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Critical Terms in
Futures Studies
Edited by
Heike Paul
Critical Terms in Futures Studies
 Heike Paul
Editor

Critical Terms in
Futures Studies
Editor
Heike Paul
Department of English and American Studies
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Erlangen, Germany

ISBN 978-3-030-28986-7    ISBN 978-3-030-28987-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28987-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Westend61

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

This book could not have been realized without the support and dedica-
tion of numerous people. First of all, I would like to thank the authors for
contributing original essays to this volume. Working with a group of
authors from different countries, academic traditions, and disciplines has
been quite a challenging and truly rewarding experience.
Some of the contributors have become collaborators. Katharina Gerund
and Florian Tatschner have helped getting this project under way; they
wrote and discussed the first proposals with me and read early versions of
the manuscripts. Florian Tatschner also assisted in contacting authors for
this collection. Sebastian Schneider translated the following chapters from
German to English: “Alternate History,” “Divination,” “Fate,” and
“Prevention.” Peter Maurits and Susen Faulhaber have been indispensable
for getting this project across the finishing line. Peter Maurits has dili-
gently read and commented on every chapter and has supported me in
dealing with the correspondence. Susen Faulhaber has handled all formali-
ties: indexing, formatting, and checking bibliographies. A warm and
heartfelt thanks to all of you!
This project has started as a collaborative endeavor at the Friedrich-­
Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, where it has had the backing
of the Dean of the Philosophical Faculty, Rainer Trinczek. The labor on
this book has been funded by the German Research Foundation
(Leibniz-Funds).

v
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Heike Paul

2 Afro-Pessimism  5
Joseph Winters

3 Alternate History 13
Dirk Niefanger

4 Anthropocene 19
Sarah Marak

5 Archive 25
Martha Schoolman

6 Artificial Intelligence 29
Scott Sundvall

7 Astrofuturism 35
Alexandra Ganser

vii
viii CONTENTS

8 Calendar 45
Marc Andre Matten

9 Contingency 53
Wolfgang Knöbl

10 Data 61
Lev Manovich

11 Death 67
Nader El-Bizri

12 Decision 73
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger

13 Democracy 79
Mareike Gebhardt

14 Development 87
Aram Ziai

15 Digitization 95
Scott Selisker

16 Divination 99
Ulrike Ludwig

17 Dreaming105
Barbara Weber

18 Fate113
Georges Tamer
 CONTENTS ix

19 Fictionality119
John Carlos Rowe

20 Forecasting127
Arunabh Ghosh

21 Futurism131
Peter J. Maurits

22 Futurology139
Sohail Inayatullah

23 Gesture145
Rebecca Schneider

24 Hope151
Florian Tatschner

25 Ignorance157
Katharina Gerund

26 Imagination163
Birgit Spengler

27 Knowledge171
Heike Paul

28 Magic179
Erik Mortenson

29 Messianism183
Anna Akasoy
x CONTENTS

30 Millennialism191
Catherine Wessinger

31 Mission199
Marina Ngursangzeli Behera

32 Neoliberalism205
Renee Heberle

33 Optimism209
Wendy Larson

34 Planning215
Julia Obertreis

35 Play221
Fabian Schäfer

36 Prefiguration227
Mathijs van de Sande

37 Prevention235
Stefan Willer

38 Queer Futurity245
Cedric Essi

39 Revolution253
Lanie Millar

40 Science Fiction261
Mark Bould
 CONTENTS xi

41 Security267
Timothy Melley

42 Seriality273
Elisabeth Bronfen

43 Singularity281
Luke Goode

44 Speculative Realism287
Graham Harman

45 Sustainability291
Frank Adloff

46 Temporality299
Raji Steineck

47 Time307
Frank Darwiche

48 Time Travel313
Kay Kirchmann

49 Transhumanism319
Jennifer M. Gidley

50 Utopia327
Barnita Bagchi

51 Virtuality335
Marie-Laure Ryan

Index343
 Notes on Contributors

Frank Adloff is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hamburg.

Anna Akasoy is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at Hunter
College and the Graduate Center, New York.
Barnita Bagchi is a Faculty Member in Comparative Literature at the
Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication at Utrecht
University.
Marina Ngursangzeli Behera holds the Chair of Ecumenical Missiology
at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey—a program of the World Council of
Churches attached to the University of Geneva.
Mark Bould is a Senior Reader at the University of West England in
Bristol. He is the winner of the 2016 SFRA Pilgrim Lifetime Achievement
Award for Critical Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and
Fantasy.
Elisabeth Bronfen is Professor of English and American Studies at the
University of Zurich and Global Distinguished Professor at New York
University.
Frank Darwiche is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Balamand, Lebanon.
Nader El-Bizri is Professor of Civilization Studies and Philosophy at the
American University of Beirut. El-Bizri is also the Associate Dean, Faculty

xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

of Arts and Sciences, the Director of the General Education Program, and
the Director of the Anis Makdisi Program in Literature.
Cedric Essi is a Postdoctoral Researcher in American Studies at the
University of Osnabrück.
Alexandra Ganser is Professor of American Studies at the University of
Vienna.
Mareike Gebhardt is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of
Political Science at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
Katharina Gerund is Assistant Professor of American Studies at
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Arunabh Ghosh is Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese History in the
Department of History at Harvard University.
Jennifer M. Gidley is an Adjunct Professor at the University of
Technology in Sydney.
Luke Goode is Associate Professor of Media and Communication at the
School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Graham Harman is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at
the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
Renee Heberle is Professor of Political Science at the University of
Toledo, Ohio.
Sohail Inayatullah is a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute of
Future Studies at Tamkang University (Taiwan). Inayatullah is also an
Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University and the University of the
Sunshine Coast in Australia as well as a Visiting Academic/Research
Associate at Queensland University of Technology (Centre for Social
Change Research).
Kay Kirchmann is Chair of Media Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander
University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Wolfgang Knöbl is Director of the Hamburg Institute for Social Studies
and Professor of Political Sociology and Violence Studies at Leuphana
University, Lüneburg.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

Wendy Larson is Professor Emerita of Modern Chinese Literature at the

University of Oregon.
Ulrike Ludwig is Chair of Early Modern History at the University of
Münster.
Lev Manovich is a Professor at the Graduate Center at the City University
of New York and the Director of the Software Initiative at CUNY and
California Institute for Telecommunication and Information. He is
the Founder and Director of the Cultural Analytics Lab and a Faculty
Member at Tyumen State University.
Sarah Marak is Junior Lecturer in American Studies at Friedrich-
Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Marc Andre Matten is Professor of Contemporary Chinese History at
the Institute of Sinology at Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Peter J. Maurits is a Postdoctoral Researcher in English and postcolonial
studies at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Timothy Melley is Professor of English and Affiliate of American Studies,
as well as the Director of the Humanities Center at Miami University in
Oxford, Ohio.
Lanie Millar is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the
University of Oregon.
Erik Mortenson is Director of the Writing Center at Lake Michigan
College.
Dirk Niefanger is Chair of Modern German Literary Studies at Friedrich-­
Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Julia Obertreis is Chair of Modern History (with a special focus on the
history of Eastern Europe) at Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Heike Paul is Chair of American Studies at Friedrich-Alexander
University Erlangen-Nürnberg and Director of the Bavarian American
Academy in Munich.
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

