John Akomfrah's The Nine Muses: A Reading with Glissant's "Relation" and Quantum Entanglement

Abstract:John Akomfrah's film The Nine Muses (2010, United Kingdom) deals with the theme of the journey across the great works of literature. In particular the film sets the works of the Western canon, from Homer's epic Odyssey to Joyce's Malloy, within the visual frame of archival footage dealing with the Windrush Generation, that is, Caribbean Black migration to England following World War II. In counterpoint to that set of visuals Akomfrah has created a futurist set of scenes set in Alaska, and the frozen northlands, to which the concept of exile from the tropical settings of the Caribbean or Africa might seem most extreme. This article will provide an analysis of the journey and exile motifs utilizing the framing of Glissant's notion of Relation, primarily, and secondarily the quantum concept of entanglement.