Orientations in Weather: A Northern Textual Ecology by Rebecca Fredrickson A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Department of English and Film Studies University of Alberta © Rebecca Fredrickson, 2015 ABSTRACT This dissertation develops a “Northern Textual Ecology,” a methodological approach that posits a correlation between the geo/meteorological forces of the north and the literary texts, Indigenous and other, of the north. I suggest that both the actual land and literary texts are environments: both are comprised of participants in a continuously transforming space of activity, and both are territories of expression. As a territory of expression, a text can be composed by a range of living participants, including human, animal, or plant, as well as atmosphere. However, this dissertation uses the term text primarily in the context of human artistic compositions. This dissertation navigates two kinds of weather: the actual weather and textual, or composed, weather. Textual weather engages affective, rather than atmospheric, becomings. However, in the context of the literary north, these two forms of weather become indistinguishable, the atmospheric feeding into the affective, because so much of life in the north depends on actual weather. Theorizations of the north’s actual weather come from Indigenous cosmologies, specifically the Inuit concepts of Sila, isuma, Sedna. These cosmological concepts present weather as an active agent in the land’s relativity, connectivity, and contingency. This cosmological approach is particularly relevant when applied to northern texts that refer to these concepts by name, while also demonstrating the shaping forces that these concepts theorize. This approach is also relevant when applied to texts that demonstrate an engagement with the non-discursive powers ii of weather via techniques that extract affective sensations from the shaping forces of weather. As such, the weather in literary texts is not a projection of weather, but a transformation of physical weather into sensations that distil the affects of weather. In other words, textual weather is not a mimetic or figurative copy of the forces of weather as they are represented in literary texts; rather, it is weather that is composed as becomings and intensities within texts. A text, then, becomes a term for the productive counterpoint between writer and earth. I theorize an immanent connection between the land and human artistic compositions with the help of Deleuze and Guattari’s geophilosophical terms and concepts, such as intensities, becomings, deterritorializations, assemblages, affects, percepts, and multiplicities. These concepts contribute to a critical vocabulary that undoes the separation between the earth and its inhabitants and makes the claim that, beyond the categories of subjects and objects, there are only active territories that think in relation to the earth. A literary text is expressive, just as the land is expressive. Following this idea, a reader’s experience with the becomings and intensities of a text is analogous to the wayfarer’s improvised movements through the unpredictable weather of the north. In the actual environment, wayfaring involves an attention to weather as it interacts with the land. Wayfaring practices emphasize an empirical perception of the land that contributes to an improvisational mode of travel. In a textual environment, wayfaring involves finding orientations in the affective events or becomings of literature and film. iii In Chapter One, I discuss Taqralik Partridge’s spoken word poem “I Picked Berries” and Glenn Gould’s tonal poem The Idea of North as compositions of the forces of Sila. These poems blur the lines between human, land, and animal and disorganize the categories of subject and object. In Chapter Two, I discuss Isuma Igloolik Productions’ Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner as a demonstration of the wisdom of isuma. In this film, the land is neither human nor nonhuman, but a range of active bodies in various organic and non-organic forms. Finally, in Chapter Three, I discuss Alootook Ipellie’s Arctic Dreams and Nightmares as narrative enactment of the creative and destructive powers of Sedna. The constellation of literary texts that appear in this dissertation compose their weather via techniques of elision, layers of sound, lines of variation, blurred subjectivities, and the transversal connection of bodies. These texts (from the late 1970s and thereafter) connect both explicitly and implicitly to northern Indigenous cosmologies of land and weather, specifically to the Inuit concepts of Sila, isuma, and Sedna. These texts body forth from their environments in a way that demonstrates a range of perception and understanding that surpasses discursive forms. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been incredibly fortunate to work with many remarkable people. Thank you all for materializing this project with me. I want to thank my committee, beginning with my supervisor, Dianne Chisholm, who tirelessly supported me and always challenged me to exceed my own expectations. I also want to thank Elena del Rio, who gave me abundant and perceptive feedback. Thanks, next, to Rob Appleford, who agreed to join my committee on short notice. I would also like to acknowledge and thank my internal-external examiner, Liza Piper, and my external examiner, Tim Ingold, for their generous and instructive comments. I am thankful to Keavy Martin, who was my third reader for the biggest part of this project. I probably wouldn’t have gone to the University of Manitoba’s Pangnirtung Summer School without Keavy’s encouragement, and so many of my experiences in Pangnirtung have fed into this project and have also affected me on countless levels that exceed this project. I am also grateful to the community of Pangnirtung. I would like to particularly thank elders Ooleepeeka Ishulutaq, Jaco Ishulutaq, Taina Nowdlak, Nevee Nowdlak, Joanasie Qappik, Evie Anilniliak, and Inuusiq Nashalik. Also, special thanks to Margaret Nakashuk for her kindness and friendship, to Silasie Anilniliak for letting me help him with the nets, to Paulette Metuq for her awesome cooking, to Kelly Karpik for her teaching, to Moe Evic for his hospitality (“hello people!”), and to the late Petrosie Kakee, who is one of the most capable and caring human beings I’ve had the honour to know. Thanks to the program leader Peter Kulchyski for having the endurance to keep the summer v school going and to Warren Bernauer for his activism. Thanks to Christine Graff for helping me with everything and for making me laugh. A huge qujannamiippaaluk to all of you. I would also like to thank the English and Film Studies support staff, especially Kim Brown and Mary Marshall Durrell. I want to thank my friends from the University of Alberta, particularly Amie Shirkie, Janis Ledwell-Hunt, Alison Hurlburt, Lucas Crawford, Greg Bechtel, and Heather MacLeod. Thanks for being funny and outrageous and calming and instructive and challenging, and for sometimes making me feel “too much affect.” Special thanks to Alison and Heather for reading and commenting on this project. Thanks to my friends beyond the university, Ben Löf, Jill Connell, and Jasmina Odor. Thanks for being inspiring and loving, for talking about writing and ideas, and for playing kick the can at midnight in the river valley. I also want to thank my parents Kay and Bill Fredrickson for telling me stories and teaching me to care about the world. Finally, thanks to Joel Katelnikoff for making a wayfaring life with me, for being innovative and generous and creative and insightful, and for seeing this project through each step. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION UNCERTAIN EXCHANGES: NORTHERN LITERATURE AS AN ENVIRONMENT OF IMMANENT TURBULENCE 1 A Northern Textual Ecology 6 Inuit Cosmologies of Weather 16 Composing Weather 25 Reading as Wayfaring 33 Against Representational Readings 39 The Politics of a Northern Textual Ecology 47 Practices of Wayfaring, Points of Orientation 52 CHAPTER ONE THE OTHER ARCTIC: ABANDONING THE SUBLIME FOR THE RELATIONALITY OF SILA 57 Geosophy, or Inuinnait Concepts of Weather and Contingency 66 The Forces of Weather Drawn into Northern Literary Texts 69 Sila’s Weather, Sila’s Affective Truth 71 Rethinking the Image as a Conduit of Affect and Sensation 75 Representation and the Arctic Sublime 80 Finding Non-representational Space within the Sublime 84 Orientation: Kajjarnatuq as Composed Image in “I Picked Berries” 87 Orientation: The Refrain of North, The Idea of North by Glenn Gould 96 Motion and Direction in the Prologue 100 Excessive, Expressive Ostinatos 103 Conclusion 108 CHAPTER TWO ISUMA AND THE OUTSIDE: IMMANENT ETHICS IN IGLOOLIK ISUMA PRODUCTIONS’ ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER 109 The “Virtual Qaggiq” of IsumaTV 118 Isuma and the Outside 121 The Processes of “Isuma” in Igloolik Isuma Productions 124 vii Orientation: Atiit and Isuma in Atanarjuat 130 Affect and the Outside 134 Orientation: Isuma, Unscripted Becomings and the Outside 139 Conclusion 147 CHAPTER THREE READING IN SEDNA’S PLENITUDE: IPELLIE’S ARCTIC DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES AS FORCE, INSTEAD OF RESOURCE 148 Perceiving Through Assemblages, Not Through Representations 156 Orientation: “Summit with Sedna, the Mother of Sea Beasts” 162 Orientation: “Self-Portrait: Inverse Ten Commandments” 168 Orientation: “After Brigitte Bardot” 174 Orientation: “Arctic Dreams and Nightmares” 183 Conclusion 189 CONCLUSION QUVIANAQ: JOY, ICE, AND OUR PROVISIONAL LIVES