John Carlos Rowe is Associate Professor of the Humanities and Professor

of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of
Southern California.
Marie-Laure Ryan is an Independent Scholar, prominently known for
her research on narrative theory and on fiction, virtual worlds, and digital
media.
Fabian Schäfer is Chair of Japanese Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander
University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Rebecca Schneider is a Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and
Performance Studies at Brown University.
Martha Schoolman is Assistant Professor at Florida International
University (FIU).
Scott Selisker is Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona.
Birgit Spengler is Professor of American Studies at the University of
Wuppertal.
Raji Steineck is Professor of Japanology at the University of Zurich.
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is Director of the Institute for Advanced
Study in Berlin.
Scott Sundvall is Director of the Centre for Writing and Communication
(CWC) at the University of Memphis.
Georges Tamer is Chair of Oriental Philology and Islamic Studies at
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Florian Tatschner was a Lecturer in the Department of English and
American Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-­
Nürnberg and is a local official with the city of Nuremberg.
Mathijs van de Sande is Assistant Professor of Practical Philosophy at
Radboud University Nijmegen.
Barbara Weber is Associate Professor in Human Development, Learning,
and Culture in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling
Psychology, and Special Education at the University of British
Columbia.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

Catherine Wessinger is Rev. H. James Yamauchi, and S.J. Professor of

the History of Religions at Loyola University, New Orleans.
Stefan Willer is Professor of German Literature at the Humboldt
University Berlin.
Joseph Winters is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies with a second-
ary position in the Department of African and African American Studies at
Duke University.
Aram Ziai is Heisenberg-Professor of Development Policy and
Postcolonial Studies at the University of Kassel.
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Heike Paul

“In the past, even the future was better.” Karl Valentin, Bavarian come-
dian and philosopher of the absurd, ironically quipped in the 1920s about
the “good old days,” in a time in which the future still held, as we know
now, the most catastrophic events of the twentieth century. Valentin’s
aphorism suggests the kind of all-encompassing nostalgia for the past that
even extends to past futures, conjuring up a mood that regained currency
again over the last decade. In a non-ironic vein, Zygmunt Bauman (2017)
has coined the term “retrotopia” to characterize the nostalgic zeitgeist of
the present with its numerous “back to” tendencies and its widespread
sense of a longing to return—to tribalism, to the womb, to greater social
(in) equality, and to premodern regimes of gender. A utopian aspiration is
projected onto the return to an imaginary and allegedly ideal past rather
than engaging in the construction of a better future. Donald Trump’s
campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” emblematically expresses
this retrotopian imagination. In a similar vein, the contributors to The
Great Regression (2017), taking their cue from Bauman, identify and offer
critiques of “democracy fatigue” (Appadurai) as evidenced by a new
authoritarian populism and the global rise of regressive social movements.
In contrast to the phenomena analyzed by Bauman and others, ­movements

H. Paul (*)
Department of English and American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
e-mail: heike.paul@fau.de

© The Author(s) 2019 1

H. Paul (ed.), Critical Terms in Futures Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28987-4_1
2 H. PAUL

such as #FridaysforFuture and #ScientistsforFuture face the opposite

direction, raising consciousness about the future of the planet and human-
kind and working to engender a new spirit of responsibility and care.
Mostly ushered in by a younger generation (statistically, the retrotopians
tend to be a bit older on average), #FridaysforFuture and similar interven-
tions are building momentum in a transnational movement urging for
immediate action in favor of a future as such. “Retrotopia” and “Fridays
for Future,” then, are two diametrically opposing poles of an ongoing
public debate which lay claim to the future in different ways: restoration
versus change. Bringing together keywords that are crucial for a discussion
of these and related topics—sustainability, neoliberalism, security, and
forecasting, to name a few—this volume directly resonates with the devel-
opments described above.
This publication provides the essential vocabulary currently employed
in discourses on the future by presenting 50 contributions by renowned
scholars in their respective fields who examine future imaginaries across
cultures and time. Not situated in the field of “futurology” proper, it
comes at future studies sideways, so to speak, and offers a multidisciplinary
treatment of a critical futures’ vocabulary. The contributors have their dis-
ciplinary homes in a wide range of subjects—history, cultural studies, liter-
ary studies, sociology, media studies, American studies, Japanese studies,
Chinese studies, and philosophy—and critically illuminate numerous dis-
courses about the future (or futures), past and present, from various per-
spectives. In fact, their cooperation in this volume is a genuine effort to
conjoin across disciplinary boundaries: the book actively creates synergy
between different fields and subjects by cross-referencing the entries. In
compiling this critical vocabulary, we seek to foster conversations about
futures in study programs and research forums and offer a toolbox for
discussing the complex issues involved.
Recent studies in the humanities and social sciences attest to an urgency
for critical future studies in an emerging transdisciplinary and cross-­
cultural field. Marc Augé’s The Future (2015), John Urry’s What Is the
Future? (2016), and Jennifer Gidley’s Future: A Short Introduction (2017)
offer somewhat condensed overviews of the field. A decade earlier, Fredric
Jameson, in his Archaeologies of the Future (2007), laid the groundwork
for a renewed engagement with the future against the backdrop of late-­
capitalist globalization. His study probes the continued relevance and
political value of notions of utopia. The late Jose Esteban Muñoz’s
Cruising Utopia (2009), for instance, relates notions of futurity to queer
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

identities to counter what he considers a stale presentism. In her Cruel

Optimism (2011), Lauren Berlant critiques neoliberal fantasies of a com-
ing good life based on notions of upward mobility, security, and durability.
She thereby lays out the necessity of new modes of relating to temporality.
In his collection of essays, The Future as a Cultural Fact (2013), Arjun
Appadurai considers matters of futurity within a global condition. He
makes a postcolonial argument for a reconsideration of the future based
on a negotiation of the tension between a late-capitalist ethics of probabil-
ity, on the one hand, and a radical ethics of possibility on the other. Lastly,
it is capitalism’s reliance on the powers of the imagination regarding
opportunity and risks that Jens Beckert’s Imagined Futures: Fictional
Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics (2016) addresses. Critical Terms in
Futures Studies picks up on various approaches to the field and charts pro-
cesses of making and un-making knowledge(s) of and for the future.
Of course, neither the variegated discourses on the future nor the basic
openness and unpredictability of the future itself can be grasped, let alone
be defined within the narrow limits of glossaries, dictionaries, or encyclo-
pedias. Instead of presupposing universal categories, the study of the
semantic registers of the future requires a focus that retains a sensibility for
the often conflicting and contradictory particularities arising from cultural
difference and historical context. With its innovative scholarly design, its
intellectual flexibility, and its focus on problem-based thinking, Raymond
Williams’s well-known and much emulated concept of Keywords provides
a model for our format in outlining the various cultural conceptualizations
of the future in their irreducible multiplicity. As its subtitle suggests, the
book aims to provide what Williams (1988) has called a

vocabulary, which is significantly not the specialized vocabulary of a special-

ized discipline, though it often overlaps with several of these, but a general
vocabulary ranging from strong, difficult and persuasive words in everyday
usage to words which, beginning in particular specialized contexts, have
become quite common in descriptions of wider areas of thought and expe-
rience. (14)

Keywords, according to Raymond Williams, are sites of meaning produc-

tion and sites of struggles over meaning, “they are significant binding
words in certain activities and their interpretation; they are significant,
indicative words in certain forms of thought.” This critical vocabulary tries
to map such meanings and convey such struggles for the matters ­concerned
4 H. PAUL

with prospecting the future. In doing so, it adds to existing inventories of

and introductions to the study of the future. Hopefully, it will prompt
further discussion.

References
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2017. Retrotopia. Cambridge: Polity.
Williams, Raymond. [1976] 1988. Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society.
London: Fontana.
 CHAPTER 2

Afro-Pessimism

Joseph Winters

In the summer of 2013, a jury collectively decided that George Zimmerman

was justified in hunting down and killing Trayvon Martin. Although
Zimmerman, by conventional standards, was the aggressor, his antics were
deemed appropriate. In other words, the community watchman’s violence
was considered acceptable as a defense of home, property, and community,
against a black male subject who signified danger, disorder, and matter out
of place. In his presidential response to the verdict, Barack Obama sug-
gested that the trial itself demonstrates that the legal system works. Obama
reassured that competing arguments and testimonies were heard and
deliberated over in a manner that resonates with liberal notions of fairness.
There are at least two ways in which black critical theory might read
and respond to Obama’s claim about the execution of justice in the
Zimmerman/Martin case. One could disagree and contend that the ver-
dict was unjust, inhumane, and against US democratic ideals. On the
other hand, one might rejoin by agreeing with Obama that the justice
system operated appropriately—not because it is committed to fairness
and equality but because the system is organized through anti-black vio-
lence. The discourse of Afro-pessimism is responsible for making the latter
reading more viable in the last decades.

J. Winters (*)
Department of Religious Studies and African and African American Studies,
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
e-mail: joseph.winters@duke.edu

© The Author(s) 2019 5

H. Paul (ed.), Critical Terms in Futures Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28987-4_2
6 J. WINTERS

What is Afro-pessimism and who are its proponents? Who are the intel-
lectual precursors to Afro-pessimism? What patterns of thought and prac-
tice does the Afro-pessimist place on trial? How does the Afro-pessimist
alter stubborn assumptions about race, politics, humanity, and ontology?
While it is always difficult to pin down a definition for a burgeoning dis-
course, literary and film critic Frank Wilderson III provides a helpful
description of Afro-pessimism. According to Wilderson, Afro-pessimists
insist that “the structure of the entire world’s semantic field – regardless of
cultural and national discrepancies – is sutured by anti-black solidarity”
(Wilderson 2010, p. 58). For him, the coherence and endurance of the
world is defined over and against black people. The domain of the Human
being exists in an antagonistic relationship to the position of the Black.
Other social positions—the working class, white women, late-nineteenth-­
century European migrants to the US—relate to the social order in terms
of conflict, which can be resolved by expanding the domain of rights and
recognition. Yet the Black is a “sentient being for whom recognition and
incorporation is impossible” (p. 55), a being that will never “reach the
plane” of the Human. The modern world instituted a situation in which
black bodies could be kidnapped, enslaved, exchanged, tortured, and
raped with impunity. The slave was the target of gratuitous violence and
could be handled and treated in a manner that would be considered illegal
in most other cases. And even though there have been significant changes
and transitions within the social order (Emancipation Proclamation, Civil
rights acts, the end of Jim Crow), blackness has not escaped the specter of
the Slave. The only way to eliminate the antagonistic relationship between
blacks and the world is to bring about an end to the world as we know it.
Afro-pessimism is indebted to a cluster of authors and strands of (black)
thought. In addition to Frantz Fanon, who shows how the Black is the
earth’s condemned creature, a signifier of non-being, three authors that
stand out as precursors to Afro-pessimism are Orlando Patterson, Hortense
Spillers, and Saidiya Hartman. What the pessimist takes from sociologist
Orlando Patterson (1982) is the notion that slavery is a form of social
death. In opposition to the assumption that involuntary labor is the distin-
guishing feature of slavery, Patterson contends that what defines the slave
is his/her exclusion from the sphere of Human recognition and social life.
Social death entails natal alienation (the destruction of black kinship and
familial bonds), dishonor, and perpetual subjection to domination and
terror. Social death is a process and condition that renders the Slave fun-
damentally exposed to the violence of the Master.
 2 AFRO-PESSIMISM 7

Alongside Patterson’s reflections on slavery, the Afro-pessimist draws

from Spillers’ distinction between the body and flesh, a distinction that
maps onto the difference between the free and the captive. The body,
Spillers suggests, is a coherent, legible entity, while the flesh is that stuff or
opaque matter that is “prior” to the body. If bodies only matter when they
are recognized by the broader social world, flesh indicates a body that
does not matter, a body that is reduced to the most basic level of existence,
that “zero degree of social conceptualization” (Spillers 2003, p. 206). For
Spillers, the language of the flesh draws attention to the enslaved body’s
everyday exposure to torture, wounding, and skin being ripped apart. The
image of flesh also connotes a kind of erotic excess, resulting in blackness
being associated with promiscuity and sexual availability. Consequently,
flesh is both an object of denigration and fascination. While Patterson and
Spillers underscore the effects of slavery and anti-blackness, particularly
how these arrangements divide the Black from the Human, Hartman
traces the “afterlife of slavery.” This term alludes to “the fact that black
lives are still imperiled and devalued by a racial calculus and a political
arithmetic that were entrenched centuries ago. This is the afterlife of slav-
ery – skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, prema-
ture death, incarceration, and impoverishment” (Hartman 2007, p. 6).
Against a culture that reads history according to the logic of racial prog-
ress, Hartman insists that blacks continue to be haunted by relationships,
terrors, and strategies of containment that defined chattel slavery. It is this
sense of slavery’s post-emancipation life that inspires the Afro-pessimist’s
insistence on the enduring antagonism between blackness and the world.
Afro-pessimism mobilizes a cluster of tropes—wretchedness, social
death, flesh, afterlife of slavery—to update, revise, and unsettle how we
think about blackness and its relationship to humanity, existence, politics,
and the world as a whole. To think about the implications of Afro-­
pessimism, or what is at stake in this discourse, it is helpful to think through
several domains that this discourse interrupts: Human recognition, ontol-
ogy, and political agency. We are usually told that racial difference can be
overcome if we abandon the illusory, divisive category of race and recog-
nize the common humanity that blacks and non-blacks share. On this
reading, the Human is the site of racial transcendence and reconciliation;
one simply needs to acknowledge and see the universal Human qualities
behind the veil of race.
This well-intentioned approach denies how the domain of the Human
has been fabricated and organized in opposition to certain beings, desires,
8 J. WINTERS

