August 17, 2025 - English Studies

“Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal: A Critical Analysis

“Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal first appeared in 1964 in her debut poetry collection We Are Going.

Introduction: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

“Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal first appeared in 1964 in her debut poetry collection We Are Going. The poem reflects the deep cultural loss experienced by Aboriginal people through colonisation and urbanisation, contrasting the freedom, joy, and communal connection of traditional life with the alienation, materialism, and regimentation of modern city living. Drawing on vivid contrasts between past and present — such as the “didgeridoo” and “woomera” replaced by “neon lights” and “traffic” — the poem mourns the erasure of Indigenous traditions, language, and landscapes. Its popularity stems from its emotional honesty, accessible language, and powerful imagery, which made Aboriginal experiences visible to a broad Australian audience at a time when such voices were marginalised. By merging personal nostalgia with cultural critique, Noonuccal captures both the resilience and the grief of a people whose way of life has been irreversibly changed.

Text: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

In my dreams I hear my tribe
Laughing as they hunt and swim,
But dreams are shattered by rushing car,
By grinding tram and hissing train,
As I see no more my tribe of old
As I walk alone in the teeming town.

I have seen corroboree
Where that factory belches smoke;
Here where they have memorial park
One time lubras dug for yams;
One time our children played
There where the railway yards are now,
And where I remember the didgeridoo
Calling to us to dance and play,
Offices now, neon lights now,
Bank and shop and advertisement now,
Traffic and trade of the busy town.

No more woomera, no more boomerang,
No more playabout, no more the old ways.
Children of nature we were then.
No clocks hurrying crowds to toil.
Now I am civilized and work in the white way,
Now I have dress, now I have shoes:
‘Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!’
Better when I had only a dillybag.
Better when I had nothing but happiness.

Annotations: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Line	Simple Meaning	Literary Devices
In my dreams I hear my tribe	The speaker dreams of hearing her community’s joyful sounds.	Imagery 🎨, Nostalgia 💭
Laughing as they hunt and swim	The tribe is happy and active in traditional life.	Imagery 🎨, Positive Tone 🌞
But dreams are shattered by rushing car,	Modern life interrupts her dreams with cars.	Juxtaposition ⚖️, Onomatopoeia 🔊
By grinding tram and hissing train,	The noise of urban transport replaces natural sounds.	Onomatopoeia 🔊, Imagery 🎨
As I see no more my tribe of old	She no longer sees her community as it was.	Contrast ⚖️, Nostalgia 💭
As I walk alone in the teeming town.	She is isolated in the crowded city.	Alliteration ✨, Imagery 🎨
I have seen corroboree	She has seen traditional dances and ceremonies.	Cultural Reference 🪶, Imagery 🎨
Where that factory belches smoke;	A factory now stands where traditions once occurred.	Personification 🗣️, Imagery 🎨
Here where they have memorial park	A park now stands in a place once used traditionally.	Contrast ⚖️
One time lubras dug for yams;	Aboriginal women once gathered food here.	Historical Reference 📜, Imagery 🎨
One time our children played	Children once played freely in nature.	Nostalgia 💭, Imagery 🎨
There where the railway yards are now,	A railway has replaced the old play areas.	Contrast ⚖️, Imagery 🎨
And where I remember the didgeridoo	She recalls hearing a traditional musical instrument.	Cultural Symbol 🪘, Imagery 🎨
Calling to us to dance and play,	The instrument invited the community to gather and celebrate.	Personification 🗣️, Imagery 🎨
Offices now, neon lights now,	Modern infrastructure replaces traditional spaces.	Repetition 🔁, Imagery 🎨
Bank and shop and advertisement now,	Commercial areas have replaced nature and culture.	Listing 📋, Contrast ⚖️
Traffic and trade of the busy town.	The town is full of business and transport.	Alliteration ✨, Imagery 🎨
No more woomera, no more boomerang,	Traditional tools are no longer used.	Repetition 🔁, Cultural Symbol 🪶
No more playabout, no more the old ways.	Traditional lifestyles and customs are gone.	Repetition 🔁, Nostalgia 💭
Children of nature we were then.	They once lived in harmony with nature.	Metaphor 🌿, Nostalgia 💭
No clocks hurrying crowds to toil.	They had no time pressure in the past.	Personification 🗣️, Contrast ⚖️
Now I am civilized and work in the white way,	She works under Western systems now.	Irony 😏, Contrast ⚖️
Now I have dress, now I have shoes:	She has adopted Western clothing.	Repetition 🔁, Symbolism 🪶
‘Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!’	Others see her new life as fortunate.	Irony 😏, Direct Speech 🗨️
Better when I had only a dillybag.	She feels life was better with only a traditional bag.	Symbolism 🪶, Nostalgia 💭
Better when I had nothing but happiness.	She believes the old life was happier despite having less.	Contrast ⚖️, Hyperbole 💥

