"Speculating Exile: Literary Estrangements and Fugitive Belongings"
Speculating Exile: Literary Estrangements and Fugitive Belongings
Exile is “the signature and permanent mark of the modern age,” M. Nourbese Philip wrote in 1992: “we cutting we teeth on exile— exile in the very air we breathing.” In this waning quarter of the 21st century, more than 281 million or 3.6% of the global population are migrants, a number that, by all accounts, will only rise. Displacement, whether due to economic instabilities, climate change, war, political oppression, or just the “maddest Joy” of desire, alters not only those it subjectifies, but the conditions of belonging that inform their trajectories.