and qualities. It denies how the attributes that belong to the ideal Human
(property accumulation, whiteness, settlement, freedom, law, progress)
rely on contrasting qualities that are marked as undesirable: blackness,
enslavement, excess, dispossession, and instability. Here we might think of
how Zimmerman’s responsibility to “stand his ground” relates to his
accusation that Trayvon Martin was wandering aimlessly and up to no
good. In this case, Zimmerman was protecting property and the domain
of the Human against the menace of blackness. This general predicament
leads Jared Sexton to ask the following question: “what is the nature of a
Human being whose Human being is put into question radically and by
definition, a Human being whose being Human raises the question of
being Human at all” (Sexton 2011, pp. 6–7)? To ask this in another way,
what is the status of a being that is positioned at the threshold of the
Human and the non-human?
In line with Sexton’s provocative question, Afro-pessimism urges us to
rethink being and ontology. Over the past century, the one author who
has done the most to revive interests in ontology, or the philosophy of
being, is Martin Heidegger. According to Heidegger (2010), Western
philosophy is animated by amnesia, or forgetfulness of the fundamental
gap between beings and Being. From Plato’s “Idea” to Kant’s “autono-
mous subject,” philosophers have substituted a particular entity for Being,
the indeterminate source and provenance of beings. For Heidegger,
Human beings, as opposed to rocks or dogs, provide a distinctive insight
into Being since Humans are concerned about their existence and death in
a manner that other beings are not. The Afro-pessimist supplements
Heidegger’s inquiry into being with Fanon’s claim that “ontology […]
does not permit us to understand the being of the black man” (Fanon
1986, p. 82). Because the Black exists in relationship to whiteness, and the
Black is relegated to the status of non-being in this relationship, any phi-
losophy that both reproduces and denies anti-blackness is inadequate to
understand black existence.
Recently, Calvin Warren has thought about the intersection of Fanon
and Heidegger to further examine the antagonism between blackness and
being (Warren 2018). For Warren, the Negro embodies the gap between
Being and beings. To put it differently, the Negro gives form to the noth-
ing or the black hole at the center of existence. Because this abyss is the
source of terror and dread, the Negro has been made to absorb and signify
this terror. The Negro, as Warren argues, is included in the precinct of
being primarily to shield non-blacks from the terror at the heart of being.
 2 AFRO-PESSIMISM 9

Consequently, to be is to not to be black; to “be” black is to operate at the

lowest levels of existence. Warren’s analysis implies that discussions about
racism and anti-blackness cannot be divorced from metaphysical questions
regarding being and nothing. This is significant in a US academic culture
that is suspicious of ontological inquiries and assumes the primacy of his-
torical and scientific approaches.
In addition to Human recognition and ontology, Afro-pessimists chal-
lenge prevailing beliefs about political agency and hope. Afro-pessimism
emerges within a culture that is generally optimistic about the possibility
of fixing problems and improving adverse predicaments. We are reminded
that individuals and communities have historically mustered the energy
and courage to make the world more equitable. And by continuing to
work within political and legal institutions, we will be able to expand the
sphere of rights and recognition to include formerly excluded groups.
Through action, solidarity, and hope, unpleasant conditions like anti-black
racism can ultimately be overcome. So we are told.
Afro-pessimism responds to this optimistic sense of agency by claiming
that the sphere of political activity is structurally arranged against black-
ness. Even as civil society has certainly undergone changes and shifts over
time, inveterate constraints persist. Anti-blackness is coterminous with
civil society. As Calvin Warren points out, “[t]emporal linearity, perfec-
tion, betterment, struggle, work, and utopian futurity are conceptual
instruments of the Political that will never obviate black suffering; these
concepts only serve to reproduce the conditions that render existence
unbearable for blacks” (Warren 2015, p. 243). Not only do political ideals
demand that blacks sacrifice themselves for the sake of preserving democ-
racy; these political tropes leave little to no room to contemplate trauma,
anguish, care, or intimacy. It would seem as if this refusal of the political as
a favorable site of change leaves the Afro-pessimist in a mire of despair.
This is not necessarily the case. One alternative to despair is implicit in
what Wilderson calls the “two-trains running” approach to the state of
affairs (Wilderson 2016, p. 18). The first train involves practical strategies
and political organizing that can provide black people with urgent relief
from State violence. The other, more important train involves theoretical
practices that radically question and undermine the foundations of civil
society and anti-black terror, including nation-state sovereignty. While
Wilderson remains committed to engaging the political domain, Warren
suggests that blacks should abandon political hope (even if completely
abandoning the political is impossible) and protect what he calls “spiritual
10 J. WINTERS

hope” (see Warren 2015). Spiritual hope consists of those energies and
modes of endurance located in religious and aesthetic practices—hearing
Mahalia Jackson, shouting during a church service, or dancing to a Lauryn
Hill track. For Warren, this spiritual hope is vitiated when its value gets
reduced to political efficacy. Perhaps the Afro-pessimist urges us to refuse
the very binary between pessimism and optimism, or hope and despair. Or
as Sexton puts it, “Afro-pessimism is not but nothing other than black
optimism” (Sexton 2011, p. 37).
Afro-pessimism is still in its inchoate stages. It provides a powerful way
of reading and interpreting the painful relationship between blackness and
the world. While there is much in Afro-pessimism that convinces, there are
lingering questions and concerns. For one, although Afro-pessimism is
deeply indebted to black feminism, including the work of Spillers and
Hartman, the language of anti-blackness tends to overshadow gender and
sexuality matters. More generally, Afro-pessimism does not seem very
interested in intersectionality or heterogeneity. Blackness, according to
the pessimist, has the same ontological relationship to the social order
wherever one stands. This enables the pessimist, for instance, to downplay
how black American citizens have been incorporated into the nation-state
to expand imperial enterprises that have pernicious effects for blacks out-
side the US. (Here we might think of black Americans who participate in
sexual tourism in places like Brazil.) Finally, the Afro-pessimist relies too
heavily on the discourses and categories that supposedly reject black life.
Why remain so wedded to ontology and being-talk for instance, especially
when black literature and aesthetics offer generative alternatives? While
these concerns haunt Afro-pessimism, they do not take away from the
powerful resources that it provides to confront the conditions that make
Trayvon Martin’s death both horrifying and predictable.

References
Fanon, Frantz. 1986. Black skin, white masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann.
London: Pluto Press.
Hartman, Saidiya. 2007. Lose your mother: A journey along the Atlantic slave route.
New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Heidegger, Martin. 2010. Being and time. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. Albany:
SUNY Press.
Patterson, Orlando. 1982. Slavery and social death: A comparative study.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
 2 AFRO-PESSIMISM 11

Sexton, Jared. 2011. The social life of social death: On Afro-pessimism and black
optimism. Intensions 5 (Fall/Winters): 1–47.
Spillers, Hortense. 2003. Black, white, and in color: Essays on American literature
and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Warren, Calvin. 2015. Black nihilism and the politics of hope. The New Centennial
Review 15 (1 Spring): 215–248.
———. 2018. Ontological terror: Blackness, nihilism, and emancipation. Durham:
Duke University Press.
Wilderson, Frank. 2010. Red, white, & black: Cinema and the structure of
U.S. Antagonisms. Durham: Duke University Press.
———. 2016. The inside-outside of civil society: An interview with Frank
B. Wilderson III. Black Studies Papers 2 (1): 4–22.
 CHAPTER 3

Alternate History

Dirk Niefanger

The term alternate history (or “alternative history” in British English; also
“uchronia”) can be defined in different ways. Mostly, the term refers to a
distinct literary genre in its own right (Helbig 1988; McKnight 1994;
Katsman 2013, p. 76). It is also often used to denote a subgenre of science
fiction (Collins 1990; Nedelkovich 1999). “The designation of alternate
history as a genre has value for the production and reception of these
texts” (Singles 2013, p. 5). Alternate history is also considered a way of
historical-alternative thinking and historical-alternative writing in general
as well as a subgenre of fantasy literature or indeed a rhetoric act (Katsman
2013, pp. 20–57), examples appearing in many different media. They also
occur in diverse literary forms: in novels, drama, and poetry, to name a
few. Thus, it seems sensible to conceive of alternate history as a type of
diegesis primarily defined by its content, which can be found in various
media and genres. In fact, it can be considered a useful category of its
own. Following Gérard Genette’s definition of diegesis, alternate history
can be described as “a universe rather than a train of events (a story); […]
[t]he diégèse is therefore not the story but the universe in which the story
takes place” (Genette 1988, p. 17). The diegeses of alternate histories use
moments of empirical history as building blocks to construct entirely new
histories.

