The Light of Our Lives

Moran, J ORCID: 0000-0001-9799-0116 (2026) The Light of Our Lives. Life Writing. ISSN 1448-4528

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Abstract

This personal essay explores an overlooked aspect of life writing: light. I explore the different kinds of light in my own life and the life of my grandmother, who was born and raised on an island off the west coast of Ireland, and of my father who spent his summers there as a boy. The island had no electricity, which made the islanders more aware of the fading and return of the light and of its endless, local permutations. I draw on the work of painters and filmmakers who see light’s scarcity as part of the artform, and on life writing by Roland Barthes, John Boorman, John Berger, Elizabeth Bowen and others. What, I ask, does the long human quest for everlasting light mean in an era of light pollution and what Matthew Beaumont calls ‘post-circadian capitalism’? Our turbo capitalist world rests on the fantasy of endless growth, continual betterment, life without end. One task of life writing, in an age of climate emergency, might be to help us accept our own finitude—to concede that our lives are a waking dream, refracted through light.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1904 Performing Arts and Creative Writing; 2005 Literary Studies; 2099 Other Language, Communication and Culture; 3602 Creative and professional writing; 3604 Performing arts; 4705 Literary studies
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > ND Painting P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Motion Pictures
Divisions:	Humanities and Social Science
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis
Date of acceptance:	2 March 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	18 March 2026
Date Deposited:	18 Mar 2026 11:51
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2026 11:51
DOI or ID number:	10.1080/14484528.2026.2643379
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28261

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