FINAL
by Jasmine Alleva
I had been out of school for a while. Well, not all the way out of school… more like, one toe in and the rest of my body out; I could run at any moment. It was a fallback and I kept my suitcases packed in case something happened—the sky fell down or an earthquake took California off the map or, God forbid, a pandemic swept the earth. And when the latter happened, it was time. “You can always go back to school and finish.” Here I am. Whether I wanted to be here or not is beside the point.
The first day of Critical Theory overwhelmed me with dread. In the air, dangling before me, seemed to be every reason why things would not go well and while I put them there with my own mind, they seemed to be getting closer and more real. Every nerve constricted and I felt a suffocation I had known to crush my windpipe before: self-doubt. I’m not under any delusion that I like myself very much but very much subscribe to the delusion that finding my place in the world is a daunting task (despite how much therapy convinces me otherwise). I knew I wouldn’t fit in. I planned on not fitting in.
While the tiny squares popped up with faces unfamiliar to myself, the semester began, and the sun sat up in the sky at a normal level. By the end of the semester, she would set before my computer would close and the dark would greet me as I said goodbye to this class for the last time. And still at that genesis—dread. Until we started talking. Until we all started talking and the doubt spilling out of others’ mouths found its way through pixels and soundwaves and I didn’t feel so alone. Everyone else was just as nervous as I was.
Bové entered the groupchat. I knew from that moment forward that I would have to participate, and I would have to read. Some classes draw that out of a student, but very rarely do they draw that out of me. Riddled with a list of mental illnesses sometimes creates a Palomar knot of excuses and within those excuses are interwoven threads of inability. Never mind that this has easily been one of the worst years of my life, but I digress.
I would not say I was ill prepared, but rather that I had not pushed my brain to engage in discourse that had felt like or resembled anything like this. It felt like String Theory, all of the vibrations playing into all of the vibrations and where was the end and where was the beginning? I had to figure it out in the middle, while being moved by it, desperately reaching for whatever fiber would grip back.
The most important things I learned are the things I brought to the dinner table and a newfound confidence in maybe some of the information I had gleaned. But honestly, a lot of the information that was both surprising and the most important was the things that made me look at my own biases and humanity. I am a human just as imperfect as the next human, but it is a long and arduous process to divorce your mind from a previously held understanding. At times, this felt like everything I knew exploded and I had to piece it back together while hanging upside down.
As we began with Plato, I knew very little, but in understanding mimesis and the third bed, a lot of things unfolded from their places. It made everything change and I could see how mimesis applied to almost everything. Still, I held resentment for Plato and still do. Women, aside from the muses, were not considered in his historical and theoretical viewpoint aside to say they were emotional and unstable. Moving through the semester, it was a breath of fresh air to see who would refute Plato, but also it is worth mentioning that in some ways, they could not refute him; that he was right about SOME things.
As we studied Freud, I felt apprehension. I had taken a singular psychology class and believe it or not—I did not like it in the slightest. One of my all-time favorite movies is “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and after reading Freud and applying psycho- analysis to that movie, my eyes widened. It was like I was being let in on a secret. This shocked me and brought me to a dream I had had a year before this lesson:
I was driving down a road near my childhood home. The road has been closed for about two decades because a man was killed there. The weeds have overgrown where his blood no doubt spilled out over the pavement. But I used to drive that road every day. In my dream, I was driving the road, fully knowing that it had been closed and I kept voicing my concern until it narrowed, and I had no choice but to continue. At one point, I parked and got out of the car, “do I keep going? Do I turn back?” But there was not enough room to turn back and then everything went dark: the woods around me wilted into winter.
Reading Freud made me reconsider this dream and what it meant or what it means. It felt like it was inscribed into my deep subcon- scious, a way for me to figure out what to do next and not knowing and how that makes me uneasy, even though I know that the feeling of unease is familiar because it’s a road I had taken many times before.
Going from Freud to Lacan was timely and I will admit that reading Jacques Lacan was absolutely the most difficult and simultaneously the most rewarding. Working as a model for several years, I truly think that identity gets wrapped in it and it changes perception—both self-perception and the perception of others. I realize it’s something I cannot control and therein I find a lot of frustration and agitation. Applying Mirror Theory to social media clicked and a door opened, and I felt like I had a better hold on this theory than I had about anything else we had explored. Most days I feel like an object—some caged thing suspended in time that exists for the consumption of others. And I am SCREAMING that I am a subject—that I have thoughts and desires and feelings and I’ve been heartbroken and I’ve been ecstatic and things hurt and things feel good, but it seems like no matter how loud I scream, I am still that object. And it is out of my control.
Building on this was Marx, who I had honestly given little to no thought before this class. Considering the timeline of events that are happening in the world, it seemed a bit too on the nose that we delved into Marx. Alienation of Labor is something that is very much happening, and I have seen it in myself. I have never worked harder in my life and never felt so detached from my work. I completely and totally blame this on the myth of the American Dream (but I’m corny and still love it).
