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Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark

Volume 2 Article 5

April 2016 Inhabiting the Discourses of Belonging; and Yoko Tawada Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer Clark University

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Recommended Citation Hilbig-Bokaer, Aviv (2016) "Inhabiting the Discourses of Belonging; Franz Kafka and Yoko Tawada," Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark: Vol. 2 , Article 5. Available at: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj/vol2/iss1/5

This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Scholarly Collections & Academic Work at Clark Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark by an authorized editor of Clark Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Inhabiting the Discourses of Belonging; Franz Kafka and Yoko Tawada

Cover Page Footnote Professor Robert Tobin, Professor Alice Valentine, Madeline Phillips and Jonah Bokaer

This review is available in Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj/vol2/iss1/5 REVIEW INHABITING THE DISCOURSES OF BELONGING: FRANZ KAFKA AND YOKO TAWADA Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer ‘16 | Comparative Literature & International Development and Social Change

ABSTRACT Tis piece examines the role of language in creating the identity of the foreigner in German prose. Writing at opposite ends of the 20th century, Kafa and Tawada serve as harbingers for a broader sense of alienation that comes with writing as an Other. Using lenses provided by Spivak, Butler, Said and Deluze, this surveys the broader cultural concepts and theoretical implications of the notion of the metaphorical subaltern that can be created in prose, and the particularities presented by the German language in creating and articulating this identity. Tis essay examines six texts, three by Kafa and three by Tawada, placing them in contrast with one another. Ultimately this essay seeks to shif the hermeneutics of reading the Kantian Ding an sich of subaltern as hopeless, rather to see the these six texts as a plea for understanding. Comp Literature Writing is born from and deals essay will examine three texts by himself consistently voiced inse- with the acknowledged doubt Franz Kafa, In the Penal Colony, curity regarding his command of of an explicit division, in sum Te Hunger Artist, and Te the German language, reviewers of the impossibility of one’s Metamorphosis, and three texts have maintained that his mastery one place… it remains strange by Yoko Tawada, Te Refection, remains unsurpassed. Hannah to itself and forever deprived Canned Foreign, and Te Bath, Arendt notes that Kafa “speaks of an ontological ground, and the majority of these works hav- the purest German prose of the therefore always comes up ing been translated by contem- century” (Butler 1.). In fact, short or is in excess, always the porary scholar , Arendt’s review of Kafa is eerily debtor of a death, indebted with to support this claim. In weaving similar to flmmaker and author respect to the disappearance together these texts with schol- ’ preface of Yoko of a genealogical and territorial arly works, we will begin to see a Tawada’s work. Wenders says that “substance,” linked to a name picture of the German language “[Tawada] has indeed written this that cannot be owned. as a simultaneous wall and tool complex, subtle, intelligent and for those chasing the elusive poetic book in German!... It fows – Michael de Certeau, and protean defnition of what it efortlessly” (Tawada IV). Tis L’Ecriture de l’historie means to be German. raises an important question: are (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), Although Franz Kafa Kafa and Tawada’s insecurities p. 327 lived the majority of his short regarding the German language life in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, unfounded? Te answer, as I In their prose, both Franz and Austria, his use of German maintain, is a resounding no. Kafa and Yoko Tawada chal- as a means for communicating Both Kafa and Tawada’s un- lenge conventional notions of his prose has laid foundation to certainties vis-à-vis their prose belonging through highlighting the claim that Kafa is a quintes- is indicative of a much larger the absurdity of the quotidian. sentially German author. While anxiety about their identities and Both authors write from uniquely the scholarly suppositions and places within an increasingly distinct perspectives and ethnic implications of Kafa’s works are protean Germany. Franz Kafa, a identities, yet their similarities as endless as they are tenuous, it Jew in Europe at the apex of anti- highlight a nuanced conception is advantageous to reiterate the Semitism, and Yoko Tawada, a of what it means to use language, understandings that will serve us foreigner living in contemporary in this case, German, to simulta- as we analyze these texts along- Germany during a major debate neously understand and defne side German-Japanese author on multiculturalism, uncover their place in the world. Tis Yoko Tawada. Although Kafa spatial solidary despite their cen- 38 INHABITING THE DISCOURSES OF BELONGING: Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer

tury of separation. tion machine. Te fnal parable logic disconnect. As the explorer In her work, Yoko follows the explorer leaving the looks into the dead eyes of the Tawada weaves together vast Island, resolved to never return to ofcer he notes, “no sign was incongruities with moments of this savage place. visible of the promised redemp- familiarity that cut across In this work, Kafa relays tion; what the others had found national boundaries. In a review his experience as an outsider in the machine the ofcer had of Yoko Tawada’s collection of through a rearranged power not found” (Kafa 190-191). Tis short stories titled Where Europe dynamic. Even while the ofcer quote raises a crucial question: Begins, author Rivka Glachen essentially reveres the explorer’s did the explorer fnally believe notes that when reading Ta- perspective, “the Ofcer kept that the machine ofered redemp- wada’s works, we as spectators watching the explorer sideways tion as the ofcer had asserted? have “wandered into a mythol- as if seeking to read from his face Tis subversion of the explorer’s ogy that is not one’s own... [yet the impression made on him by convictions and confrmation of similarly] mythologies mix with the execution” (Kafa 175). Te his insecurities reveals an impor- more familiar tropes” (Glachen). explorer nevertheless maintains tant insight into Kafa’s asser- Tese mythologies represent the his position as one of a delicate tion: the outsider always remains dual embodiment and disconnect observer, evidenced in the follow- on the lower rung of the power of an identity that foreigners are ing passage: binary. constantly demanded to perform, Yoko Tawada’s Te Refec- challenge, and shif every day. “Te explorer thought to himself: tion follows a well-loved Monk Tawada’s works both subverts It’s always a ticklish matter to in- who, while exploring a pond in and is subverted by conventional tervene decisively. He was neither the forest, commits suicide by tropes and understandings of a member of the penal colony nor disrobing and jumping into his Comp Literature Comp what it means to be German. a citizen of the state to which it own refection. Te brief story, Tis sensibility parallels Tawada’s belonged. Were he to denounce compiled in fragments, then sense of language, as she notes, this execution or actually try to recounts the neighboring town’s “I cannot bend and mold this stop it, they could say to him: You response to the news and their foreign language the way I want are a foreigner, mind your own refections on the event. Te to. I perceive it rather like an business.” primary implication of this story independent entity” (Totten 95). (Kafa 151) is the Monk’s philosophical drive Tis understanding of the utiliza- to achieve wholeness. Like many tion of language allows Tawada Te explorer’s own anxiety about of Tawada’s protagonists, the to use discourses in unorthodox being a foreigner was prevailing monk was constantly plagued by ways and craf her own phenom- enough that no explicit display of an inability to feel a unity of self. enological understanding of what power on the part of the Ofcer In this imagery, Tawada makes it means to be German. was necessary to hold dominance a striking claim: people who Franz Kafa’s In the Penal over the explorer. While this runs strive for a sense of belonging in Colony follows an unnamed contrary to the understanding foreign spaces are analogous to explorer’s unexplained arrival on of the text as one in which the the monk, who ultimately found a tropical island to witness a bar- explorer comes out the victor, that death was his only means to baric execution through anach- having exposed the barbarity of achieve completeness. Tawada’s ronistic means. He is simultane- the system, Kafa was arguably narrative is amplifed by the pow- ously revered, childishly coddled, more interested in the explorer erful image of the village fnding and suspiciously minded by the inability to make a connection on the naked body of the monk. His Commander who represents a the island. nakedness in this context pre- bygone era and who is overcome Te explorer’s internal- sents itself as a fnal display of the with crippling nostalgia. Trough ized doubt and inability to fnd submissiveness of the foreigner. the explorer’s gentle yet subver- resolution, which the Ofcer Tis notion of nudity repeats sive inquiry, the ofcer ultimately arguably found in death, makes throughout Tawada’s works as she realizes his superfuity and puts him the tragic hero of the tale. confates the naked form with the himself to death in the execu- Tis internalization creates a dia- vulnerability of the ethnic and

