Substance Celebrates 50th Anniversary
I.M. Lithic reads Invocation: “FIFTY is Nifty”
SubStance Journal
A place for creative thinking
We invite theoretical interventions in a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields that stretch the norms of traditional academic scholarship
Featured Articles
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At the Beginning, There Was the Mask
Issue 160There is a long history to be told about the links between the economy of extractivism and exhaustion, between colonialism, race, capitalism, imperialism, and breathing, which could be summarized as the “struggle against suffocation and for life.”
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Journal Supplement: breathe
Issue 160breathe is a brief, prose-poetic essay in explicitly paragrammatic language art.
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Haïti Can’t Breathe
Issue 160I’m not particularly familiar with recent politics in Haiti. Nor, as it were, with the contemporary history of the country. In some sense, the difference between recent politics and contemporary history is rather delicate. History would be the most profound social, political, and economic points of contention behind the daily lives of a population under siege. Not simply those talked about while people travel in public transportation (Haitians talk a lot while in public transportation), but also the interpretive matrices mobilized to speak about these problems. As for current events, they are the province of newspaper headlines, those front pages and editorial pages most often read and shared, the public opinion machine.
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Be Strong, Breathe
Issue 160I feel hands thumping at my chest. A drum playing its score without respite. Like that boat that didn’t stop pitching like a mean and savage wind. Where am I?
Come on! You can do it. Be strong. Come on, breathe!
All my life I wanted to breathe, and now that they are urging me to, I simply wish to close my eyes. To stop this unholy pain in the hollow of my chest and to give in. It hurts so much.
“Hurry up, Nina.”
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Asthma: Strangling the Caged Bird (Something Like a Prayer)
Issue 160Asthma is an inflammation of the airways. But that word in a Black American life is an associative one. It is emergency room visits, “treatments,” and jackleg care. It is death’s door.
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The Problem with Breath
Issue 160On day 1, when my comrades and I talked about it, we couldn’t quite figure out how it happened. It just seemed as though we had suddenly been incited not to communicate or enact our love for each other. This time, no policy had been formulated, no law had been issued. It was harder than usual to locate where, to which parts of the apparatus, we should direct our attention.
On day 2, we were at a loss.