I need to interject my own thoughts here. This class was not even slightly negative; it did not leave me pessimistic, but instead gave me a sense of hope and though I realize it might not be coming across in this writing, it is there, and it is alive.
The class progressed into different theories and theorists and yet, they continued to build on one another. Heng was also surprising. Lopez even more so. I even used their theories in my research writing class to talk about race relations within the United States. As we progressed into feminism, it was clear to see how intersectionality was of paramount importance. It was also apparent how so many groups of people had been oppressed throughout history and that was some- what depressing. Heng made me want to explore Medieval studies and understand the human condition even more.
The Alaska Native theories are ones that we did not get to explore, and I was kind of disappointed about this. Having grown up in Alaska, there is a visible and somewhat explicit discounting of the indigenous people here.
While reading “Imperialism, History, Writing and Theory,” I felt overwhelmed with sadness. I, too, have been under the impression of “heroes” and have been taught to regard the men who ravaged these lands as such. I find that to be no fault of my own, especially as I am putting in the labor to reverse it, but at first, I found myself defensive. As I read through the texts, however, imperialism and its impacts really messed with my head. Entire cultures had been wiped out, names and histories had been forgotten. When my grandmother came to the United States from Poland, she went to Michigan with a sign around her neck. There she became close with the people of the Odanah tribe and had claimed that if she ever won the lottery, she would give the money to the Odanah. I did not understand the connection when I was younger: why them? And she would simply reply with some gibberish about how her dad had to wear a cross. It was an erasure of his culture and his history, him hailing from a country that no longer exists. The Odanah were forced to settle on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior. Imperialism at work. What does it mean to be human when you have been dismissed as a savage? The Ashkenazi can identify with that.
Trauma is insidious. Afflictions that fester without acknowledg- ment. “The Way of the Human Being” was a heartbreaking account of the generational spiritual affliction. It was something I read with tears in my eyes. My older brother is an alcoholic. And not in a cute way. In the ugliest way of a very long and painful ending of his life. My grandpa was the same. We talk of this lightly, some genetic predisposition akin to handedness. On average, left-handed people live shorter lives than right-handed people. On average, alcoholics live shorter lives than non-alcoholics.
When reading about Napoleon and his hurt and how it had nowhere to go, I could see it in Anchorage. The generational hurt was all around and continues to be all around. Where does it go? I felt this deeply, so I consulted my mom (of course). When we talked it over, we made notice of something: Alaska was colonized by white people, missionaries who erased their cultures, people inflicting hurt under the name of God, and how upsetting all of it was to recognize. She is of black Irish descent, a girl from the north. Her father, the alcoholic, had dealt with much of the same as Napoleon, but the people were the same color as he was. That hurt looks different and feels different and is not comparable. But it was something that made my wheels turn once more: it must feel worse that people who do not look like you feel like they know you and can see you and inflict pain on you but do not provide you any solace.
And then, at the end of it all, I thought about my brother. His alcoholism and how it manifested. He has been hurt. Spiritually murdered. The ecological undertone of everything made sense and I recognized it in my own life. And THAT freaked me out.
Monster Theory applied to “The Way of the Human Being”; an alcoholic made out of spiritual affliction, of pain, of forcing change and assimilation while burning out everything else. And in that subconscious screams the agony of culture deeply written and yet pulled away from the magical writing pad by less thoughtful hands. It all makes sense. It all goes together. Where is the shaman when you need her?
This semester has taught me a lot, and yet I am still full of questions. More questions than answers. I want to learn more and do more and explore more, but I am admittedly exhausted and kind of want a long nap. I want to know more because the more I know, paradoxically, the less I know and it sends me on a journey of knowing and unknowing. It is kind of enjoyable and makes me laugh at the condition of being human and also the continuous condition of being a student of the world.
To my surprise, I did not miss a single class session this semester. Not one. In a lot of ways, this year has been shit. I could list them, but I might go over the page limit. But this class, my fellow students, and you, Dr. Kline, have been one of the many reasons this year has been incredible. Growth is rarely easy. It is usually uncomfortable and crowded, but then you look back and realize what was happening. I still have self-doubt and there are many things I do not know, but what I do know is this: Critical Theory, a class that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:00 PM for fifteen weeks in the middle of a pandemic, kept me from killing myself when the sun went south and my life seemed to evaporate before I even considered taking it. And this isn’t to say I’m suicidal, but that I deal with my own spiritual afflictions and deep-rooted hurt and I have spent a great deal of time running from it. Sometimes things catch up to you, but luckily, I was busy talking about theory with people who made me feel happier to be alive than any other option. Thank you.
Jasmine Alleva graduated in 2021 with a Baccalaureate in English. Selected by Daniel Kline.