Page 130 - Tributaries Catalogue
P. 130
Water as Crisis and Culture in Frank
Herbert’s Dune
In a paper presented at The the world of a – quite literally –
Tributaries Project Colloquium (Nov marginalised people and the way of
20), Silvon argued that, “Frank life that has allowed them to resist
Herbert’s Dune is a critique of extinction despite their oppressor’s
traditional western culture and – best efforts. On a planet where
very broadly – the ways it attempts water is hunted for like gold, where
to solve problems or overcome the wealthy water palm trees and
threats.” In is view, Herbert’s fiction the poor recycle body moisture for
not only “offers a powerful months, how do those on the
metaphor for our engagement with periphery respond to crisis? How do
the theme of water and water they carve a life for themselves out
scarcity,” but “the central narrative of the desert sand they are given?
itself offers a brilliant illustration of And how does the phenomenon of
the futile desire for ultimate culture actualise in a space
solutions to fundamental seemingly entirely defined by
problems.” He adds that the novel survival?” In analysing the answers
offers a “counter narrative to the raised and given by the novel, Silvon
dominant agents of control that aims to make a critical contribution
dictate the events of the text” and to the project of inter-disciplinary
“the author takes his readers into action, where, like Herbert, he
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