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Ett grundläggande drag hos Pia Arke och Marguerite Duras

Abstract

An Essential Trait in the Works of Pia Arke and Marguerite Duras

Contemporary arts and literature provide a record of alternative narratives of globalization. This essay discusses how the global world system is reconfigured in two different aesthetic endeavors: the so-called »India Cycle« of Marguerite Duras and the visual artwork of Greenlandic-Danish artist Pia Arke. The essay suggests that both Duras and Arke constitute what may be defined as global narratives, and, furthermore, that both approach what may be termed »the essential trait« of contemporary global history. This essential trait is made visible – or, indeed, audible – through the pertinent figure of a subaltern female subject, which the reader or viewer perceives as occupying the very margin or edge of the global order. It is argued that this position still remains untheorized in postcolonial cultural theory. Finally, the essay presents a model through which this figure may be understood, while it also insists on the figure’s importance as a touchstone and corrective of urgent political and theoretical problems of our era.