D. Niefanger (*)
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
e-mail: dirk.niefanger@fau.de

© The Author(s) 2019 13

H. Paul (ed.), Critical Terms in Futures Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28987-4_3
14 D. NIEFANGER

The variability of historical facts causes alternate history to seem relativ-

istic. For this reason, early scholars in the field saw “obvious links between
postmodernism and alternate history, including intertextuality, metafic-
tion, and a deliberate intermingling of the aesthetic and the political”
(McKnight 1994, p. 4). Such a clear and simple connection with post-
modernism is, however, not seen by all (Katsman 2013, p. 76).
“Consequently, alternate history as principle resists both deterministic and
relativistic worldviews, and remains a truly non-dogmatic and non-­
ideological metaphysical historiography” (Katsman 2013, p. X). Alternate
histories reach into the future or past, and may let us perceive the past and
future differently. As all historical narratives—an umbrella term for all
types of speech and writing concerned with history—alternate history
deals at first glance with the past, yet it always does so with the obvious
purpose of changing our present and our future. Every alternate history
looks at what are considered the flaws of the present, as much as it exam-
ines possibilities for improving it by rehearsing several scenarios. In this
sense, the analysis of such diegeses also belongs to the realm of future
studies (Singles 2013, pp. 1–6, 109–46).
The diegeses of alternate histories often start from a point of diver-
gence, from which history as we know it takes a different course. The
narrative either produces an entirely “counterfactual history,” or actual
“history is referenced and integrated into the story” (Singles 2013, p. 21).
For these alternative stories to be effective, it is necessary that well-known
and prominent historical events be changed (Hitler’s suicide, John
Kennedy’s assassination, the American Civil War, etc.). Beside linear con-
secutive narrations of alternate histories (Philip K. Dick’s [1962] The Man
in the High Castle; Robert Harris’ [1992] Fatherland) there are also texts
which conceptualize parallel worlds to our own (Stephen Fry’s [1996]
Making History; Eric Flint et al.’s [2000-] 1632/Ring of Fire series). From
the perspective of contemporary readers, some examples from the realm of
science fiction could also be understood as specific types of alternate his-
tories because the future has superseded the time of their diegesis (Arthur
C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s [both 1968] 2001: A Space Odyssey;
George Orwell’s [1949] Nineteen Eighty-Four). Alternate histories often
cannot do without futuristic inventions, which are also a typical formal
aspect of science fiction (CF. KEYWORD SCIENCE FICTION): there
are already small espionage robots shortly after 1945 in Thomas Ziegler’s
Die Stimmen der Nacht (1984, republished as Stimmen der Nacht in
1993), high-performance drones exist in 1939 in Kerry Conran’s film Sky
 3 ALTERNATE HISTORY 15

Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), and the Nazis are able to land
on the moon in 1945 in Timo Vuorensola’s Iron Sky (2012). Alternate
histories are types of guided thought experiments, which are used fre-
quently for satirical purposes, for example, in Timur Vermes’ Er ist wieder
da (2012). This is why alternate histories often employ methods of parody
and travesty but also more serious forms such as the counter-factual and
Dionysian imitatio.
Today, examples of alternate histories can be found in various cultural
areas and in different media. The various manifestations in novel form are
particularly diverse: Christoph Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara (1995),
Philipp Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004), and, inspired by
A.T. Kearney’s FutureProof strategy, Martin Walker’s novel Germany
2064 (2015). This novel picks up and continues the idea of dual societal
development in Germany, an idea rooted in the parallel growth of the eco-­
movement and technological optimism in central Europe in the 1970s.
The scenario that unfolds in the novel is dominated by two parallel societ-
ies. Walker himself worked for the “Global Business Policy Council”
think-tank at the management firm A.T. Kearney for many years, and,
according to his personal testament, was inspired largely by this experience
while writing the novel.
Examples of alternate histories are also found in film: The Philadelphia
Experiment II, 1993; Watchmen, 2009; and David Falko Wnendt’s (2015)
Er ist wieder da, which is based on Timur Vermes’s 2012 novel of the same
title; in TV series: the Star Trek episode “The City On the Edge of
Forever” (1967) and The Man in the High Castle (2015–); in mockumen-
taries: Der dritte Weltkrieg (1998) and C.S.A. (2004); in video games:
Civilization (1991–), Wolfenstein 3D (1992–), and Command & Conquer:
Red Alert (1996–); in role-playing games: GURPS (1986–) and Crimson
Skies (1998–); and in some cases of living history: for instance, the student
Wallenstein at the Wallenstein-Festspiele in Altdorf.
Alternate history is also discussed on online platforms and in online
magazines (cf. e.g., the forum Alternate History Discussion, since 2010,
and the website Changing the Times). It has been the subject of scholar-
ship since the 1950s and more extensively since the 1980s (cf. Prucher
2007, pp. 4–5). If we can learn from history at all, then certainly from
alternate history. In a scholarly context, it allows us to work with variable
models and figures of thought without being constrained by the strict
rules of historiographic reconstruction (accuracy, references).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Poor diet, methinks, which would hardly content
Englishmen, though Master Jasper says 'tis a healthful and
refreshing drink.

It is really a wonderful thing to see a man who has been in

Cathay and the Indies. Richard has asked him to visit us by-
and-by, and he has promised. His advice has been of great
use to my Lady, and though he could not save the poor
babe, his constant care of the child has endeared him
greatly to the family, so that my Lord would fain have him
take up his abode with them.

There is a rumor afloat, which nobody can trace, that a

pirate vessel hath been seen on the coast hereabouts, but
my father and Captain Hawkins do not think it true. Still
there are many lurking-places on these wild shores, where
such a vessel might hide, and it behooves us all to be
careful. Master Ellenwood says he has seen English boys
and girls sold as slaves in the Bagnios of Constantinople and
Egypt.
 CHAPTER XXXIX.

Coombe Ashton, Sept. 10.

HERE am I, Rosamond Corbet no more, but Rosamond

Stanton, a sober matron of a week's standing. After all we
changed our plans at the last, and came on here the day
but one after the wedding, on account of some business
which had to be attended to. Alice was quite furious at my
being carried off so soon, but none of us at Stanton-Corbet
were in any mood for festivity, and I was by no means sorry
to escape the usual round of wedding banquets and jests,
and have a little time to think. My father and mother and
Joyce came over with us, and left us only this morning.

We are all sad at Harry's going away, and Joyce is broken-

hearted. I expected from her a tempest of grief, and then
all over; but it goes much deeper than that. I do believe
those two childish hearts have waked up to real love. I had
a long talk with Joyce yesterday, telling her how she must
strive to be docile and cheerful, so as to take my place as a
daughter at home, and make them all happy.

"I will do my best," said she, "but I can never make your
place good, Rosamond."

