Differentiation, Entanglement, and Worth in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11272141 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Beverly Hogue (Marietta College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 70-87 |
| Publication date | 2020-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/melus/mlaa013 |
| OpenAlex | W3021332878 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
Ruth Ozeki's 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being suggests that garbage provides the raw material for meaning-making, an emphasis evident in both the content and the structure of the novel. Constructed as an assemblage of curated texts discarded and washed up on shore, the novel follows characters who wonder whether their own identities and communities are collages of flotsam whose worth is dependent on arbitrary judgments and accidental encounters. This essay examines how Ozeki excavates literary landfills to recuperate trashed narratives and devalued people, proposing that the very stuff cultures reject as worthless provides compost for the growth of new meaning. The essay further explores how Ozeki deploys the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment to critique the process of assigning worth and posit the concept of entanglement as a foundation for construction of community
Archaeology · Art · Assemblage (archaeology) · Discourse analysis · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Meaning (existential) · Media studies · Narrative · Social science · Sociology · Wonder · Anthropology · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |