Re-writing otherness: Jack London photographer

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between writing, photography and the representation of otherness in Jack London’s The People of the Abyss (1903) and The Cruise of the Snark (1911), the only works illustrated by his own photographs. The first is the report of a six-weeks stay in the East End of London, where he lived with the poor and documented their condition; the second retraces a boat trip in the South Pacific Islands, where he witnessed the effects of colonialism. The purpose is to shed light on London’s unconventional approach towards otherness, as well as on the role of intermediality in these works, ascribable to the genre of phototexts. In stark contrast to the common Western representation of poor and non-white people, the author re-writes their stories in a hybrid transposition on the edge between words and images

Kae Tempest e il potere dell’arte nella società dell’indifferenza

Kae Tempest (London, 1985) is a poet, musician and spoken word performer whose texts are situated in the liminal space between poetry and music. As a consequence, performance is an integral part of their work and serves as a trait d’union between the two forms. This paper analyzes the poems Brand New Ancients (2013) and Let Them Eat Chaos (2016), which are set in today’s London. Here, the main issues of contemporary society – overexploitation of resources, gentrification, social inequalities – are the background of the ordinary lives of people pervaded by numbness and unhappiness. In On Connection (2020), their latest essay written during the first phase of Covid-19 pandemic, Tempest reflects on the social and political function of literature and on the need to find a sense of community through empathy.Kae Tempest (Londra, 1985) è poeta, musicista e performer di spoken word poetry e lavora nello spazio ibrido tra poesia e musica, facendo della performance il suo tratto distintivo e il trait d’union tra le due forme. In questo contributo si analizzeranno i poemi Brand New Ancients (2013) e Let Them Eat Chaos (2016), ambientati nella Londra di oggi, dove le grandi problematiche del mondo globale – lo sfruttamento delle risorse, la gentrificazione, le diseguaglianze sociali – fanno da sfondo alle storie ordinarie di persone avvolte dal torpore e l’indifferenza causati da una vita infelice. Nel recente saggio On Connection (2020), composto durante la prima fase della pandemia da Covid-19, Tempest riflette sulla funzione sociale e politica della letteratura e sulla necessità di ritrovare un senso di comunità attraverso l’empatia