Enduring Critical Poses

Description

Enduring Critical Poses examines the stories, poems, plays, and histories centered in the Great Lakes region of North America, where the Anishinaabeg live in a space Basil Johnston referred to as "Maazikamikwe," a maternal earth. The Anishinaabeg are a confederacy of many communities, including the Odawa, Saulteaux, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Oji-Cree, and Algonquin peoples, who share cultural practices and related languages. Bringing together senior scholars and new voices on the Anishinaabe intellectual landscape, this volume specifically explores Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi culture, language, and literary heritage. Through a tribal-centric framework, the contributors connect various branches of Native American literary studies and celebrate Anishinaabe narrative diversity to offer a single, overarching story of Anishinaabe survival and endurance.
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Gordon Henry Jr., Margaret Noodin, and David Stirrup

Part I: Majikawiz

1. Louise Erdrich's Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Writing, Being, Healing, Place
Chris LaLonde

2. The Old World Display and the New World Displaced
Nichole Biber

3. An Indian's Journey and Tribal Memory: David Treuer's Rez Life
Padraig Kirwan

Part II: Bakaawiz

4. The Anishinaabe Eco-Poetics of Language, Life, and Place in the Poetry of Schoolcraft, Noodin, Blaeser, and Henry
Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez

5. Ambiguity and Empathy in the Poetry of Gordon Henry Jr.
Stuart Rieke

6. Justice in absentia: The Re-stor(y)ing of Native Legal Presence through Narratives of Survivance in Gerald Vizenor's "Genocide Tribunals"
Sharon Holm

Part III: Jiibayaaboozo

7. The Exceptional Power of the Dead in Heid E. Erdrich's National Monuments
Deborah L. Madsen

8. Anishinaabe Being and the Fallen God of Sun-Worshiping Victorians
Carter Meland

Part IV: Nanabozho

9. Beyond the Borders of Blood: An Anishinaaabe Tribalography of Identity
Jill Doerfler

10. Enduring Critical Poses, Beyond Nation and History: The Legacy and Life of Anishinaabeg Literature and Letters
Margaret Noodin

11. Enduring Cultural Poses: Memory, Resistance, and Symbolic Sculpture
David Stirrup

Afterword
Gordon Henry Jr. and Margaret Noodin

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• History of the Americas
• Indigenous peoples