"Nobody can ever exactly fill another's place perhaps," said

I; "but we can all do our best to adorn our own. You have a
great deal to learn, 'tis true, but your capacity is good, and
in my mother and Master Ellenwood you have the kindest of
teachers. Now, what are you smiling at?"

"Because you talk so old!" answered the saucy popinjay.

"One would think Mistress Stanton was twenty years older
than our Rosamond!"

"Whereas she is really many years younger," I answered,

glad to see her laugh, though at my own expense. She
sobered down, however, and begged my pardon for her
sauciness, adding that she meant to be very good, and
learn everything that my mother would teach her.

"And I mean to be happy, too!" she added, very resolutely,

though with some bright drops standing in her eyes. "I am
so thankful to Sir Stephen, that it does not seem as if I
could ever do enough for him. Madam says I must thank
God too, and I do. When I think how I lived with my Lady
Carey, it seems as if I had been in a bad dream from which
you came and waked me. It was a blessed wakening for
me."

And for us too, I told her, and indeed I think it will prove so
—she shows herself so well conditioned, and it will be a real
blessing to Harry to have a wife brought up under our
mother's eye. But that is looking very far forward.

There is no village here, only a little fishing hamlet, at the

mouth of the Coombe; but to my surprise I find they have
really a dame school, taught by a woman who came hither
last year. There is no church nearer than Clovelly, which is
three miles away, and Stanton, which is just as far in the
other direction.
 CHAPTER XL.

Sept. 12.

I HAVE been very busy ordering my house and my servants,

by the help of Mrs. Warner, whom my mother has lent me
till I shall be more at home. She is a great help by her
experience and cleverness, and a right pleasant companion
as well. She owned to me that she did sometimes long for
London, but nevertheless was quite content wherever her
mistress was. She has lived with my mother since the days
of her first marriage, and travelled with her both in England
and in foreign parts, and her mind is enlarged much beyond
the ordinary waiting-gentlewoman's tittle-tattle. If it were
not selfish toward her and my mother, I would love to keep
her altogether.
We went down this afternoon to see the village, if it can be
called so, and especially the school of which we had heard.
All the men were abroad fishing, as usual, but the women
made us very welcome. I found them all speaking well of
the schoolmistress, though they owned that they had
thought it nonsense at first; but two little orphan maids
whom she took in, made such marvellous progress in
spinning and sewing that the mothers were soon won over.
It seems she asks no fees in money (of which indeed they
have next to none), but is content with enough of fish and
fuel to eke out the product of her own goats, hens, and
herb-garden, which she works with her own hands.

After chatting with one and another, we went on to the

school, a decent but very small cottage, from the door of
which, as we came up, streamed forth some dozen of
urchins, who all stopped to stare at the new lady, of course,
and then awaking to a sense of manners, they went off in
quite a shower of reverences from the girls, and bobs from
the little lads, all the latter very small, of course. I asked
the name of one and another, but could extract very little
from their shyness. One little girl, however, rather older
than the rest, told us her name was Jane Lee—which is next
to no name at all, in these parts.

"And what is your dame called?" I asked.

"Oh, just our dame. Mammy calls her Dame Madge."

Just then the dame herself appeared at the door, and I

could hardly repress a cry as I recognized in the tall spare
figure, and strong but kindly features, one associated with
the most solemn passage of all my life—one whom I last
saw as the doors of St. Ethelburga's shrine closed on her—
Magdalen Jewell! I saw too that she knew me, for she
turned very pale. She has grown quite gray, and looks older
and more bent, but the repressed fire still shines in her
eyes as when she bade Queen Catherine and the rest of us
welcome to her cottage at Torfoot. I put my finger on my
lip, and I saw she comprehended the signal. She asked us
into the cottage, and placed seats for us with all her old
courtesy; and while I was puzzling my brains how to begin,
she relieved me of my trouble in the most natural way
possible.

"I knew not that our young lady of the manor was to be one
whom I had seen before!" said she. "You are most welcome,
madam, to my poor cottage."

Then to Warner, who looked surprised: "I used to live some

way from the convent where the lady was educated, and
have seen her both in the church and at the convent gate,
helping the kind ladies distribute their alms."

"And I was at your cottage on the moor with good Queen

Catherine and her bower-woman," I added. "Do you not
remember?"

"I do, though I knew not then it was the Queen!" answered
Magdalen. "Do you know, madam, how it fares with that
good lady?"

I told her very ill, I feared; and then spoke of the work she
had taken in hand.

"Aye, 'tis little I can do!" she answered, "Yet every little
helps, and the poor maids are out-of-the-way at home.
They take well enough to spinning and making of nets, and
I would fain teach them to sew, but needles and thread are
so hard to come by, that the mothers do not like to waste
them in such little hands!"
I told her I would supply her with both, if she would come
up to the house. I was burning with a desire to see her
alone.

"Is not the air here bad for your health?" I ventured to ask
her.

"Nay, I think not," she answered, taking my meaning at

once. "I have had no trouble heretofore."

Mistress Warner now reminded me that it was growing late,

and we took our leave. In the evening Magdalen came up to
the house, and Richard and I got from her the history of her
adventures. She said she had remained in a hiding-place
she knew of for three or four days, till danger of pursuit was
over, and had then made her way across the moor,
disguised as a hawker of small wares, till she reached this
place, where she thought herself safe, as there is little or no
communication. And indeed there are no roads across the
moors which lie between us and my old home, though we
are not many miles away. Magdalen was much touched at
hearing of the manner of Amice Crocker's death.

"'Twas a blessed end," she said; "and yet I must needs

grieve that her young life should be laid down for my old
one."

"I do not so regard it," I said. "I believe Amice must soon
have died at any rate, and what she did could only at worst
have hastened the end a little."

"Her work was done and yours was yet to do," said my
husband (the name comes strangely to my pen, even yet).
"You are doing a good work here, and so far as my power
reaches you, shall be protected in it. Only keep your own
counsel, and I trust all will be well."
[These few leaves which follow were writ first on certain
small bits of paper, which I chanced to have in my pocket;
but in such a cramped hand, and so uncertainly in the
darkness, that I had much ado to read them myself when I
tried to make the fair copy which I have put in here. I have
kept the first leaves, and the very sight of them seems to
bring over me the close and heavy smell of the vault just as
the odor of crushed ivy will ever bring to mind that stormy
October morning.]

CHAPTER XLI.

St. Ethelburga's Shrine, Sept. 30.

I DON'T know that any one who loves me will ever see
these lines, but stranger things have happened, and I will
never give up while I live the hope of seeing my husband
again. For his sake I will keep my senses together, by God's
help, through all the horrors of this place, and of all with
which they threaten me. Yea, if one of these niches, as that
fiend threatened, is destined to enclose me alive, I will
struggle to the last. I will never give up. Magdalen escaped
from this place, and why not I? Only no one knows I am
here. They will all think I have been carried away by the
pirates.

But it may be His will even yet to save me, and if so, none
of their schemes, however artfully laid, but must fall to the
ground. And if I am to suffer for my faith, I know He will
support me to the end, as He did Amice and has done many
another. By His help I will never deny Him; and they shall
never make me say I am sorry for marrying my husband—
never! I glory in his name! I cherish the memory of his last
embrace, when we thought ourselves parting for but a few
hours, and I know we shall meet again where no malice or
wrath of man can part us. Yet my spirit shrinks to think of
his return to his desolate home! Oh, Richard, Richard! Oh,
to see thee once—only once again!

