VOCABULARY FOR AN UNTHINKABLE GRAMMAR: SHARON DODUA OTOO'S SYNCHRONICITY

Abstract

This article examines the eponymous notion of ‘synchronicity’ in Sharon Dodua Otoo's novella, Synchronicity: the original story. Drawing on Denise Ferreira da Silva's notion of Black Feminist ‘poethics’, I argue that ‘synchronicity’ might serve as a ‘guide’ for the imagination that also expands significant critiques of (post)-Enlightenment notions of temporality (e.g. those by Michelle M. Wright, Rei Terada and Christina Sharpe). It does so, I argue, by exposing the significance of temporality and the related notion of causality for racial constructions of the subject. The blending of temporalities and senses in Synchronicity de-centre the persistent Enlightenment construction of the subject as a causal agent, showing instead the dependence of existence on intricate cycles of loss and gain. To illustrate this, I offer a close reading of Synchronicity alongside analysis of its implicit critique of Enlightenment notions of being and thought. The novella, I argue, offers not only much-needed vocabulary for the contemporary moment and the synchronous vestiges of ‘past’ violence within it but also challenges the ‘modern political grammar’ (Silva) through which racial subjects emerge.