Literary And Poetic Devices: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Device	Example from Poem	Explanation
Alliteration ✨	“teeming town”, “traffic and trade”	Repetition of initial consonant sounds to create rhythm and draw attention to certain images or ideas.
Cultural Reference 🪶	“corroboree”	Direct mention of a traditional Aboriginal ceremony, grounding the poem in cultural identity.
Contrast ⚖️	“Children of nature we were then. / Now I am civilized and work in the white way”	Shows stark differences between traditional and modern life, highlighting cultural loss.
Cultural Symbol 🪘	“didgeridoo”, “woomera”, “boomerang”	Objects representing Aboriginal heritage and traditions, evoking identity and belonging.
Direct Speech 🗨️	“‘Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!'”	Quoted speech from an external voice, showing societal attitudes and irony.
Historical Reference 📜	“One time lubras dug for yams”	Refers to traditional food-gathering practices of Aboriginal women before colonisation.
Hyperbole 💥	“Better when I had nothing but happiness”	Exaggeration to stress that emotional well-being outweighed material possessions.
Imagery 🎨	“grinding tram and hissing train”, “neon lights now”	Vivid sensory descriptions that make the contrast between past and present tangible.
Irony 😏	“Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!”	The “luck” is viewed sarcastically, as the job comes at the cost of cultural loss.
Juxtaposition ⚖️	“dreams are shattered by rushing car”	Placing opposing elements side by side — peaceful dreams versus harsh urban noise — to highlight change.
Listing 📋	“Bank and shop and advertisement now”	Enumerating modern intrusions, emphasizing the overwhelming transformation.
Metaphor 🌿	“Children of nature we were then”	Compares Aboriginal people to “children of nature” to show their close bond with the land.
Nostalgia 💭	“Better when I had only a dillybag”	Expresses longing for the simplicity and joy of the past.
Onomatopoeia 🔊	“hissing train”, “grinding tram”	Words that imitate sounds, making the urban intrusion more vivid.
Personification 🗣️	“that factory belches smoke”	Gives human qualities to a factory, making industrialisation seem aggressive.
Positive Tone 🌞	“Laughing as they hunt and swim”	Joyful tone reflecting the happiness of traditional life.
Repetition 🔁	“No more woomera, no more boomerang”	Repeating phrases for emphasis, reinforcing the sense of cultural erasure.
Sensory Detail 👂	“Calling to us to dance and play”	Appeals to hearing, allowing readers to imagine the didgeridoo’s sound.
Symbolism 🪶	“dillybag”	Represents Aboriginal culture and self-sufficiency, contrasting with modern possessions.
Tone Shift 🎭	From joyful memories (“Laughing as they hunt and swim”) to resignation (“Now I am civilized and work in the white way”)	Change in tone from nostalgia to loss, mirroring the emotional journey of the speaker.

Themes: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

🌿 Connection to Nature and Traditional Life: In “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the poet evokes a deep sense of harmony with the natural world and Indigenous traditions, portraying a lifestyle in which people lived as “children of nature” without “clocks hurrying crowds to toil.” This connection is shown through sensory-rich memories of hunting, swimming, and communal gatherings, as in “Laughing as they hunt and swim” and “the didgeridoo calling to us to dance and play.” These images, combined with references to traditional tools like the “woomera” and “boomerang”, establish a world where life was guided by seasons and culture rather than economic systems. By contrasting this life with her present, Noonuccal mourns the loss of not only natural surroundings but also the values and rhythms embedded within them.

⚖️ Cultural Displacement and Loss: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal vividly depicts the displacement of Aboriginal culture under the forces of colonisation and urbanisation, where spaces once used for communal living are transformed beyond recognition. The poet laments how “One time lubras dug for yams” in the very spot where “the railway yards are now”, symbolising a profound shift from self-sustaining cultural practices to industrial domination. Factories “belching smoke” stand where corroborees once gathered the community, and neon lights have replaced the warmth of fires. Through repetition — “No more woomera, no more boomerang” — the poet reinforces the eradication of cultural symbols, underscoring that displacement is not merely physical but an erasure of language, art, and identity.

😏 Irony of Civilisation: In “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the poet critiques the so-called “progress” of Western civilisation, using irony to reveal the cost of this transformation. While others remark approvingly, “Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!”, the speaker counters with the belief that life was “better when I had only a dillybag”. This ironic juxtaposition highlights how societal definitions of success — wearing a dress, owning shoes, and working in the “white way” — are hollow when they replace cultural fulfillment with economic labor. The modern world’s markers of “civilisation” are shown not as gains, but as losses disguised as benefits, as material possessions have supplanted what she calls “nothing but happiness.”

💭 Nostalgia and Memory as Resistance: “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal is deeply anchored in nostalgia, where memory serves as both a personal refuge and an act of cultural preservation. Even as she walks “alone in the teeming town”, her mind returns to the days when she was surrounded by her tribe, “laughing as they hunt and swim”. The contrast between dreams — vibrant, communal, rooted in tradition — and waking reality — filled with “traffic and trade of the busy town” — intensifies her longing for a time before disruption. This persistent return to the past is more than longing; it is a subtle form of resistance, asserting that the old ways hold enduring value despite the dominance of the present.

Literary Theories and “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Literary Theory	References from the Poem	Explanation
Postcolonial Theory 🌏	“One time lubras dug for yams”, “No more woomera, no more boomerang”	Examines the impact of colonisation, showing how Indigenous practices, tools, and spaces have been replaced by Western industrial and commercial structures. Highlights cultural erasure and identity loss.
Marxist Theory 💰	“Now I am civilized and work in the white way”, “Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!”	Analyses class structures and economic power; critiques how capitalist labor systems replace communal living with wage work, framing material possessions as progress despite emotional loss.
Eco-Criticism 🌿	“Children of nature we were then”, “Better when I had only a dillybag”	Focuses on the relationship between humans and nature; the poem contrasts sustainable traditional lifestyles with the environmental and spiritual costs of industrialisation.
Feminist Theory 👩	“One time lubras dug for yams”, “Now I have dress, now I have shoes”	Highlights Indigenous women’s roles in traditional life versus their assimilation into Western gender norms; explores how colonialism reshaped female identity and labor.

Critical Questions about “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

🌏 How does the poem reflect the lasting impact of colonisation on Aboriginal identity?

