Writing and errancy in New York

Nomadic Subjectivity and Afeccts in The Dark Desires and the Others. Notebooks from New York by Luisa Valenzuela

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48075/rlhm.v21i37.35376

Abstract

The Dark Desires and the Others. Notebooks from New York (2002) brings together a series of journals by writer Luisa Valenzuela, which she herself described as “simple movements of the cuore and the body” (2002:10). In these pages, the author traces an intersection between her emotional, intimate, and romantic experiences and her academic and political-humanitarian activities following her arrival in New York.

The aim of this work is to explore the scope of the theme of travel, understood as a site of thematic and symbolic enunciation that recurs throughout Valenzuela’s body of work, situating The Dark Desires and the Others within that constant space of transition.

The analysis brings together the notions of nomadic subjectivity (Braidotti, 2000) and the affective turn (Ahmed, 2019), considering the text as an affective and wandering artifact in which the self is reshaped through the intensities of desire and pleasure.

The body that travels and writes is driven by affectivities that deviate from the expected and finds meaning in transit, risk, and the marginal: fleeting encounters, passions, and frustrations shape an emotional cartography
Travel, as displacement, functions as a vehicle for a subjectivity in constant motion; it becomes a nomadic expression that helps interpret the foundation of Valenzuela’s poetics: the search as both existential and textual exploration.  

Author Biography

  • Rosana Carina Koch, National University of Rosario

    Profesora de Lengua y Literatura por el Instituto Superior de Formación Docente N° 116 "Dr. Eduardo Costa", Fonoaudióloga por la Universidad del Salvador (USAL), Magister en Literatura Argentina por la Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) y Doctoranda en Literatura y Estudios Críticos por la Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR).

Published

05/09/2025

Issue

Section

Dossiê: A ALEGRIA E OUTROS AFETOS NA LITERATURA

How to Cite

KOCH, Rosana Carina. Writing and errancy in New York: Nomadic Subjectivity and Afeccts in The Dark Desires and the Others. Notebooks from New York by Luisa Valenzuela. Journal of Literature, History and Memory, [S. l.], v. 21, n. 37, 2025. DOI: 10.48075/rlhm.v21i37.35376. Disponível em: https://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/rlhm/article/view/35376. Acesso em: 6 sep. 2026.