39 Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark University | Volume 2 racialized other. Te community’s pride in his state of slavery. While aggregates the vastness of Asia reaction to the discovery of the he is beholden to his spectators, and the Middle East into a single dead monk and their collective he depends on the attention given ethnic identity: Te Orient. Yoko inability to comprehend his death to him by the crowds. It extends Tawada’s Canned Foreign pays ex- represents the chasm between the beyond the classic trope of pleas- plicit homage to that sensibility, center of power and the created ure through submission by add- “I encountered these questions other: the foreigner. ing a layer of god-like reverence everywhere I went: mostly they One of the most vivid for the practice of voyeuristic began ‘Is it true the Japanese…’ I passages of the tale comes when fasting. As William Rubenstein was never able to answer them” the community realizes the notes, “the artist then, who de- (Tawada 87). In this account, Ta- Monk’s prayer book is nowhere nies himself life… rewards those wada exposes a double standard to be found. Te omnipotent who understand him with the for foreigners living in western narrator notes that, “the water food which he will not eat, but countries: a demand for sweep- is cold. But the Book does not for those who do not understand ing generalizations about other drown. Te texts can breathe him, the entertainment is merely cultures and ethnicities and an without air” (Tawada 65). Tis the spectacle of a man fasting, inability to articulate their own. passage is one of the many that and, as such, never rises above Tawada says, “ofen it sickened

reference Tawada’s élan as an the level of an amusement” (14). me to hear people speak their Comp Literature explorer of language. Exploring In performing an exaggerated native tongues fuently. It was language, Tawada posits, “is a version of the other, the hunger as if they were unable to think condition similar to meditation artist is providing for those al- and feel anything but what their or the trance of the shaman in ready in a position of power, but language so readily served up to that you empty yourself in order throughout the story it becomes them” (87-88). Tis uncharacter- to be receptive, to accept foreign increasingly clear he has gotten istically critical passage highlights voices which, in fact, are not nothing in return. Tis archetypal Tawada’s frustration in struggling foreign but very familiar” (Totten sense of isolation and increas- to defne her identity while those 95). Within the context of this ing alienation is a key tenant of who have it “served to them” are quote, Tawada’s use of a monk as Kafa’s oeuvre. Despite a lifetime unable to articulate it. the conduit for this philosophy of service and reverence to the Trough the memoir becomes quite clear. Language locales in which he worked, the style, both A Hunger Artist and represents, for the foreigner, both hunger artist dies knowing he Canned Foreign subtlety present the disease and the cure. No bet- will always be a subaltern, “seek- the tension between a longing ter image represents this tension ing refuge in some quiet corner for acceptance and a nuanced than the monk drowning while of a circus” (Kafa 274). criticism of those whom they’d his text foats. Tawada’s Canned Foreign, like to become. For Kafa, this Franz Kafa’s A Hunger like A Hunger Artist, is written as longing harkens back to more Artist is written as the memoir an incongruous memoir. Tawada fruitful times; for Tawada, it is of a traveling performer who sits recounts her experiences as a nostalgia for her upbringing in in a cage in public spaces with- foreigner in Germany unable to Japan. Kafa’s uncertainty goes out eating for weeks on end. Te read street signs as comparable to back to his childhood where, as protagonist recounts, with deep ethnic Germans unable to read Yasemin Yildiz points out, one’s nostalgia, the long-gone era in her face. She forms a relationship identifcation and legitimacy which his presence would draw with a lesbian couple, Sasha and within a language community the whole town to the public Sonia, who expect her to serve was conditioned by the growing square to witness his talents. Tis as a conduit for the entire conti- German and Czech nationalist cherished memory contrasts his nent of Japan. She ends this short movements: “this monolingual- present situation in which he is memoir with a musing describing izing process was especially the footnote of a traveling circus as a series of dispa- tenuous for German- or Czech- and freak show. What stands out rate meaningless texts. Edward speaking Jewish communities most in this quintessential Kafa Said’s magnum opus Oriental- because of their non-acceptance vignette is the hunger artist’s ism postulates that “Te West” by the dominant German and