Mistress Warner and I had set out to walk down to the cove
to see a child, one of Magdalen's pupils, who had met with a
bad scald. Richard had ridden over home, meaning to be
back at night. We had gone about half way, when I
remembered some linen I had meant to bring for a lying-in
woman, and sent Warner back for it—I sitting meanwhile on
a rock which formed a natural seat beside the stream. I had
sat thus but a few moments, when I heard, or so I believed,
a child crying in the wood close at hand. I thought of
nothing but that one of the children from the hamlet had
got astray, and as I always run about our own woods
without fear, I went to seek it. I was well within the shadow
of the woods, when all at once I felt myself seized from
behind—a cloak was thrown over my head, and I was so
muffled that I could not scream or make any noise to be
heard.

"Make no resistance, Mistress!" said a man's voice. "If you

utter a sound, you die the next moment!"

I was in their power, and there was no help, so I submitted;

and being bound, I was carried some distance, and then
found myself in a boat from which I was lifted up the side of
a vessel and placed below. The air was stifling, even if my
head had not been covered; but at last the cloak was
removed and my eyes were bandaged instead. I made good
use of them in the moment I had them, however, and saw
that I was in the cabin of a small vessel, such as ply along
this west coast to and from Bristol. More I was not allowed
to see.

Somehow my mind was curiously calm all the time. I

believed I had fallen into the hands of pirates, and might be
carried away to Turkey and sold as a slave; but I was
determined not to lose my life or liberty without an effort. I
said my prayers, commending to Heaven myself, my
husband, and my friends at home, and prayed earnestly for
release and for grace in my time of need. I kept my ears
open, and judged that I was alone in the cabin; but I could
now and then catch a few words from the deck, and those
words I was certain were English.

After much tossing, which lasted for many hours, we were

again still, and I heard the casting of anchor and the
lowering of a boat. I was once again muffled in the cloak,
and being set on shore, found myself on horseback behind
somebody, to whom I was bound fast by a belt. We rode
fast and far—how long I could not tell, but at last our ride
came to an end. I was once more taken down, carried
through some place which echoed hollow, like a vault, and
then downstairs; but before I reached the bottom, I heard a
whisper which told me where I was.

"Ah, 'twas ever what I looked for!" said a voice, which I

knew right well.

"Hush!" said another voice, with imperative sharpness.

Then being set down, my hands and eyes were unbound,

and a glance told me my whole situation. I was in the vault
under St. Ethelburga's shrine, in our old convent garden.
Before me were the new mother assistant, a priest whom I
had never seen, and one in the dress of a lay brother. I
expected to see Sister Catherine, but she was not there,
though I am sure I heard her voice. Not a word was said till
my bonds were unloosed, and I was set down on a rude
bench. Then the priest addressed me:

"Rosamond Corbet! Miserable apostate and perjured nun

that you are, your spiritual superiors are still anxious to
save you from the fate you have prepared for yourself.
Therefore they have brought you to this holy place. You
may yet repent—may yet return to the home from which
you have wandered, may resume your former place, and
even rise to high honor and trust therein."

Here I distinctly heard a contemptuous sniff, from the

neighborhood of the door, and I knew that Sister Catherine
was at her old tricks. I was about to speak, but was sternly
silenced.

"Listen, while there is time, to the terms of mercy," said the

priest. "We are willing to receive you on these conditions.
You shall write with your own hands a letter to the Bishop,
declaring that you were coerced into your marriage, and
have taken the first opportunity to escape therefrom. You
shall also say that you had been already secretly professed,
before you went home. There are abundance of people to
bear witness that you had all the privileges and duties of
one of the professed, being constantly present at
'obedience,' and having charges of importance laid upon
you, such as are proper only to the Sisters. It will thus be
easy to procure the annulling of your so-called marriage,
and after a time of seclusion and penance, which I promise
you shall be made as light as possible, you may again take
your place as an honored member of this holy family."

"And if I refuse?" said I.

For all answer he pointed to a niche, beside which were laid

tools, bricks and mortar.

"You dare not award me such a fate!" said I. "My kinsmen

and my husband would fearfully avenge me."

"Your kinsmen and your husband believe you to be carried

off by pirates," was the answer. "They will be seeking you
on the seas and among the Turks, while your bones are
mouldering, under these walls."

I saw, as in a flash of lightning, all the horrid helplessness

of my position, but my courage did not give way.

"Answer me one thing," said I. "Does Mother Superior know

that I am here? Has she any share in this plot?"

"No," answered the priest, after a moment's hesitation.

"She is not here. She has been called to Exeter, to attend a
Chapter of the order, and will probably be placed at the
head of a house in that place."
Again I heard Sister Catherine's sniff of contempt.

"And how much time do you give me to decide this matter?"

I asked again.

"We might justly require you to decide on the instant,"

answered the priest, "but in pity to your soul, and because
we hope that solitude and prayer may bring you to a better
mind, we give you a week, in which to consider. This Sister
will bring you food and water, but presume not to speak to
her, or to make any noise, on pain of being removed to a
worse place. Contemplate that cell—your living grave—think
of what a life of usefulness and happiness may yet be yours
—and we have good hope that you will return to a better
mind."

He seemed to wait for me to speak, but I only bowed my

head, and they presently withdrew, leaving me alone, to
consider of the infamous propositions they had made me, in
presence of that awful token of the fate that awaited me,
should I refuse to comply. Then my strength gave way all at
once. I sank on the damp ground in a kind of swoon, which
I think passed into sleep.

I was waked at last by the sound of the chapel bell, calling

the Sisters to early prayers, and found myself not wholly in
darkness. There was a very small window, close to the
ceiling of the deep vault, which admitted a ray of light.
When my eyes grew more accustomed to the obscurity, I
could see everything plainly. A heap of straw had been
placed in one corner, and by it stood a coarse loaf and a
pitcher of water. The rest of the vault was as I had last seen
it, with some stone coffins, the occupants of which had long
since mouldered into dust, some tattered remains of
banners and winding-sheets, and one new leaden coffin,
placed there not long since. I remembered that the Vernon
family, or that branch of it to which our mother belonged,
had a right of burial here. But by one of those niches in the
wall, of which I have spoken, lay what had a grim
significance, namely, a pile of bricks, some mortar, and
building instruments.

A cold shudder ran through me at the sight. I fell on my

knees, and with tears and sobs, besought to be saved from
such a dreadful death, and to be restored to my husband. I
also prayed for strength to suffer all that might come on
me, without denying the truth; and I believe my prayer has
been answered, for I now feel quite calm and strong. I have
eaten and drank, and feel refreshed. I am determined not
to yield, but to escape if possible. No Corbet did ever yet
fear death, nor yet resign life without a struggle.

I have been making a close survey of my prison, and have

found an inestimable treasure, namely, the remains of two
great funeral torches, of black wax, overlooked and left, I
suppose, at the time the leaden coffin was placed here.
They are large and thick enough to give light for many
hours. 'Tis a wonder the rats have not devoured them.

I have also cautiously tried the door of the vault, and find
that it yields a little under my hands. Luckily (though that is
hardly the word) I have both flint and steel in my pocket, in
a Dutch tinder-box Master Jasper gave me. I have also a
knife and scissors. 'Tis well they did not think to search me.
 CHAPTER XLII.