In “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, colonisation’s impact is not simply implied but vividly rendered through spatial transformation and cultural erasure, as the speaker recalls “One time lubras dug for yams” in places now occupied by “railway yards”. This replacement of traditional spaces with industrial infrastructure symbolises the systematic displacement of Aboriginal culture, while the repeated refrain “No more woomera, no more boomerang” underscores the complete disappearance of material and symbolic cultural artefacts. By juxtaposing these losses against her own assimilation into “the white way”, the poet reveals how colonisation infiltrates identity, reshaping self-perception while erasing historical continuity.

💰 In what ways does the poem critique capitalist definitions of success?

“Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal exposes the hollowness of capitalist progress by presenting the speaker’s modern life — “Now I have dress, now I have shoes” — as an external marker of achievement contrasted with her heartfelt belief that it was “Better when I had only a dillybag.” The sarcastic echo of societal approval in “Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!” highlights how economic productivity is prized over cultural heritage and emotional well-being. This critique implies that capitalist measures of success often mask deeper losses, replacing collective joy and connection with individual labour and material acquisition.

🌿 What role does the natural environment play in shaping the poem’s emotional tone?

In “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the natural environment functions as both a setting and a source of emotional resonance, with pastoral images such as “laughing as they hunt and swim” evoking joy, community, and freedom. These idyllic memories, tied to land and tradition, stand in stark opposition to the sensory overload of the modern world — “grinding tram and hissing train” — where industrial noise replaces the sounds of nature. By drawing this sharp contrast, the poem uses environmental imagery to generate a tone of mourning, positioning the loss of the natural world as inseparable from the loss of cultural identity.

👩 How does the poem address changes in the roles and identities of Aboriginal women?

“Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal subtly comments on the shifting roles of Aboriginal women by contrasting the communal and resourceful labour of “lubras dug for yams” with the Westernised identity of the speaker, now “civilized” and dressed according to European norms. This transition reflects not only a change in lifestyle but a redefinition of worth, where practical cultural contributions are overshadowed by the appearance of conformity. The adoption of Western dress and the loss of traditional tasks suggest an imposed standard of femininity, illustrating how colonial assimilation reshaped gender roles alongside cultural displacement.

Literary Works Similar to “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

“We Are Going” – Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Shares the same postcolonial and cultural loss themes, using repetition and stark contrasts to depict Aboriginal displacement, much like “Then and Now”.

🌿 “Municipal Gum” – Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Uses symbolism of a chained gum tree to reflect alienation from the natural environment, paralleling the environmental and spiritual displacement in “Then and Now”.

💭 “The Past” – Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Blends nostalgia with cultural memory, much like “Then and Now”, showing the persistence of Indigenous heritage despite modernisation.

😏 “Aboriginal Charter of Rights” – Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Uses a strong, assertive voice to address inequality and colonial oppression, aligning with the critical tone of “Then and Now” in confronting societal injustice.

Representative Quotations of “Then and Now” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Quotation	Context	Explanation with Theoretical Perspective
“In my dreams I hear my tribe” 🗨️	Opening memory of cultural connection.	Postcolonial Theory 🌏 – Highlights the centrality of Indigenous community in identity, framing the dream as resistance to colonial erasure.
“Laughing as they hunt and swim” 🌞	Depicts joyful traditional life.	Eco-Criticism 🌿 – Connects joy and freedom to a harmonious relationship with nature.
“Dreams are shattered by rushing car” 🔊	Modern sounds interrupt her memories.	Postcolonial Theory 🌏 – Symbolises colonial intrusion disrupting cultural continuity.
“One time lubras dug for yams” 📜	Refers to women’s traditional food gathering.	Feminist Theory 👩 – Reflects Aboriginal women’s agency in pre-colonial society, later undermined by Western norms.
“Where that factory belches smoke” 🗣️	Industrialisation replaces traditional spaces.	Eco-Criticism 🌿 – Personifies environmental degradation, critiquing industrial encroachment on sacred land.
“No more woomera, no more boomerang” 🪘	Lists lost cultural tools.	Postcolonial Theory 🌏 – Shows material symbols of cultural heritage erased by colonisation.
“Children of nature we were then” 🌿	Describes life before colonisation.	Eco-Criticism 🌿 – Frames traditional Aboriginal identity as inseparable from the natural world.
“Now I am civilized and work in the white way” 😏	Speaks ironically about assimilation.	Marxist Theory 💰 – Critiques the capitalist and colonial framing of “civilisation” as economic participation.
“Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!” 🗨️	A voice from outside praises her assimilation.	Marxist Theory 💰 – Ironically shows capitalist labour as falsely equated with progress.
“Better when I had nothing but happiness” 💭	Concludes with longing for a simpler past.	Postcolonial Theory 🌏 – Rejects materialist measures of success, valuing cultural and emotional richness instead.

“Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter: Summary and Critique

“Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter first appeared in CR: The New Centennial Review in 2010, published by Michigan State University Press.

Introduction: “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter

“Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter first appeared in CR: The New Centennial Review in 2010, published by Michigan State University Press. In this pivotal essay, Vatter rethinks Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower in the context of philosophical traditions that conceive of life as eternal, particularly drawing from the works of Aristotle, Spinoza, and Heidegger. Vatter critically engages with thinkers like Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito, who frame biopolitics as inevitably leading toward thanatopolitics—a politics of death—and instead posits that a genuinely affirmative biopolitics depends on re-conceiving life not as finite biological existence (zoē), but as contemplative and eternal (zoē aionios). Through a detailed analysis of Spinoza’s metaphysics, Vatter suggests that eternal life is not a transcendent afterlife but the immanent force by which each being perseveres in its being—its conatus—in alignment with divine immanence. This notion provides a political and philosophical counterpoint to biopolitics as domination, grounding resistance in a vision of life as inherently ethical and contemplative. The essay’s importance in literary and political theory lies in how it bridges theology, metaphysics, and post-structuralist biopolitics, challenging the dominant narrative of sovereign power over life with a Spinozist model of providential vitality (Vatter, 2010, pp. 217–249).

