Anchorless Unknown

This article examines contemporary responses to the 1914 Komagata Maru incident, wherein 376 South Asian migrants seeking work in Canada were refused entry upon their arrival in Vancouver, British Columbia. Specifically, this piece studies three affective objects: two state apologies from Canadian prime ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau in 2008 and 2016, respectively, as well as a creative work—a hybrid of poetry and archival record—by South Asian Canadian writer Phinder Dulai, 2014's dream/arteries. The article argues that, through a focus on feeling and form, the state apologies operate as a performative liberal genre, whereas Dulai's poetry offers a unique affective counterpoint to the apologies. Given both forms' attention to official narratives and archives, their pairing reflects a study of what I name the "affective annotation" of historical record

Aesthetics · Annotation · Art · Counterpoint · Dream · Feeling · Literature · Narrative · Performative utterance · Poetry · Sociology · State (computer science · Canadian Identity and History · Computer Science · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Psychology