Full Description
According to Kimberly Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor is "the most prolific Native American writer of the twentieth century," and Christopher Teuton rightfully calls him "one of the most innovative and brilliant American Indian writers" today." With more than 40 books of fiction, poetry, life writing, essays, and criticism, his impact on literary and cultural theory, and specifically on Indigenous Studies, has been unparalleled.
This volume brings together some of the most distinguished experts on Vizenor's work from Europe and the United States. Original contributions by Gerald Vizenor himself, as well as by Kimberly M. Blaeser, A. Robert Lee, Kathryn Shanley, David L. Moore, Chris LaLonde, Alexandra Ganser, Cathy Covell Waegner, Sabine N. Meyer, Kristina Baudemann, and Billy J. Stratton provide fresh perspectives on theoretical concepts such as trickster discourse, postindian survivance, totemic associations, Native presence, artistic irony, and transmotion, and explore his lasting literary impact from Darkness in St. Louis Bearheart to his most recent novels and collections of poetry, Shrouds of White Earth, Chair of Tears, Blue Ravens, and Favor of Crows. The thematic sections focus on "Truth Games': Transnationalism, Transmotion, and Trickster Poetics;" "'Chance Connections': Memory, Land, and Language;" and "'The Many Traces of Ironic Traditions': History and Futurity," documenting that Vizenor's achievements are sociocultural and political as much they are literary in effect. With their emphasis on transdisciplinary, transnational research, the critical analyses, close readings, and theoretical outlooks collected here contextualize Gerald Vizenor's work within different literary traditions and firmly place him within the American canon.
Contents
Introduction
[Birgit Däwes and Alexandra Hauke]
1. Expeditions in France: Native American Indians in the First World War
[Gerald Vizenor]
Part 1: "Truth Games": Transnationalism, Transmotion, and Trickster Poetics
1. Gerald Vizenor: Transnational Trickster of Theory
[Alexandra Ganser]
2. Universal Peculiarities in Gerald Vizenor's Heirs of Columbus and Shrouds of White Earth
[Kathryn Shanley]
3. Jiibayag Ashegiiwe: Revenants, Gerald Vizenor, Odazhe-giiwenigon
[Chris LaLonde]
4. The Late Mr. Vizenor: Recent Storying
[A. Robert Lee]
Part 2: "Chance Connections": Memory, Land, and Language
5. Vizenor and the Power of Transitive Memories
[Kimberly M. Blaeser]
6. The Ground of Memory: Vizenor, Land, Language
[David L. Moore]
7. Gerald Vizenor's Shimmering Birds in Dialog: (De-)Framing, Memory, and the Totemic in Favor of Crows and Blue Ravens
[Cathy Covell Waegner]
Part 3: "The Many Traces of Ironic Traditions": History and Futurity
8. From Domestic Dependency to Native Cultural Sovereignty: A Legal Reading of Gerald Vizenor's Chair of Tears
[Sabine N. Meyer]
9. "Nothing More Than the Chance of Remembrance": Gerald Vizenor and the Motion of Natural Reason in the Presence of War
[Billy J. Stratton]
10. Ecstatic Vision, Blue Ravens, Wild Dreams: The Urgency of the Future in Gerald Vizenor's Art
[Kristina Baudemann]