Summary of “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter

Thanatopolitics, Biopower, and Contemplative Life
- The article introduces Foucault’s concept of biopower to explain thanatopolitics, the mass slaughter in the name of life, and critiques interpretations by Agamben and Esposito that link biopower to sovereignty or external power over life.
- Hypothesis: Biopolitics turns into thanatopolitics when life (zoë) is separated from form (bios), producing a life destined to die; affirmative biopower requires eternal life (zoë aionios) as contemplative or philosophical.
- Links to Benjamin’s ideas on guilt in natural life and redemption through eternal life beyond myth and morality.
- “Foucault introduced the concept of biopower to explain how something like ‘thanatopolitics,’ the mobilization of entire populations ‘for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity,’ became the norm in the twentieth century (1990, 137).”
- “Eternal life is a theme that traverses both Western philosophical and religious traditions… philosophy becomes truly political when it provides a conception of life (zoë) that is immediately theoretical or contemplative.”
Spinoza and Providential Life
- Spinoza conceives life as eternal through conatus (effort to persevere in being), linking finite things to God’s infinite life; distinguishes abstract existence (dependent on others) from the “very nature of existence” tied to God’s essence.
- God’s life is power (potentia Dei), providential in general (sustaining all as parts of nature) and particular (favoring virtuous beings that cultivate power).
- Eternal life felt in the mind as the idea of the body under eternity, leading to intellectual love of God and blessedness.
- “By life we for our part understand the force through which things persevere in their own being… those speak best who call God ‘life'” (Spinoza 2002, Metaphysical Thoughts, 197).
- “The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed along with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 23).
- “Salvation or blessedness or freedom consists in the constant and eternal love toward God, that is, in God’s love toward men” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36, scholium).
Heidegger and the Deconstruction of Existential Life
- Heidegger separates animal life (poor in world, driven by captivation) from human existence (being-towards-death); organs serve organism’s drive for self-preservation.
- Franck and Derrida deconstruct this: Anxiety and being-towards-death reveal life’s priority over existence, with death as possibility of impossibility, folding existence back to eternal life.
- Suggests pathways from Heidegger to Spinoza, where life escapes duration and is incarnate without Being or time.
- “Capacity is only to be found where there is drive” (Heidegger 1995, sec. 54, 228).
- “Death is also for Dasein… the possibility of an impossibility” (Derrida 1993, 68, citing Heidegger 1986, sec. 53).
- “Resoluteness being motivated by the drive, we must stop understanding ourselves as Dasein and temporality and think ourselves as living, driven flesh” (Franck 1991, 145).

Feeling of Eternity
- Agamben interprets Aristotelian potentiality as capacity for impotentiality (not-to-act), preserving itself in actuality; links to feeling (presentient self-reflexivity) in flesh as transcendental perception.
- Eternal life in reproduction and metabolism imitates divine being; Deleuze’s immanence as “a life” (virtual, impersonal) fuses biological and contemplative life.
- Undermines hierarchies: Nutritive life (metabolism) coincides with conatus, eternalizing finite beings.
- “To be potential means: to be one’s own lack, to be in relation to one’s own incapacity” (Agamben 1999, 182).
- “It is the most natural function in living things… to produce another thing like themselves… in order that they may partake of the everlasting and divine in so far as they can” (Aristotle, De Anima 415a27-b1).
- “Immanent life is ‘pure contemplation without knowledge'” (Deleuze, cited in Agamben 1999, 233).
Glory, or the Metabolism of God
- Metabolism as divine nourishment: Glorification feeds God’s life, which sustains all; in Spinoza, intellectual love immanentizes God, turning philosophy into God’s Sabbath.
- Acquiescientia in se ipso (rest in oneself) as reflexive action where agent and patient indistinguish; politics of eternal life renders bios inoperable, coinciding with zoë in livability.
- Critiques Aristotelian limits; suggests true society metabolizes God/Nature without end.
- “The mind’s intellectual love toward God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36).
- “Life, which contemplates its (proper) power to act makes itself inoperosa [unworkable] in all of its actions, it lives only (its) vivibilità [livability]” (Agamben 2007, 274).
- “Society is therefore the perfected unity in essence of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature” (Marx 1975, 350).

Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter

Term / Concept	Definition, Usage, Quotation(s), and Explanation
Biopower 🌱 (Green)	Definition: Power over life, managing populations through techniques that optimize biological existence. Present Usage: Frames Foucault’s explanation of thanatopolitics, contrasted with an affirmative power of eternal life resisting death-dealing tendencies. Quotation: “Foucault introduced the concept of biopower to explain how something like ‘thanatopolitics,’ the mobilization of entire populations ‘for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity,’ became the norm in the twentieth century” (Foucault 1990, The History of Sexuality: Vol. I, 137, cited in Vatter, 217). Explanation: Biopower is critiqued for enabling thanatopolitics when externally controlling life. Vatter proposes an affirmative biopower rooted in Spinoza’s eternal life, emphasizing life’s immanent power.
Thanatopolitics 💀 (Red)	Definition: Politics mobilizing populations toward mass death, justified by life’s necessity. Present Usage: Describes the negative outcome of biopolitics when zoë is separated from bios, leading to a life destined to die, countered by eternal life. Quotation: “If biopolitics can be transformed into thanatopolitics, this may derive from the fact that the life here produced, namely, a zoë entirely separate from a bios, is a life destined to die” (Vatter, 218). Explanation: Thanatopolitics highlights biopower’s destructive potential. Vatter uses Agamben and Esposito to argue that eternal life resists this by affirming zoë’s contemplative nature.
Zoë 🌀 (Blue)	Definition: Bare, biological life, distinct from bios, the qualified life of political or social existence. Present Usage: When separated from bios, zoë fuels thanatopolitics; Vatter reinterprets it as contemplative and eternal, resisting reduction to mere biology. Quotation: “In both Agamben and Esposito, therefore, the power over life has its source outside of life… a zoë entirely separate from a bios, is a life destined to die” (Vatter, 218). Explanation: Zoë is central to biopolitical debates. Vatter aligns it with Spinoza’s conatus, proposing a philosophical zoë that is eternal and contemplative, countering its devaluation.
Bios 🏛️ (Gold)	Definition: Qualified, political, or social form of life, shaped by culture or governance. Present Usage: Serves zoë’s perseverance in Spinoza’s ethics, shaping a divine, eternal life through virtue, not dominating zoë. Quotation: “Spinoza’s ‘ethics’ is entirely dedicated to the proposition that life (zoë) does not persevere because it receives a form, a determination by the activity of its faculties (bios), but to the contrary, its form or determination serves the end of maintaining a life (zoë) that perseveres in an absolute fashion” (Vatter, 225). Explanation: Bios is reframed as supporting zoë’s eternal striving, not as a separate or superior entity, emphasizing a philosophical life aligned with divine immanence.
Eternal Life ✨ (Zoë Aionios, Purple)	Definition: Life not destined to die, transcending fate, conceived as contemplative and immanent. Present Usage: Core to Vatter’s affirmative biopower, linking Spinoza’s conatus and Aristotle’s contemplative life to resist thanatopolitics. Quotation: “My hypothesis is that an affirmative conception of the power of life requires conceiving of life as eternal, a zoë aionios that is not destined to die, that stands over mythical fate itself” (Vatter, 218). Explanation: Eternal life is Vatter’s solution to thanatopolitics, integrating philosophy and politics through a contemplative zoë that immanentizes God’s life, drawing on Spinoza and Benjamin.
Conatus ⚡ (Orange)	Definition: The effort of all things to persevere in their being, linking finite beings to God’s eternal life. Present Usage: Spinoza’s mechanism for eternal life, where conatus reflects God’s immanent life, enabling finite things to persist eternally. Quotation: “By life we for our part understand the force through which things persevere in their own being… those speak best who call God ‘life'” (Spinoza 2002, Metaphysical Thoughts, 197, cited in Vatter, 223). Explanation: Conatus connects finite and infinite, making life eternal by tying it to God’s essence. It underpins Vatter’s vision of an affirmative biopower resisting external destruction.
Providence 🕊️ (White)	Definition: God’s immanent sustaining of all things (general) and favoring of virtuous beings (particular). Present Usage: Describes life’s dependence on God’s eternal life; philosophy becomes political by aligning human striving with divine favor. Quotation: “Spinoza defines the second true attribute of God… as consisting in ‘his Providence, which to us is nothing else than the striving which we find in the whole of Nature and in individual things to maintain and preserve their own existence'” (Spinoza 2002, Short Treatise, ch. 5, cited in Vatter, 224). Explanation: Providence redefines politics as cultivating life’s power, aligning human conatus with divine immanence, making philosophical life a form of divine service.
Being-Towards-Death ⚰️ (Black)	Definition: Heidegger’s concept where human existence (Dasein) is defined by awareness of mortality. Present Usage: Critiqued via Derrida and Franck to show life’s priority over existence, folding back into eternal life through deconstruction. Quotation: “Death is also for Dasein… the possibility of an impossibility” (Derrida 1993, Aporias, 68, citing Heidegger 1986, Sein und Zeit, sec. 53, cited in Vatter, 231). Explanation: Being-towards-death is challenged to reveal life’s eternal dimension, where dying connects to an immanent, contemplative life, bridging Heidegger to Spinoza.
Immanence 🌌 (Teal)	Definition: The state where all things exist within God, without transcendence, as univocal being. Present Usage: Deleuze and Spinoza’s framework for eternal life, where zoë is contemplative, resisting separation from bios. Quotation: “Immanent life is ‘pure contemplation without knowledge’… marks the radical impossibility of establishing hierarchies and separations” (Agamben 1999, 233, cited in Vatter, 239). Explanation: Immanence enables a philosophical life where God and things coexist, supporting Vatter’s eternal life as a counter to thanatopolitical hierarchies.
Glory 👑 (Silver)	Definition: Mutual nourishment between God and humanity via intellectual love, redefining sovereignty. Present Usage: Spinoza’s intellectual love immanentizes God, linking metabolism and contemplation as a political act of glorification. Quotation: “The mind’s intellectual love toward God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36, cited in Vatter, 243). Explanation: Glory transforms sovereignty into a reciprocal relationship where philosophical life nourishes God’s life, making politics a contemplative act of eternal life.

