that minority students face. 

As Lilia matures, she begins to realize the severe hardships that Mr. Pirzada is going through and finds herself becoming more comfortable in his presence. Although the story doesn’t span a particularly long time, the readers see the growth of Lilia’s world view and are left with a hopeful ending. 

[interpreterofmaladies372-blog]

What do these stories say about Polyvocality?

While I only focused on these two stories specifically, all of Lahiri’s stories in this collection are interesting because despite the narrator’s perspective, each story reveals meaningful insight about more than one character. The narrators in these stories, who might not seem particularly extraordinary at first glance, possess quiet and careful observance that allows them to reflect deeply not only on their own experiences but on others around them.

Some people may think that when you read a short story that in a sense you are reading less, or that you are somewhat robbed of further background or insight that a full length novel provides. This is not the case with Lahiri’s work. By providing readers an intimate look at a particular character or experience, Lahiri gives a deeper understanding of their life as a whole and demonstrate how a seemingly simple moment can have profound influence on your life.

[interpreterofmaladies372-blog]

Jhumpa Lahiri as an Interpreter of Maladies Herself

The title of this story collection is incredibly fitting. In many ways, Lahiri can be seen herself as an Interpreter of Maladies. Lahiri provides a deeper look into the moments of sadness, isolation, and desperation that these characters face that are tied to Indian immigrant experiences. 

[interpreterofmaladies372-blog]

But wait, What’s the point?

I thought that this quote was a perfect summation of Lahiri’s own intention of writing a story with polyvocality as well as the purpose of polyvocality itself. As humans, we judge, we assume, and we form prejudices often based on ignorance or simple lack of understanding. The purpose of polyvocality, as seen in Lahiri’s writing, is to encourage the understanding that we need to engage difference and break down barriers.