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438482545
• Langue: English

Extrait

Enduring Critical Poses
SUNY series, Native Traces

Scott Richard Lyons, editor
Enduring Critical Poses
The Legacy and Life of Anishinaabe Literature and Letters
Edited by
Gordon Henry Jr., Margaret Noodin, and David Stirrup
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Henry, Gordon, 1955– editor. | Noodin, Margaret, editor. | Stirrup, David, editor.
Title: Enduring critical poses : the legacy and life of Anishinaabe literature and letters / edited by Gordon Henry, Jr., Margaret Noodin, and David Stirrup.
Other titles: Native traces.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series, native traces | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020039939 (print) | LCCN 2020039940 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438482538 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438482545 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Ojibwa Indians—Intellectual life. | American literature—Indian authors—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC E99.C6 E49 2021 (print) | LCC E99.C6 (ebook) | DDC 977.004/97333—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039939
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039940
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We dedicate this work to the memory of all the Anishinaabe storytellers, especially those known to us during our lifetimes, who learned and shared the aadizookaanag and dibaajimowinan of Anishinaabewakiing.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Gordon Henry Jr., Margaret Noodin, and David Stirrup
I. Majikawiz
1. Louise Erdrich’s Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country : Writing, Being, Healing, Place
Chris LaLonde
2. The Old World Display and the New World Displaced
Nichole Biber
3. An Indian’s Journey and Tribal Memory: David Treuer’s Rez Life
Padraig Kirwan
II. Bakaawiz
4. The Anishinaabe Eco-Poetics of Language, Life, and Place in the Poetry of Schoolcraft, Noodin, Blaeser, and Henry
Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez
5. Ambiguity and Empathy in the Poetry of Gordon Henry Jr .
Stuart Rieke
6. Justice in absentia : The Re-stor(y)ing of Native Legal Presence through Narratives of Survivance in Gerald Vizenor’s “Genocide Tribunals”
Sharon Holm
III. Jiibayaaboozo
7. The Exceptional Power of the Dead in Heid E. Erdrich’s National Monuments
Deborah L. Madsen
8. Anishinaabe Being and the Fallen God of Sun-Worshiping Victorians
Carter Meland
IV. Nanabozho
9. Beyond the Borders of Blood: An Anishinaaabe Tribalography of Identity
Jill Doerfler
10. Enduring Critical Poses, Beyond Nation and History: The Legacy and Life of Anishinaabeg Literature and Letters
Margaret Noodin
11. Enduring Cultural Poses: Memory, Resistance, and Symbolic Sculpture
David Stirrup
Afterword
Gordon Henry Jr. and Margaret Noodin
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
This book was made possible by the generations of storytellers and scholars before us and the colleagues who work alongside us at Michigan State University, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and the University of Kent. We thank Dawn Brill Duques and Matt Duques, sister and nephew of Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez, for working with us to ensure Susan’s chapter was included after she left the world too soon on October 30, 2018. Many thanks are due to Amanda Lane-Camilli at State University of New York Press, who patiently assisted as we gathered versions and worked toward an ever-shifting deadline. We also owe a special debt of gratitude to Angela Mesic, whose brilliant work on the manuscript in the final stages was invaluable. We thank those who labored to bring this book into being, including our friends at SUNY Press, including Laura Poole, Ryan Morris, Amanda Lanne-Cammilli, and James Peltz; and our dedicated Nanaa’ibii’igekwe, Angela Mesic, who chased all the details across time and distance. Gimiigwechwininin gakina gaa-naadamawiyaang!
Introduction
G ORDON H ENRY J R ., M ARGARET N OODIN, AND D AVID S TIRRUP
Naanaagadawendam Anishinaabe : Critical Poses of the Anishinaabe
Duration and endurance is Bergson’s series of conscious states, Vizenor’s trickster stories remembered, Cruikshank’s subversion, and Rilke’s trembling love. Anishinaabe storyteller Basil Johnston connected these characteristics, these enduring poses, to four brothers who represent ways of knowing honed by centuries of practice. The brothers were travelers and seekers of knowledge. Majikawiz, the eldest, became a historian who preserved events as history across time through sashes, scrolls, and teaching rocks; he was a leader and a warrior. Bakaawiz, who followed, created dances and dramas to transform memory into art through trickster transformations. The third brother, Jiibayaaboozo, continually asked questions, challenging and defining ways of thinking and being in the world. Nanabozho, the youngest, became a trickster. He once confronted his father and was met with a stream of arrows and a lesson in persistence and humility. He was rewarded with a pipe and went on to teach the Anishinaabeg by example, constantly making mistakes to be interpreted as guideposts by those paying attention.
This collection of critical thinking echoes the lessons of these brothers and focuses on Anishinaabe words, stories, and representations of endurance. Centered in the Great Lakes region of North America, the Anishinaabeg live in a space Johnston referred to as Maazikamikwe, a maternal source of sustainable life. They are a confederacy of communities organized across space and time by shared practices and entwined dialects. In this space, they have endured cultural distress and colonial oppression. What they were taught by the brothers of Johnston’s living histories has been disrupted. Storytellers of the present must work to stabilize belief systems, ways of life, concepts of ethics, and practices of intercultural relations. The authors who write and are written about in this volume are a part of a network being revitalized. They are the Anishinaabeg who endure interpretive interventions, the critical imposition of external readings of their work, lives, cultures, and communities. Over the course of a long history of engagement with what is known to Euro-American literary and cultural studies as the “West,” certain critical impositions from “outside” Anishinaabe culture have compromised but never fully suppressed the artistic and interpretive agency of Anishinaabe authors.
It is time for Anishinaabe creative and critical leanings, often transposed through the technics of Western letters and media, to re-mark the larger intellectual topography with Anishinaabe perspectives. In this space the “West” is the territory of the manidoog , the existential, spiritual, and philosophical, the home of Nanabozho’s father, Epangishimog, and his brother, Jiibayaaboozo. The “East” is the place of dawn, a continually rotating point on the horizon, connected to the energy of the sun and the ability to endure and continue teaching. It is gaagige-aadizooke , a place of infinitely renewed stories. A legacy of critical engagement is being reframed as an advantage that speaks to the adaptive ability of the Anishinaabe.
Basil Johnston’s life and literature provide us with important ways of discerning and extending the enduring elements of Anishinaabe culture that continue to inspire and influence Anishinaabe writers who remain connected to Anishinaabe communities, carrying on with work as scholars and tribal leaders. His book The Manitous imparts an understanding of life as an ongoing journey, of the multidimensional “spirit” of Anishinaabe culture. His work imparts a life and legacy that will continue as the manitous remain with us in his stories and writing. As you read these enduring poses in literary form, look for traces of the brothers and the spaces their memories still inhabit.
Baatayiinadoon Gaa-ezhi-zhiibendamaang Anishinaabeg : The Many Ways the Anishinaabe People Have Endured
Anishinaabe connection to place and community values and ethics have endured through the storytelling and maintaining collective memory. According to traditional beliefs, Gizhemanidoo created the universe by activating perception, and creation infinitely recurs through cycles of vision and narration. The four Anishinaabe brothers are extensions of this belief as they represent various ways of knowing, branches of learning, and mediums for expression. Baatayiinadoon Gaa-ezhi-zhiibendamaang Anishinaabeg . There are many ways the Anishinaabe have endured.
The first teller was a stone, and the first story was of telling. As time passed, two branches of storytelling developed. The dibaajimowinan , classified as inanimate, are forms of accounting and communicating critical information through narration. Comedies, tragedies, poetry, novels, history, reports, legal treatises, ancient recipes, and digital game narratives are dibaajimowinan . They are not aadizookanag , which are classified as the animate branch of narration, simultaneously mutable and stable. Like a cell w