Word: presentness
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...past events are to be as present now to us as they once were, Austerlitz discovers, we must also apprehend the sufferings of those who have lived before us. And while his own sense of personal integrity depends urgently upon this historical exercise, it engenders, paradoxically, “disintegration of the personality...
...fixation on uncovering the histories of forgotten people and places, its odyssey is a darker, more troubling one, and its construction more deliberate. The novel is preoccupied with the line that separates being from non-being, a line that blurs and trembles when we realize the contingency of our present existence on the now-invisible events of the past. For this reason, it is tempting to read “Austerlitz” as Sebald’s swan song, haunted, as it is, by one man’s apprehension of the inevitable obliteration of all things by time...
...surrounding night sky are meant to reference the experiences slaves had escaping during cold and dark nights. Biggers incorporated the quilt in order to reference the historical controversy over whether coded messages were stitched into blankets by abolitionists. He points out that it is unclear whether the quilts present historically salient evidence of communication or if they have no importance outside of their aesthetic value. “History is largely conjecture. It is guesses and estimations,” he says. “So much of what we hear about the Underground Railroad is from quilts...
...Indian soil, free to do as he pleases provided he refrains from directly antagonizing China. This is not the first time he has journeyed to Tawang from his seat in the north Indian town of Dharamsala. But in the wake of riots in Lhasa last year and amid the present frostiness over the Sino-Indian border, the visit has assumed a deeper political dimension...
...monastery at Tawang is one of the largest and oldest of the dominant Tibetan Gelupga sect and is near the home of Tsangyang Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama, born in 1683 - a leader particularly beloved by the Tibetans. As the present Dalai Lama (the 14th) ages, rumors grow that his successor may be tapped from this historic cradle of Tibetan Buddhism in a bid to preempt Beijing, which is almost certain to select its own Dalai Lama once the current one passes...