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Title SPATIAL CRISES AND THE PLANETARY TURN: A RHYTHMANALYTIC READING OF SMITH’S SEASONAL QUARTET

Author(s) Fatima Farhad

Abstract The increasingly globalised world of the twenty-first century has led to many spatial and cultural crises. This dissertation is a reading of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet by applying rhythmanalysis to explore how it engages with a counter-globalist paradigm, planetarity. It achieves this via a methodology that allows for a two-fold analysis; to study the rhythmic alliances present between various instances in the novels and situate the spatial crises that exist there within a geomethodological planetary reading as outlined by Christian Moraru. I apply Lefebvre’s rhythmanalytical reading and explore the multiple coexistences of harmonies and disharmonies exhibited by Smith’s characters.The research also investigates the multiple iterations of a planetary epistemology across the 4 books. Studying Autumn (2016) uncovers Smith’s engagement with spatial crises, particularly bureaucratic monotony, climate despair and catastrophe created by late-capitalist globalization. In Winter (2017), a geomethodological ethical relating to the past is applied to survey crises of hypernationalism and anti-immigrant hatred. The study of Spring (2019) evaluates the crises of immigration and border control, and the violence embedded in them within the cultural space of contemporary Britain, whereas examining Summer (2020) reveals governmental apathy and indifference toward people of marginalised identities during the pandemic within the national and cultural space of the UK. Characters from all four books cross boundaries of nationality and ethnicity as a planetary expression of their shared humanity. The research appraises the disjointed rhythms of history and present in the texts as it recounts classic narratives. Smith’s linguistic flair for puns and wordplay places the texts within a planetary existence, free from the policing influence of globalization. The books may also be further studied from a political and social perspective to study how these crises are manifested in the novels.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2025-08-18

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