40 INHABITING THE DISCOURSES OF BELONGING: Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer

Czech language communities.” tulates that as apparatuses of elite Tere are illusions throughout (Butler, C.). Tus, Kafa’s notion and dominant cultures, literature the tale that the protagonist is be- of the legitimacy of language and language become subversive coming a fsh and learning to live was shaken from the very be- tools. Within this understanding, with scales. She also unites with ginning. It follows then that his Gregor Samsa’s awakening as an a German photographer who prose maintains an almost listless incoherent “insect” mirrors the both romanticizes and chides her simplicity and his narrative arcs realization by the subaltern of his “orientalism.” Te story ends as are unconventional. Tawada’s or her own muteness. Gregor’s it begins, through a refection on relationship with language, the downfall is presented as an looking in the mirror and discov- German language in particular, enlightened understanding of his ering one’s body. embraces a similar sense of en- own exploitation at the hands of Tese musings seem nui and taciturnity. As Tawada the very people he trusted most. to pay direct homage to French herself notes, “I do not believe Gregor’s inability to communi- philosopher Emmanuel Levinas that an author can use a language cate refects Kafa’s own anxi- and his Nine Talmudic readings. as a tool to express her thoughts. eties regarding language. Tus Translated by Annette Arono- I imagine the author to become, it becomes entirely clear to the wicz. Levinas states, “seeing the by means of the language, a knot reader as the story progresses that other is already an obligation in a big net” (Totten 95). Here Ta- Samsa’s metamorphosis is merely towards him. A direct optics – wada highlights a sensibility she a physical manifestation of his without the mediation of any shares with Kafa that foreigners preexisting status as a subaltern. idea – can only be accomplished are beholden to the language of Te image of Gregor trans- as ethics” (47). Zeroing in on the the dominant cultures they oc- formed into an “insect,” literally phrase “direct optics” above, we cupy. Tis passage highlights the cordoned of in his room, repre- begin to notice Tawada’s prior- Comp Literature Comp sort of bricolage that both Kafa sents an ultimate othering. Tis itization of the cameral act of and Tawada perform in order to Kantian Ding an sich presents seeing. As a non-native German inhabit their adopted cultures the ethnic other as a vermin and speaker, Tawada returns continu- and languages; it is a perfor- language as the barrier between ously to the safe and non-hier- mance that is paralleled both by the dominant and subordinate. archical sense of visual percep- the hunger artist and the protago- Deleuze and Guatarri note that tion. If, as Spivak claims, words nist of Canned Foreign. Walter Benjamin urged move- are tied up in a power , the Te Metamorphosis ment beyond the symbolic visual becomes Tawada’s realm opens on Gregor Samsa, who iconization that is so easy to fall in which to play. In Te Bath, inexplicably has transformed into into when interpreting Kafa Tawada embarks on a meditation “some sort of monstrous insect” (xi). While it is simple to confate on the poetics of the image: “one (Kafa 1). Te examines Kakfa’s well known icons such sees a diferent face in the mir- Samsa’s own self-critical refec- as a castle with God, and in this ror each morning. Te skin of tion of his condition alongside case vermin with anxiety, the true the forehead and cheeks changes that of his families. Afer a mo- noumenon of the ethnic other shape from moment to moment ment of shock, his family comes is not vermin, rather a tenuous like the mud of a swamp, shifing to tacitly accept his condition, connection to self as mediated by with the movements of the water never once wondering how it the politics of language. While below…” (Tawada 3). Tawada’s came to be, until the burden Gregor Samsa awoke this particu- prose reveal a sensibility that, for becomes too much to bear. As a lar day transformed, he had been her, words illicit images and it is depression-tinged futility seems a subaltern all along. those images that have the power to descend over Gregor, his fam- Te frst novella in to incite emotions. In short, the ily begins the arduous process Tawada’s collection Where Eu- primacy of the image serves as of “othering” him to the point rope Begins is perhaps her most the intercedent between words that his death and alienation is fractured. Tis frst section of this and emotions. Tus for Tawada, ultimately perceived as a victory. novella, Te Bath, presents her it is not so much a question of Gayetri Spivak’s essay uncertainties regarding assimi- whether the subaltern can speak, “Can the Subaltern Speak” pos- lation in a disparate structure. but rather, can the subaltern be

