‘Katabasis’: RF Kuang’s new novel is an exposé of institutions and students in all their manic glory

Rebecca F Kuang is no stranger to the world of academia. She completed her master’s from the University of Oxford, got an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and is currently pursuing her PhD in East Asian Languages and Literature at Yale University. Even outside her personal life, her previous work has explored (and deconstructed) the alluring realm of academic institutions. Set in Oxford in the late 19th century against the backdrop of the British imperial empire, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence (2022) develops an intricate, elaborate critique of how academic institutions both imbibe and generate structures of power through the guise of knowledge. The novel also offers a compelling (and dare I say radical) perspective on the stakes of decolonisation, and the dual role played by translation in sustaining and undoing the Empire. It pushes us to ask whether and how much of language is nature or nurture, and refuses to give us an answer in the singular.

Journey to Hell

While Kuang’s last book on academia offers a macro-level perspective of the Institution at large, Katabasis is an exposé of the affective dimensions of the grad student in all its manic glory. We begin with a conundrum: Alice Law, doctoral candidate of Analytic Magick...

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