Contribution of “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter to Literary Theory/Theories

Biopolitical Theory 🌱
- Contribution: Vatter reinterprets Foucault’s biopower, proposing an affirmative conception rooted in eternal life to counter thanatopolitics, challenging Agamben and Esposito’s views of biopower as externally controlling life.Quotation and Citation: “Foucault introduced the concept of biopower to explain how something like ‘thanatopolitics,’ the mobilization of entire populations ‘for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity,’ became the norm in the twentieth century” (Foucault 1990, The History of Sexuality: Vol. I, 137, cited in Vatter, 217). “My hypothesis is that an affirmative conception of the power of life requires conceiving of life as eternal, a zoë aionios that is not destined to die” (Vatter, 218).
- Explanation: Vatter’s affirmative biopower, grounded in Spinoza’s eternal life, shifts biopolitical theory from death-driven politics to a life-affirming framework. This impacts literary analyses of power and governance in texts, such as dystopian or political narratives, by emphasizing life’s immanent potential over sovereign control, offering a lens for reading resistance to oppressive structures.
Poststructuralism 🌀
- Contribution: Vatter employs Derrida and Franck to deconstruct Heidegger’s being-towards-death, folding existence into eternal life and challenging binaries like life/existence and zoë/bios, aligning with Deleuze’s immanence.Quotation and Citation: “Death is also for Dasein… the possibility of an impossibility” (Derrida 1993, Aporias, 68, citing Heidegger 1986, Sein und Zeit, sec. 53, cited in Vatter, 231). “Resoluteness being motivated by the drive, we must stop understanding ourselves as Dasein and temporality and think ourselves as living, driven flesh” (Franck 1991, Being and the Living, 145, cited in Vatter, 229).
- Explanation: By undermining Heidegger’s existential priority, Vatter’s poststructuralist approach enriches literary theory for analyzing texts with fluid boundaries between life and death, such as gothic or spectral narratives. It emphasizes immanence and destabilized identities, aligning with poststructuralist readings of ambiguity and multiplicity in literature.
Spinozist Philosophy ⚡ (Orange)
- Contribution: Vatter uses Spinoza’s conatus, providence, and intellectual love to frame a philosophical life that is eternal and political, redefining bios as serving zoë’s perseverance.
- Quotation and Citation: “By life we for our part understand the force through which things persevere in their own being… those speak best who call God ‘life’” (Spinoza 2002, Metaphysical Thoughts, 197, cited in Vatter, 223). “The mind’s intellectual love toward God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36, cited in Vatter, 243).
- Explanation: Vatter’s Spinozist lens offers literary theory a framework for interpreting texts exploring human striving, divine immanence, or ethical life, such as philosophical novels or allegories. It highlights life’s eternal persistence, providing a new perspective on narratives of redemption or resilience against temporal constraints.

Phenomenology ⚰️
- Contribution: Vatter reinterprets Heidegger’s phenomenology via Franck’s focus on flesh and drive, prioritizing life’s eternal dimension over existence, enhancing phenomenological readings of embodiment in literature.Quotation and Citation: “Capacity is only to be found where there is drive” (Heidegger 1995, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, sec. 54, 228, cited in Vatter, 228). “Resoluteness being motivated by the drive, we must stop understanding ourselves as Dasein and temporality and think ourselves as living, driven flesh” (Franck 1991, Being and the Living, 145, cited in Vatter, 229).
- Explanation: Vatter’s phenomenological contribution challenges existentialist separations, offering literary theory a way to analyze texts centered on embodiment or mortality, such as modernist works exploring lived experience. It emphasizes life’s immanent drive, enriching readings of physicality and persistence in narrative contexts.

Deleuzian Immanence 🌌
- Contribution: Vatter adopts Deleuze’s immanence to fuse biological and contemplative life, dissolving hierarchies between zoë and bios, providing a lens for virtual, impersonal life in literary analysis.Quotation and Citation: “Immanent life is ‘pure contemplation without knowledge’… marks the radical impossibility of establishing hierarchies and separations” (Agamben 1999, Potentialities, 233, citing Deleuze, cited in Vatter, 239). “Deleuze illustrates this mortal yet eternal life, a virtual life, by referring to the description found in a novel by Dickens” (Agamben 1999, Potentialities, 229, cited in Vatter, 237).
- Explanation: Vatter’s Deleuzian approach enables literary theory to explore texts where life transcends individual subjectivity, such as postmodern or experimental narratives. It supports readings of transformation and becoming, emphasizing life as a virtual force that resists fixed categories, enhancing analyses of fluid identities or collective experiences.

Political Theology 👑
- Contribution: Vatter redefines glory as mutual nourishment between God and humanity, transforming sovereignty into an immanent, philosophical life, enriching analyses of divine-human relations in literature.Quotation and Citation: “The mind’s intellectual love toward God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36, cited in Vatter, 243). “By feeding the gods through their glorification, people are in reality nourishing themselves from the glory of the gods” (Agamben 2007, Il Regno e la Gloria, 250, cited in Vatter, 245).
- Explanation: Vatter’s political theology reimagines sovereignty as reciprocal, impacting literary readings of texts with theological or communal themes, such as epics or religious allegories. It offers a framework for analyzing divine-human interdependence, emphasizing eternal life’s role in reshaping power dynamics in narrative contexts.