41 Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark University | Volume 2 heard? of the day to day in which oppor- German identity, for in the pro- Later on in Te Bath, tunities arise to subvert conven- cess of writing, albeit in German, Tawada reafrms this primacy tional notions of being “foreign.” she is building for herself an in- of the image. She challenges the What is distinctive about these tersubjective, multi-cultural space notion that language is the most two authors is their shared within which to articulate her valuable form of communica- perception of language as both existence. Tawada carries with tion and asserts that rather, it is the tool and barrier to access the her in both domains the pejora- a strong sense of identity. When universal. Kafa plays with this tive and positive baggage of her her boyfriend alerts her that she notion of language as barrier as past. Yildiz supports this claim by did not show up in any of the Yasemin Yildiz notes, “Kafa at noting, “Tawada’s characters as photographs he took of her, she frst tried to operate within the seeking the bilingual experience is stunned and demands to know monolingual paradigm, wedding through territorial and linguistic why. His explanation is simple, language and identity, it was his movement, but it is through this “It’s all because you don’t have a working through the imaginary performance of multilingualism strong enough sense of yourself power of this paradigm and its that an individual’s monolingual as Japanese” (Tawada 11). In ‘radical depropriation’ in the post history is highlighted…. Sub- this regard, Tawada’s prose are monolingual condition that dis- jective multiplicity and multi-

very much a phenomenological mantled the idea that one’s iden- lingualism invisibly construct Comp Literature understanding of her dual Japa- tity is not based on a language how one sees the world.” (Yildiz nese and German identities. In given through national origin Chapter 3) If language can be essence, they are a vociferous plea and natural property.” (Butler, C) integrated into how one sees the not to be understood, but rather Samsa’s inability to speak refects world, then it is without a doubt to understand oneself. his character’s anxiety regarding the primary apparatus for one’s For Tawada, language identity yet, as Walter Benjamin’s own understanding of self. As is the tool to incite the image layered analysis of Kafa indi- Tawada comes to inhabit the Ger- which is the universal. Kafa, on cates, that is not all it refects. As man language more fully, does the other hand, is consistently Deleuze and Guattari point out, she lose a strong sense of herself plagued by his inability to access “the impossibility of writing other as Japanese? I argue the answer is such a universal. Samsa’s regres- than in German is for the Prague far more nuanced than a simple sion presents Kafa’s uncertainty Jews the feeling of an irreduc- loss-gain binary. Her work is fully regarding his identity as a failure ible distance from their primitive aware of the disconnect between to access his own universal. Czech territoriality. And the im- her current self and her refec- Kafa uses language to barricade possibility of writing in German tion. himself inward, furthering the is the deterritorialization of the It would be impropriet- schism between self and other, German population itself” (16). ous at such an occasion to reduce whereas Tawada’s prose function Samsa’s process of deterritoriali- the discussion to a selection of to build bridges, acknowledging, zation is thus presented by Kafa overly simplistic polemics regard- and then moving beyond such as the feeling of an “irreducible ing the implications of these a divide. For both Tawada and distance” from an axis of exist- two authors’ works. Rather, the Kafa, the process of assimilation ence: being human. vastness of interpretation at this is presented as the perception Tawada’s relationship juncture is quite telling insofar of metamorphosis. However, to language pieces together the as we are concerned moving what they both show us is that if multiple discourses of her iden- forward. Te major take-away one cannot retain access to the tity to create her distinct style. from Deleuze and Guattari’s in- universal through visual poetics, She derives a sense of hopeful- terpretation is that one must free everything is at risk of being lost. ness for the future of her self- Kafa from naïve misinterpreta- How does one articulate identifcation under the auspices tions that either make a spectacle the process of being the ethnic of a bricolage-like relationship of his anxiety or interrogates an other? Both Yoko Tawada and to her phenomenological self- “Oedipalized neurosis” (xxiv). Franz Kafa show through their awareness. She will never have to Tis does not, however, put us prose that it is in the encounters choose between her Japanese and in a paradoxical stasis. Rather,

