Reembodying Utopia: The Politics of Nature in Ali Smith’s “Seasonal Quartet”

Ali Smith’s “Seasonal Quartet” chooses to inscribe Smith’s reading of Brexit in a long history of social and ideological fractures dating back to the 1980s. Transmuting the genre of “the condition of England” novel, she brings it into conjunction with the language of utopia and art. Her previous exploration of the politics of metamorphosis (see, for instance, “The Beholder,” Public Library and Other Stories [2015]) is here harnessed to a reflection on the experience of collective crisis and of historical belonging. Exploring the affective politics of nature, and harnessing artists like Barbara Hepworth and Tacita Dean to a form of re-affected utopia, she elaborates a poetics of transmutation harboring the promise of collective redemption. Turning to the concept of hospitality as analyzed by Derrida, as well as the series’ critical intermediality, this paper reflects on the poetics of affect crafted by Smith and the way her vision of a re-aestheticized body politic, fueled by the rhythms of nature, fashions a re-affected national community. (CB)