On Everything

Issue 7.1

Letter from the Editor

27 March 2023

The Process Editorial Board is pleased to welcome new and returning readers to Issue 7.1, On Everything. As the world has continued to open up in the wake of new breakthroughs in anti-Covid measures, we wanted to likewise open the journal to the themes and work that have resonated most with our contributors in this rapidly changing time. In these selections, you’ll see how our contributors explore the consequences of marginalization, highlight the struggles and joys of Black experience in the US and UK, consider and navigate neurodiversity at university, and investigate art that explores the conjunction of disability and aesthetics.

In “Race and its Impact in Wuthering Heights: from Page to Screen,” AnnaKate Burleson rereads Emily Brontë’s classic through the lens of its 2011 film adaptation by Andrea Arnold. Burleson finds that Arnold’s Black Heathcliff expands on the suggestions of his racialized status in the novel, arguing that reading Heathcliff as a man of color can deepen our understanding of Wuthering Heights. KC Caniff, in “Synesthesia: How Neurodivergence Can Help Inform More Inclusive Pedagogical Practices,” explores possibilities for new classroom practices that offer support to students with synesthesia. She finds that pedagogical approaches designed for synesthetes can help all students think more creatively, demonstrating that inclusive teaching is beneficial for the whole classroom. H. Steven Savage’s poem, “America’s Promise,” calls the American Dream into question, asking just who the nation’s “promise” really benefits. With a strong focus on the ways in which America has failed Black people, the poem ultimately calls for action against, and not just discussion of, the injustices that plague the country. Similarly inspired by violence against Black people in the United States, Maya Walker’s letter “To the Tree, a Fellow Subject of Sympathy” deftly compares the Black Lives Matter movement with the environmental movement of the 1970’s. Writing to a California Redwood, Walker calls attention to the ways in which the American public has promised to protect both the trees and Black people, only to forget to follow through. Finally, in “Balancing Her Beauty: Mari Katayama’s Self-Representations,” Jinxue Wu examines Katayama’s self-portraits, focusing in particular on you’re mine #001 and I Have Child’s Feet. Reading both of Katayama’s photographs in conversation with depictions of Venus from the art historical canon, Wu highlights the ways in which Katayama uses images of her own disabled body to challenge traditional aesthetics of beauty and the erotic.

Each of these pieces is, in its own way, a call for change. Together, they show not only the breadth of ideas that have characterized undergraduate work in recent months, but also ways forward in pursuit of better worlds. We hope that they will spark reflection and conversation, and we invite you to read the call for papers for our next issue, On Occupation. We look forward to your submissions!

Sincerely,

The Process Editors

Race and its Impact in Wuthering Heights: from Page to Screen

AnnaKate Burleson

In this essay, AnnaKate Burleson rereads Emily Brontë’s classic through the lens of its 2011 film adaptation by Andrea Arnold. Burleson finds that Arnold’s Black Heathcliff expands on the suggestions of his racialized status in the novel, arguing that reading Heathcliff as a man of color can deepen our understanding of Wuthering Heights.

Keywords: Romanticism, interracial relationships, racism, film