Ryan Topper | Western Oregon University (original) (raw)
Refereed Journal Articles by Ryan Topper
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma. Ed. Colin Davis and Hanna Meretoja. London: Routledge, 2020
In this essay we make two seemingly contradictory arguments regarding the relationship between tr... more In this essay we make two seemingly contradictory arguments regarding the relationship between trauma and postcolonial theory: trauma theory has always been postcolonial, and it is not yet postcolonial. By highlighting the similarities between Cathy Caruth's and Edward Said's readings of Freud's Moses and Monotheism, we argue that trauma theory, much like postcolonial critique, is centrally concerned with the undoing of identitarian binds. We therefore suggest that Caruth's theory of implicated subjectivity, which she pulls from Freud, is more in line with postcolonial theory than critics of her Eurocentrism (who often hinge their argument on identity politics) have recognized. At the same time, her theory of implication must become more postcolonial, we argue, by moving beyond its anthropocentric coordinates. As authors such as Derek Walcott and Uzodinma Iweala demonstrate, a postcolonial approach to trauma studies must begin by apprehending the cosmological damage wreaked by colonial modernity, which implicates not only humans, but entire systems of relations amidst the cosmos. By placing Walcott's and Iweala's writings in dialogue with Freud's reading of Tasso's Jerusalem Liberated, we propose our concept of cosmological trauma, which names the rupture in relational networks central to colonization. The disenchantment of the world means the extirpation of animism. Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment. In this essay we make two seemingly contradictory arguments. Our first thesis is that trauma theory has always been postcolonial. We thus place Cathy Caruth's and Edward Said's readings of Freud's Moses and Monotheism in dialogue, suggesting that both trauma theory and postcolonial theory have been centrally concerned with the traumatic origin of racial and cultural difference. Our second thesis is that trauma theory is not yet postcolonial. We thus also argue that Caruth's concept of traumatic implication must be extended to the more-than-human world 24
English Language Notes, 2019
This essay intervenes in debates surrounding trauma theory and postcolonial studies, tracing how ... more This essay intervenes in debates surrounding trauma theory and postcolonial studies, tracing how forms of African animism can lead to a decolonized discourse of trauma. Taking the postcolonial critique of trauma theory's Eurocentrism as a point of departure, the essay focuses on two contemporary novels of the African diaspora: Aminatta Forna's The Memory of Love and Delia Jarrett-Macauley's Moses, Citizen, and Me. Narrating local forms of survival in post-civil war Sierra Leone, these novels use animist modes of consciousness to theorize the collective trauma of, and envision political futures for, Sierra Leone. Forna's writing is emblematic of realism, while Jarrett-Macauley's is an example of animist realism. Both novels are united, however, by an animism at the level of narrative process, drawing on the spirit world and possession rituals to counter therapeutic and humanitarian ideologies.
Research in African Literatures, 2019
Critics largely interpret Death and the King's Horseman as a representation of a particular cultu... more Critics largely interpret Death and the King's Horseman as a representation of a particular cultural trauma: African secularization under colonial modernity. If, however, the nation-state presupposes a political theology, then colonization is not secularization, but a transition into a new order of the sacred. I argue that Horseman stages this process as a cosmological trauma emerging through a transfiguration of sacrifice. As an indigenous death rite transfigures into an imperial possession rite, incarnating the political theology of colonized life, the cyclic time of Yoruba cosmology assumed within the drama becomes entangled in the sequential time of colonial modernity. Beyond representing this trauma, Horseman ritualizes it, providing a passage into modernity by aesthetically mediating that which it laments and, moreover, offering a new vision of community. This process bears implications exceeding Horseman criticism, addressing the discourses of biopolitics, political theology, cultural trauma theory, postcolonial studies, and tragic theory.
Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, 2018
In this essay I explicate a form of collective agency from a discrete example of Vera’s writing: ... more In this essay I explicate a form of collective agency from a discrete example of Vera’s writing: the opening vignette of her final published novel, The Stone Virgins. More specifically, I trace the presence of two aesthetic influences in this vignette: the Mwali ecotheology that is local to the novel’s setting and the stylized dispossessions of agency within Virginia Woolf ’s writing. By weaving these influences together in her narration, Vera depicts, I suggest, an intersubjective movement in which all forms of life – not limited to human – reciprocally enforce a synchronized, universal vibrancy. Moreover, Vera utilizes this movement to craft an image of a transsubjective life: an affirmative mode of agency emerging beyond the crisis in self-representation upon which Vera criticism at large remains anchored.
Reviews and Other Writings by Ryan Topper
This review essay on Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation examines... more This review essay on Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation examines the ways both artists use the figure of the "child soldier" to challenge humanitarian ideology. See URL.
Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 2018
MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 2017
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma. Ed. Colin Davis and Hanna Meretoja. London: Routledge, 2020
In this essay we make two seemingly contradictory arguments regarding the relationship between tr... more In this essay we make two seemingly contradictory arguments regarding the relationship between trauma and postcolonial theory: trauma theory has always been postcolonial, and it is not yet postcolonial. By highlighting the similarities between Cathy Caruth's and Edward Said's readings of Freud's Moses and Monotheism, we argue that trauma theory, much like postcolonial critique, is centrally concerned with the undoing of identitarian binds. We therefore suggest that Caruth's theory of implicated subjectivity, which she pulls from Freud, is more in line with postcolonial theory than critics of her Eurocentrism (who often hinge their argument on identity politics) have recognized. At the same time, her theory of implication must become more postcolonial, we argue, by moving beyond its anthropocentric coordinates. As authors such as Derek Walcott and Uzodinma Iweala demonstrate, a postcolonial approach to trauma studies must begin by apprehending the cosmological damage wreaked by colonial modernity, which implicates not only humans, but entire systems of relations amidst the cosmos. By placing Walcott's and Iweala's writings in dialogue with Freud's reading of Tasso's Jerusalem Liberated, we propose our concept of cosmological trauma, which names the rupture in relational networks central to colonization. The disenchantment of the world means the extirpation of animism. Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment. In this essay we make two seemingly contradictory arguments. Our first thesis is that trauma theory has always been postcolonial. We thus place Cathy Caruth's and Edward Said's readings of Freud's Moses and Monotheism in dialogue, suggesting that both trauma theory and postcolonial theory have been centrally concerned with the traumatic origin of racial and cultural difference. Our second thesis is that trauma theory is not yet postcolonial. We thus also argue that Caruth's concept of traumatic implication must be extended to the more-than-human world 24
English Language Notes, 2019
This essay intervenes in debates surrounding trauma theory and postcolonial studies, tracing how ... more This essay intervenes in debates surrounding trauma theory and postcolonial studies, tracing how forms of African animism can lead to a decolonized discourse of trauma. Taking the postcolonial critique of trauma theory's Eurocentrism as a point of departure, the essay focuses on two contemporary novels of the African diaspora: Aminatta Forna's The Memory of Love and Delia Jarrett-Macauley's Moses, Citizen, and Me. Narrating local forms of survival in post-civil war Sierra Leone, these novels use animist modes of consciousness to theorize the collective trauma of, and envision political futures for, Sierra Leone. Forna's writing is emblematic of realism, while Jarrett-Macauley's is an example of animist realism. Both novels are united, however, by an animism at the level of narrative process, drawing on the spirit world and possession rituals to counter therapeutic and humanitarian ideologies.
Research in African Literatures, 2019
Critics largely interpret Death and the King's Horseman as a representation of a particular cultu... more Critics largely interpret Death and the King's Horseman as a representation of a particular cultural trauma: African secularization under colonial modernity. If, however, the nation-state presupposes a political theology, then colonization is not secularization, but a transition into a new order of the sacred. I argue that Horseman stages this process as a cosmological trauma emerging through a transfiguration of sacrifice. As an indigenous death rite transfigures into an imperial possession rite, incarnating the political theology of colonized life, the cyclic time of Yoruba cosmology assumed within the drama becomes entangled in the sequential time of colonial modernity. Beyond representing this trauma, Horseman ritualizes it, providing a passage into modernity by aesthetically mediating that which it laments and, moreover, offering a new vision of community. This process bears implications exceeding Horseman criticism, addressing the discourses of biopolitics, political theology, cultural trauma theory, postcolonial studies, and tragic theory.
Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, 2018
In this essay I explicate a form of collective agency from a discrete example of Vera’s writing: ... more In this essay I explicate a form of collective agency from a discrete example of Vera’s writing: the opening vignette of her final published novel, The Stone Virgins. More specifically, I trace the presence of two aesthetic influences in this vignette: the Mwali ecotheology that is local to the novel’s setting and the stylized dispossessions of agency within Virginia Woolf ’s writing. By weaving these influences together in her narration, Vera depicts, I suggest, an intersubjective movement in which all forms of life – not limited to human – reciprocally enforce a synchronized, universal vibrancy. Moreover, Vera utilizes this movement to craft an image of a transsubjective life: an affirmative mode of agency emerging beyond the crisis in self-representation upon which Vera criticism at large remains anchored.
This review essay on Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation examines... more This review essay on Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation examines the ways both artists use the figure of the "child soldier" to challenge humanitarian ideology. See URL.
Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 2018
MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 2017