Manuela Esposito

Abstract

Rethinking the practice of archiving involves some considerations on the «margins» of the archive, in order to restore the realities the «patriarchive» has thrown into oblivion – both women and Nature. The essay analyzes the relation between «women» and «natural elements» in literary and artistic works by contemporary women, questioning the (im)possibility of creating an archive of Nature. In a particular concept of archive as a «map» (Arjun Appadurai) and as a «Guide», feminine writing and art go through the materiality of the «natural archive»: artists such as Trinh T Minh Ha and Roni Horn rely upon the materiality of natural elements, to express their personal and collective memories, in a dialogue with other thinkers and artists such as Fatema Mernissi, Ingeborg Bachmann, M. Jaqui Alexander, Zineb Sedira. Their (im)possible archives of «earth» and «water» question the archival composition, opening up a space for a liquid and transitional future.

Manuela Esposito completed her PhD in «Cultural and postcolonial studies of the Anglophone world» at the University of Naples «L’Orientale». Her research explores the connections between the philosophical concept of nature as elaborated by Baruch Spinoza in his Ethic, and the Caribbean diasporic feminine writing, in particular in the works by Helen Oyeyemi, Elizabeth Nunez, M.E. John and Andrea Levy. Among her publications, a review on Isabelle Allende, and the article «Burning landscapes, islands on fire: Marie Elena John’s Unburnable and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea».