Troubling Tricksters

Troubling Tricksters
Author: Deanna Reder
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2010-02-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1554582059

Troubling Tricksters is a collection of theoretical essays, creative pieces, and critical ruminations that provides a re-visioning of trickster criticism in light of recent backlash against it. The complaints of some Indigenous writers, the critique from Indigenous nationalist critics, and the changing of academic fashion have resulted in few new studies on the trickster. For example, The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature (2005), includes only a brief mention of the trickster, with skeptical commentary. And, in 2007, Anishinaabe scholar Niigonwedom Sinclair (a contributor to this volume) called for a moratorium on studies of the trickster irrelevant to the specific experiences and interests of Indigenous nations. One of the objectives of this anthology is, then, to encourage scholarship that is mindful of the critic’s responsibility to communities, and to focus discussions on incarnations of tricksters in their particular national contexts. The contribution of Troubling Tricksters, therefore, is twofold: to offer a timely counterbalance to this growing critical lacuna, and to propose new approaches to trickster studies, approaches that have been clearly influenced by the nationalists’ call for cultural and historical specificity.

Troubling Tricksters

Troubling Tricksters
Author: Deanna Reder
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2010-02-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1554582903

Troubling Tricksters is a collection of theoretical essays, creative pieces, and critical ruminations that provides a re-visioning of trickster criticism in light of recent backlash against it. The complaints of some Indigenous writers, the critique from Indigenous nationalist critics, and the changing of academic fashion have resulted in few new studies on the trickster. For example, The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature (2005), includes only a brief mention of the trickster, with skeptical commentary. And, in 2007, Anishinaabe scholar Niigonwedom Sinclair (a contributor to this volume) called for a moratorium on studies of the trickster irrelevant to the specific experiences and interests of Indigenous nations. One of the objectives of this anthology is, then, to encourage scholarship that is mindful of the critic’s responsibility to communities, and to focus discussions on incarnations of tricksters in their particular national contexts. The contribution of Troubling Tricksters, therefore, is twofold: to offer a timely counterbalance to this growing critical lacuna, and to propose new approaches to trickster studies, approaches that have been clearly influenced by the nationalists’ call for cultural and historical specificity.

Standing Up to Colonial Power

Standing Up to Colonial Power
Author: Renya K. Ramirez
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1496212681

Standing Up to Colonial Power focuses on the lives, activism, and intellectual contributions of Henry Cloud (1884-1950), a Ho-Chunk, and Elizabeth Bender Cloud (1887-1965), an Ojibwe, both of whom grew up amid settler colonialism that attempted to break their connection to Native land, treaty rights, and tribal identities. Mastering ways of behaving and speaking in different social settings and to divergent audiences, including other Natives, white missionaries, and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials, Elizabeth and Henry relied on flexible and fluid notions of gender, identity, culture, community, and belonging as they traveled Indian Country and within white environments to fight for Native rights. Elizabeth fought against termination as part of her role in the National Congress of American Indians and General Federation of Women's Clubs, while Henry was one of the most important Native policy makers of the early twentieth century. He documented the horrible abuse within the federal boarding schools and co-wrote the Meriam Report of 1928, which laid the foundation for the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Together they ran an early college preparatory Christian high school, the American Indian Institute. Standing Up to Colonial Power shows how the Clouds combined Native warrior and modern identities as a creative strategy to challenge settler colonialism, to become full members of the U.S. nation-state, and to fight for tribal sovereignty. Renya K. Ramirez uses her dual position as a scholar and as the granddaughter of Elizabeth and Henry Cloud to weave together this ethnography and family-tribal history.

Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures

Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures
Author: Pamela Karantonis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1317085418

The representation of non-Western cultures in opera has long been a focus of critical inquiry. Within this field, the diverse relationships between opera and First Nations and Indigenous cultures, however, have received far less attention. Opera Indigene takes this subject as its focus, addressing the changing historical depictions of Indigenous cultures in opera and the more contemporary practices of Indigenous and First Nations artists. The use of 're/presenting' in the title signals an important distinction between how representations of Indigenous identity have been constructed in operatic history and how Indigenous artists have more recently utilized opera as an interface to present and develop their cultural practices. This volume explores how operas on Indigenous subjects reflect the evolving relationships between Indigenous peoples, the colonizing forces of imperial power, and forms of internal colonization in developing nation-states. Drawing upon postcolonial theory, ethnomusicology, cultural geography and critical discourses on nationalism and multiculturalism, the collection brings together experts on opera and music in Canada, the Americas and Australia in a stimulating comparative study of operatic re/presentation.

The Trickster Figure in American Literature

The Trickster Figure in American Literature
Author: Winifred Morgan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137344725

This book analyzes and offers fresh insights into the trickster tradition including African American, American Indian, Euro-American, Asian American, and Latino/a stories, Morgan examines the oral roots of each racial/ethnic group to reveal how each group's history, frustrations, and aspirations have molded the tradition in contemporary literature.

Trickster Makes This World

Trickster Makes This World
Author: Lewis Hyde
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2010-08-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1429930837

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World—authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style—has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism. This new edition includes an introduction by Michael Chabon.

That's Raven Talk

That's Raven Talk
Author: Mareike Neuhaus
Publisher: University of Regina Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0889772339

Annotation A reading strategy for orality in North American Indigenous literatures that is grounded in Indigenous linquistic traditions.

Gender, Power, and Representations of Cree Law

Gender, Power, and Representations of Cree Law
Author: Emily Snyder
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2018-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0774835710

Drawing on the insights of Indigenous feminist legal theory, Emily Snyder examines representations of Cree law and gender in books, videos, graphic novels, educational websites, online lectures, and a video game. Although these resources promote the revitalization of Cree law and the principle of miyo-wîcêhtowin (good relations), Snyder argues that they do not capture the complexities of gendered power dynamics. The majority of the resources either erase women’s legal authority by not mentioning them, or they diminish women’s agency by portraying them primarily as mothers and nurturers. Although these latter roles are celebrated, Snyder argues that Cree laws and gender roles are represented in inflexible, aesthetically pleasing ways that overlook power imbalances and difficult questions regarding interpretations of tradition. What happens when good relations are represented in ways that are oppressive? Grappling with this question, Snyder makes the case that educators need to critically engage with issues of gender and power in order to create inclusive resources that meaningfully address the everyday messiness of law. As with all legal orders, gendered oppression can be perpetuated through Cree law, but Cree law is also a dynamic resource for challenging gendered oppression.

The Trickster in Ginsberg

The Trickster in Ginsberg
Author: Katherine Campbell Mead-Brewer
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2013-05-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1476602964

This scholarly close reading of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" considers the iconic poem through a four-part trickster framework: appetite, boundlessness, transformative power and a proclivity for setting and falling victim to tricks and traps. The book pursues various different narratives of the trickster Coyote and the historical and biographical contexts of "Howl" from a truly interdisciplinary perspective. This study seeks to contribute to the current literature on the poetry of the Beats and of Allen Ginsberg, specifically his "Howl," and the ways it continues to expand in meaning, depth and significance today.

Thomas King

Thomas King
Author: Eva Gruber
Publisher: Camden House
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2012
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1571134352

A comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the work of one of the foremost Native North American writers and his reception and influence. Thomas King is one of North America's foremost Native writers, best known for his novels, including Green Grass, Running Water, for the DreadfulWater mysteries, and for collections of short stories such as One Good Story, That One and A Short History of Indians in Canada. But King is also a poet, a literary and cultural critic, and a noted filmmaker, photographer, and scriptwriter and performer for radio. His career and oeuvre have been validated by literary awards and by the inclusion of his writing in college and university curricula. Critical responses to King's work have been abundant, yet most of this criticism consists of journal articles, and to date only one book-length study of his work exists. Thomas King: Works and Impact fills this gap by providing an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of all major aspects of King's oeuvre as well as its reception and influence. It brings together expert scholars to discuss King's role in and impact on Native literature and to offer in-depth analyses of his multifaceted body of work. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of literature, English, and Native American studies, and to King aficionados. Contributors: Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber, Julia Breitbach, Stuart Christie, James H. Cox, Marta Dvorak, Floyd Favel, Kathleen Flaherty, Aloys Fleischmann, MarleneGoldman, Eva Gruber, Helen Hoy, Renée Hulan and Linda Warley, Carter Meland, Reingard M. Nischik, Robin Ridington, Suzanne Rintoul, Katja Sarkowsky, Blanca Schorcht, Mark Shackleton, Martin Kuester and Marco Ulm, Doris Wolf. Eva Gruber is Assistant Professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Konstanz, Germany.