Examples of Critiques Through “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter

🔍 Literary Work	⚖️ Biopolitical Lens (Control/Power) · ♾️ Eternal Life (zoē aionios) · 🔥 Resistance & Ethical Vitality · 🧠 Philosophical Alignment
*1. The Ministry of Time* by Kaliane Bradley (2024)**	Biopolitical Lens: 🕰️ Government controls time-traveling detainees, extending biopower through temporality. Eternal Life: 🔄 Time-displacement evokes zoē aionios—life beyond chronological limits. Resistance & Vitality: 🧬 Emotional entanglement (love, intimacy) acts as defiance, transcending temporal control. Philosophical Alignment: 🔁 Resonates with Spinoza’s immanence against the state’s authority over time.
*2. James* by Percival Everett (2024)**	Biopolitical Lens: 🪶 Revisits Huckleberry Finn from the enslaved perspective—biopolitical regulation of race, status, and speech. Eternal Life: ✊ Reclaims agency as eternal human dignity, irreducible to legality or ownership. Resistance & Vitality: 🗣️ Voice as survival—narrative reclamation of history becomes ethical vitality. Philosophical Alignment: ⚖️ Challenges Agamben’s homo sacer while infusing Spinoza’s conatus as perseverance of life.
*3. Grief Is the Thing with Feathers* (Stage Adaptation, 2023)**	Biopolitical Lens: 🐦 Death manifests as biopolitical absence—the family structure destabilized by loss. Eternal Life: 🌫️ Grief becomes a timeless, lingering presence, suggesting eternal affective life. Resistance & Vitality: 🐾 The Crow disrupts normative mourning—life survives through absurd, poetic resistance. Philosophical Alignment: 💭 Reflects Foucaultian disruptions while affirming Spinozist vitality within affect and imagination.
*4. The Fraud* by Zadie Smith (2023)**	Biopolitical Lens: 📚 Examines Victorian racial politics and legal spectacles—sovereign power exercised through narrative control. Eternal Life: 🧾 Storytelling as an eternal act, preserving lives beyond bodily death. Resistance & Vitality: 📖 Satire and truth-telling as ethical forms of resistance to sovereign narratives. Philosophical Alignment: ✍️ Affirms immanent truth as life-force, challenging state narration with Spinozist ethical resistance.

Criticism Against “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter

Overreliance on Philosophical Synthesis 🌱 (Green)
- Criticism: Vatter’s attempt to synthesize Foucault, Spinoza, Heidegger, Agamben, and Deleuze into a cohesive theory of affirmative biopower risks diluting the specificity of each thinker’s framework, potentially leading to conceptual overreach.
- Explanation: The article ambitiously integrates diverse philosophical traditions to propose an eternal life countering thanatopolitics, but this synthesis may oversimplify complex distinctions. For instance, combining Spinoza’s conatus with Heidegger’s being-towards-death (Vatter, 231) overlooks their fundamentally opposed views on life and existence, potentially weakening the argument’s rigor. Literary theorists might find this blending problematic for analyzing texts requiring fidelity to a single theoretical lens, as it could blur nuanced interpretations of power or subjectivity.
- Quotation and Citation: “I shall suggest that those contemporary thinkers who have dealt with the idea of eternal life and its internal relation to the power of life, from Jonas to Derrida and Deleuze to Agamben, have all in their own ways tried to bring together Heidegger and Spinoza” (Vatter, 221).
Limited Engagement with Foucault’s Original Framework 🌀 (Blue)
- Criticism: Vatter’s reorientation of Foucault’s biopower toward a Spinozist eternal life underemphasizes Foucault’s focus on historical and institutional practices, potentially disconnecting the argument from biopolitics’ material grounding.
- Explanation: While Vatter cites Foucault’s biopower as a starting point (Vatter, 217), his shift to a philosophical, contemplative life neglects Foucault’s emphasis on specific technologies of power (e.g., medical or disciplinary institutions). This could limit the article’s utility for literary analyses of texts grounded in historical or social contexts, where biopower’s concrete mechanisms are central. Critics might argue that Vatter’s abstract approach risks idealizing life at the expense of its socio-political realities.
- Quotation and Citation: “Foucault introduced the concept of biopower to explain how something like ‘thanatopolitics,’ the mobilization of entire populations ‘for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity,’ became the norm in the twentieth century” (Foucault 1990, The History of Sexuality: Vol. I, 137, cited in Vatter, 217).
Underdeveloped Literary Application ⚡ (Orange)
- Criticism: The article’s heavy philosophical focus leaves its implications for literary theory underdeveloped, limiting its direct applicability to textual analysis.
- Explanation: Vatter’s argument centers on philosophical concepts like eternal life and immanence, but it offers minimal explicit guidance on how these apply to literary texts beyond broad references, such as to Dickens via Agamben (Vatter, 237). Literary scholars might criticize the lack of concrete examples or methodologies for applying these ideas to narrative structures, character development, or thematic analysis, making the article less accessible for literary studies.
- Quotation and Citation: “Deleuze illustrates this mortal yet eternal life, a virtual life, by referring to the description found in a novel by Dickens” (Agamben 1999, Potentialities, 229, cited in Vatter, 237).