Tremador, All Saints' Day, Nov. 1.

WITH the other proofs of her care and kindness, my mother

hath sent me a store of pens and paper, and I am minded
to beguile my somewhat too abundant leisure, by setting
down in order the account of my late wonderful escape.

Magdalen and Grace take off my hands the whole care of

our little household, and I have hitherto been only too glad
to rest, and let them wait upon me; but my spirits and
strength are recovering themselves sooner and more easily
than I could have thought possible, after such a shock.

I left off my memoranda at the point where I had found the

remnants of funeral torches. All that day and night, as I had
opportunity, I carefully, and without noise, worked the door
back and forward, finding that it yielded more and more at
every effort. I knew it led only to the stairs, and that
between me and freedom there still lay the heavy upper
door, with its bolts and bars, and the convent walls; but I
had something else in view. I remembered the ruined
staircase leading upward, and this, if it were possible to
scale it, I meant to explore.

Toward night came two veiled figures, bringing me bread

and water. I heard the door unlock at the head of the stairs,
and took pains to be at the farther end of the vault, lying on
my bed of straw.

"So!" whispered one of my visitors, while the other's back

was turned. "So this is something of a change from waiting
on queens and being the favorite of superiors. But I ever
knew to what it would come."

I am almost ashamed to write it, but my fingers did tingle

to pull the veil from her face and cuff her ears soundly. But
I made her no answer, and did not even look up till they left
me. I waited till the clock told eleven, and then lighted my
torch, taking care to shade it well from the little window,
and begun my labors once more at the door. And here befel
a wondrous piece of good luck; for as I fumbled at the lock,
I touched a knob which yielded under my grasp, a little trap
fell inward, and a space was opened through which I easily
put my hand and pushed back the bolt.

I remember having heard of the devotion of some of our

Sisters in olden times, who used to have themselves bolted
into this underground chapel for a day and a night of
watching and prayer. Mayhap this trap was made for their
convenience, if they did at any time tire of their solitude. Be
that as it may, I joyfully opened the door and ascended the
stairs. The upper door was fast, and would not yield an inch
to all my efforts; so I turned my attention to the half ruined
stairway.
The moon, nearly at full, shone through the window slits,
and made light enough for me to see where to place my
feet; and with hard climbing, and some peril, I reached the
top. Lo, there a trap door with rusted iron grates, which
gave way without much trouble; and I found myself on the
top of the tower whereof I have spoken before.

Keeping my head well down, I crept to the battlements and

looked over. The tower joined and formed part of the outer
wall, and was covered by luxuriant ivy of a century's
growth, for aught I know. As I lay here, breathing with
transport the fresh air of heaven, I saw crouched below a
dark figure, wrapped as it seemed in a cloak. They have set
a guard, was my first sickening thought; but presently the
person arose carefully and began to peer among the ivy
leaves, and to feel cautiously with the hand. Then the face
was raised, and the moon shining thereon, showed me
features which I could never forget! I ventured to lean
forward, and called softly:

"Magdalen!"

"My Lady Rosamond, is that you?" was the answer, in a

joyful whisper. "I knew it—I felt you were here. But how
have you got up there?"

"The question is, how I shall get down?" I said, with an odd
inclination to laugh.

"Climb down by the ivy!" was the instant answer. "The main
stem is on this side. 'Tis like a tree, and the wall is also
rough. The distance is not great, even if you fall. But wait.
Let them get to the midnight office, which is tolling even
now."

I again lay down on the top of the tower, praying not so

much in words as in will, for the strength and coolness
needful. In a moment I heard the peal of the organ, and
then Magdalen's voice, saying:

"Now—my Lady—now! Be cool and steady, there is no

danger, thus far!"

Down I went, scrambling like a cat, and getting scratches

and bruises the marks of which still remain. A high wind
was blowing, with now and then a rush of rain, and our old
mastiff in the garden was baying the moon in his usual
dolorous fashion. I have many a time wished him hanged
for those musical vigils of his, but now I was glad of
anything to make a little more noise. It seemed an age ere
I reached the ground, and I did get a fall at last, but I was
up and in Magdalen's arms in an instant.

"Now for our best speed of foot!" said she. "Give me two
hours' leave, and then let them do their worst. Can you
walk?"

"Yes, run, if need be!" I answered.

"Then hasten after me!"

We soon gained the bank of a little brook, about a mile from

the convent walls, and here Magdalen, bidding me look well
to my feet, slipped into the bed of the stream. I followed
her, and we made our way down the channel, despite the
rushing water and rolling stones, till we reached the spot
where the brook descended into a deep ravine.

"We may rest a moment, now!" said Magdalen. As she

spoke, we clearly heard borne on the wind the sound of the
convent bell, ringing as if an alarm.

"Can they have missed us already?" said I.

"Nay, they would hardly ring the bell if they had!" answered
Magdalen.

As she spoke, a red gleam shot up, and was reflected on

the tall spire of the church, increasing momently in
brightness.

"The torch! The torch!" I exclaimed.

"What torch?" asked Magdalen.

I told her how I had found and lighted the remains of the
funeral torch. I had left it propped up in the corner when I
ascended the stairs, and doubtless it had fallen over on the
ground, where the fragments of cere cloths and coffins, and
the straw of my bed would be as tinder to the flame. I had
set the shrine on fire!

"So much the better!" said Magdalen, coolly. "They will have
their hands full enough for the next hour."

"Specially if the flame reaches the stores of fuel in the shed

which joins the shrine!" I said. "I fear the whole will go!"

And a great pang seized my heart as I thought of the home

where I was once so happy.

"Let it go," said Magdalen, bitterly. "It and its like have long
enough cumbered the ground. But we must not tarry here,
lady. Follow me—look well to your steps, and fear not."

We now descended into the ravine, through which the brook

raved and roared, apparently filling the whole space at the
bottom.

"There is a path, though of the narrowest!" said Magdalen,

as we reached the bottom. "Tarry a little till I strike a light."
She lighted as she spoke a dark lantern, which she had
carried, and showed me indeed a very narrow path; hardly
wide enough for one, under the banks, which here became
high and steep, towering in bare walls above our heads.

"This is our own Coombe Ashton stream," said she, "and

would lead us homeward, but you must not venture hither
till we find how the land lies."

The day had begun to dawn as we reached a projecting

rock, beyond which there seemed to be no passing.

"Have faith still!" said Magdalen.

As she spoke, she stepped out on a stone in the bed of the

stream, and then disappeared round the projection. In
another moment I heard her voice:

"Now, my Lady, place your foot on that stone firmly, and

give me your hand. Take time. The stream is swollen, but
you can do it."

I obeyed almost blindly, for I was beginning to feel

exhausted. She extended her hand—I caught it, and found
myself drawn into a recess or cavern in the rock, of some
size, screened above and below by the projecting cliffs.

"Thank God!" said Magdalen. "We may now rest for some
hours. The king's bloodhounds would not track us hither,
and I don't believe the wild beasts yonder will try. They will
think doubtless that you have perished in the flames. 'Tis
not the first time this cavern has sheltered the saints in
time of persecution. It was mine own home for many days,
and there are others like it on these wilds, known only to a
few of the faithful."