42 INHABITING THE DISCOURSES OF BELONGING: Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer

Toward A Minor Literature allows respective struggles to inhibit the us to move beyond these naive- ever-mutable defnition of what ties toward a major understand- it means to be German, we begin ing. Kafa is neither resigned to appreciate these works as not nor defeated as he would trick us inauspicious and melancholic, into believing. Rather his work but rather optimistic and buoy- presents what can be seen as an ant. To long for one’s own iden- all-out war against the power tity, one must have hope in what dynamics directly embedded the future holds. Te sanguinity in language. In this language, it of the possibility of confrming becomes clear that Gregor Samsa and inhabiting one’s own Ger- was not retreating into his ver- man identity allows both Kafa min cave; rather he was carving and Tawada the determination to out a space for him to exist as he move forward. In the meantime, was. As he embraced his subal- they will continue to circle the tern identity, he simultaneously castle of identity in search of an proved that he had a hope for the entrance, occasionally penetrat- achievement of the multi-cultural ing its fortifed parapets with harmony that is embraced in vivid prose. Tawada’s literature. For Tawada, the no- tion of language and identity are inseparable. Tawada’s com- Comp Literature Comp mand of the German language is a refection of her command of what I will call the poetics of identity. Her ruminations pre- sent the subtleties both of what it means to be German and to use the German language in a way only one who has spent extensive lengths of time refect- ing on those very questions can. Her absurdist works cuts across territorial boundaries into the ofen-familiar waters of the urge to create communities. It is here where the humanity of her prose lies. When we move beyond the work of the academy in its byzantine interpretations of both Franz Kafa and Yoko Tawada, we see the venerable tradition of the quest for belonging. A shif in hermeneutics allows us as readers to see familiarity in the ofen times absurd and seemingly removed prose of Franz Kafa and Yoko Tawada. By framing these works within their author’s

42 Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark University | Volume 2

REFERENCES

Aronowicz, Annette. Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas. Indiana University Press. 1990.

Butler, Christina. Rev. of Beyond the Mother Tongue: Te Postmonolingual Condition, by Yasemin Yildiz. Transit 8.2 (2013). Web.

Butler, Judith. “Who Owns Kafa?” London Review of Books. 3 Mar. 2011: 3-8

Deleuze, Gilles, and Fèlix Guattari. Kafa: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by Dana Polan. University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

Galchen, Rivka. Yoko Tawada’s Magnifcent Strangeness. Te New Yorker, October 19, 2012.

Kafa, Franz. Te Complete Stories. New York: Schocken Books, 1971.

Kafa, Franz. Te Metamorphosis. Trans. Susan Bernofsky. New York: Norton, 2014

Rubinstein, William C.. 1952. “Franz Kafa: A Hunger Artist”. Comp Literature Monatshefe 44 (1). University of Wisconsin Press: 13–19.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.

Tawada, Yoko. Where Europe Begins. Trans. Susan Bernofsky and Yumi Sheldon. New York: New Directions, 2007.

Yōko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere. Edited by Doug Slaymaker. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2007.

Totten, Monika. “Writing in Two Languages: A Conversation with Yoko Tawada.” Harvard Review 17 (1999): 93–100.

Yildiz, Yasemin. “Tawada’s Multilingual Moves: Toward a Transnational Imaginary.” Yoko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere. Ed. Doug Slaymaker. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. 77-89.

FACULTY SPONSER: Robert Deam Tobin, Ph.D.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Professor Robert Tobin, Professor Alice Valentine, Madeline Phillips and Jonah Bokaer.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer studies Comparative Literature and International Development at Clark University. His primary interests include classic German literature, Cultural Studies, and the Russian Canon. Currently a United States Department of State Gillman Fellow at the Council on International Educational Exchange in , Aviv will spend the summer as a LEEP Fellow traveling across Russia. His other scholarly work can be seen in the Worcester Art Museum’s Cyanotypes; Photography’s Blue Period Catalog. He lives in Ithaca, New York where he fnds inspiration in the familiar and familial faces. 44