Ambiguity in Defining Eternal Life ⚰️ (Black)
- Criticism: Vatter’s concept of eternal life (zoë aionios) remains conceptually ambiguous, potentially undermining its analytical precision for both philosophical and literary applications.
- Explanation: While Vatter posits eternal life as a counter to thanatopolitics (Vatter, 218), the term oscillates between Spinoza’s conatus, Aristotle’s contemplative life, and Deleuze’s immanence, creating a vague construct. This lack of clarity could confuse literary theorists seeking a stable framework for interpreting life’s representation in texts, as the term’s theological and philosophical dimensions are not fully reconciled.
- Quotation and Citation: “My hypothesis is that an affirmative conception of the power of life requires conceiving of life as eternal, a zoë aionios that is not destined to die, that stands over mythical fate itself” (Vatter, 218).
Neglect of Feminist and Materialist Perspectives 🌌 (Teal)
- Criticism: Vatter’s focus on abstract, male-dominated philosophical traditions (Spinoza, Heidegger, Deleuze) overlooks feminist or materialist critiques of biopolitics, limiting its inclusivity and relevance to diverse literary contexts.
- Explanation: The article engages minimally with materialist concerns, such as those raised by Marx (Vatter, 246), and ignores feminist critiques of biopolitics, such as those addressing gendered bodies or reproductive politics. This omission could alienate literary scholars analyzing texts through feminist or materialist lenses, where embodiment and socio-economic conditions are central, reducing the article’s scope for intersectional literary analysis.
- Quotation and Citation: “Society is therefore the perfected unity in essence of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature” (Marx 1975, Early Writings, 350, cited in Vatter, 246).
Overemphasis on Theological Framing 👑 (Silver)
- Criticism: Vatter’s reliance on political theology, particularly through Spinoza’s intellectual love and Agamben’s glory, risks alienating secular literary theorists and may not resonate with non-theological texts.
- Explanation: The article’s framing of eternal life as a theological concept, tied to Spinoza’s God and glory (Vatter, 243-245), may limit its appeal for secular literary analyses or texts outside theological traditions. Critics might argue that this focus narrows the article’s applicability, particularly for modern or postmodern literature where secular or atheistic themes predominate.
- Quotation and Citation: “The mind’s intellectual love toward God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36, cited in Vatter, 243). “By feeding the gods through their glorification, people are in reality nourishing themselves from the glory of the gods” (Agamben 2007, Il Regno e la Gloria, 250, cited in Vatter, 245).

Representative Quotations from “Eternal Life and Biopower” by Miguel Vatter with Explanation

Quotation	Page	Explanation
🌱 “Foucault introduced the concept of biopower to explain how something like ‘thanatopolitics,’ the mobilization of entire populations ‘for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity,’ became the norm in the twentieth century” (Foucault 1990, The History of Sexuality: Vol. I, 137, cited in Vatter, 217).	217	This sets Vatter’s engagement with Foucault’s biopower, framing his critique of thanatopolitics as death-driven. It provides literary theory a lens for analyzing narratives of power and violence, like dystopian or war literature, by contrasting life-affirming biopolitics.
🌀 “My hypothesis is that an affirmative conception of the power of life requires conceiving of life as eternal, a zoë aionios that is not destined to die, that stands over mythical fate itself” (Vatter, 218).	218	Vatter’s core thesis posits eternal life as a counter to thanatopolitics, redefining biopolitics philosophically. It offers literary theory a framework for texts resisting death-driven narratives, such as philosophical or redemptive works, emphasizing life’s immanence.
⚡ “By life we for our part understand the force through which things persevere in their own being. . . . those speak best who call God ‘life’” (Spinoza 2002, Metaphysical Thoughts, 197, cited in Vatter, 223).	223	This Spinozist definition links life’s conatus to divine immanence, supporting Vatter’s eternal life argument. It enriches literary theory for texts exploring striving or divine connections, like allegories, focusing on persistence over moral limits.
⚰️ “Capacity is only to be found where there is drive” (Heidegger 1995, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, sec. 54, 228, cited in Vatter, 228).	228	Vatter uses Heidegger’s drive to bridge life and existence, challenging their separation. This aids literary analyses of embodiment in texts, like modernist works, by prioritizing life’s driven nature over existential temporality.
🌌 “Resoluteness being motivated by the drive, we must stop understanding ourselves as Dasein and temporality and think ourselves as living, driven flesh” (Franck 1991, Being and the Living, 145, cited in Vatter, 229).	229	Via Franck, Vatter reframes Dasein as driven flesh, aligning with eternal life. This enables literary analyses of texts emphasizing physicality over existential concerns, such as visceral narratives, enhancing immanence-focused readings.
👑 “The mind’s intellectual love toward God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 36, cited in Vatter, 243).	243	This Spinozist idea ties intellectual love to divine immanence, central to Vatter’s political theology. It provides literary theory a lens for texts with divine-human reciprocity, like religious epics, emphasizing mutual nourishment.
🌱 “Immanent life is ‘pure contemplation without knowledge’… marks the radical impossibility of establishing hierarchies and separations” (Agamben 1999, Potentialities, 233, citing Deleuze, cited in Vatter, 239).	239	Vatter’s use of Deleuze’s immanence via Agamben posits life as a non-hierarchical force. This aids literary theory for texts with fluid life, like postmodern works, focusing on virtuality and becoming over fixed identities.
🌀 “By feeding the gods through their glorification, people are in reality nourishing themselves from the glory of the gods” (Agamben 2007, Il Regno e la Gloria, 250, cited in Vatter, 245).	245	This reframes glory as mutual nourishment, supporting Vatter’s political theology. It offers literary theory a framework for communal or theological narratives, like allegories, highlighting divine-human interdependence.
⚡ “Nevertheless, we feel and experience that we are eternal” (Spinoza 2002, Ethics V, Prop. 23, scholium, cited in Vatter, 226).	226	Spinoza’s claim underscores the mind’s eternal feeling, supporting Vatter’s argument. It aids literary theory for texts exploring eternal consciousness, like mystical works, emphasizing spiritual persistence.
⚰️ “Death is also for Dasein… the possibility of an impossibility” (Derrida 1993, Aporias, 68, citing Heidegger 1986, Sein und Zeit, sec. 53, cited in Vatter, 231).	231	Derrida’s deconstruction of Heidegger’s being-towards-death, used by Vatter, suggests a return to life’s immanence. This enables literary analyses of texts blurring death and life, like spectral narratives, challenging existentialist readings.

Day: August 17, 2025