Toward a Native American Critical Theory

Elvira Pulitano

Description

Toward a Native American Critical Theory articulates the foundations and boundaries of a distinctive Native American critical theory in this postcolonial era. In the first book-length study devoted to this subject, Elvira Pulitano offers a survey of the theoretical underpinnings of works by noted Native writers Paula Gunn Allen, Robert Warrior, Craig Womack, Greg Sarris, Louis Owens, and Gerald Vizenor. In her analysis Pulitano confronts key issues and questions: Is a distinctive way of reading and interpreting Native texts possible or needed? What is the relation between a Native American critical discourse and a more general postcolonial critical theory? Will Native critical theory be subsumed within postcolonial theory and homogenized as a colonial Other, or will it test postcolonial ideas against Native American problems and predicaments? And how can Native critical theory redefine Western styles of theory?

 

Unlike Western interpretations of Native American literatures and cultures in which external critical methodologies are imposed on Native texts, ultimately silencing the primary voices of the texts themselves, Pulitano''s work examines critical material generated from within the Native contexts and epistemologies to propose a different approach to Native literature. Pulitano argues that the distinctiveness of Native American critical theory can be found in its aggressive blending and reimagining of oral tradition and Native epistemologies on the written page—a powerful, complex mediation that can stand on its own yet effectively subsume and transform non-Native critical theoretical strategies.

 

Controversial and persuasive, Toward a Native American Critical Theory defines the parameters of a unique Native American critical discourse and reveals its potential for writers and critics alike.

Sujets

• USA
• Inglés estadounidense
• América del Norte
• Literary theory
• Indigenous peoples
• North America
• American English
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Nebraska
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780803203877
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Toward a Native American Critical Theory

Toward a Native American Critical Theory

elvira pulitano

University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London

© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America   Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pulitano, Elvira, 1970 – Toward a Native American critical theory / Elvira Pulitano. p. cm. Includes bibliographical refer- ences and index. isbn0-8032-3737-5 (cl: alk. paper) 1. American literature — Indian authors —History and criticism —Theory, etc. 2. Indians of North America —Intellectual life. 3. Criticism —United States. 4. Indians in literature. I. Title. ps153.i52p85 2003 810.9897— dc21 2003042695

For my parents, Luigi and Venera

Contents

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Acknowledgments Introduction 1

ix

Back to a Woman-Centered Universe: The Gynosophical Perspective of Paula Gunn Allen’s Critical Narratives 19

Intellectual Sovereignty and Red Stick Theory: The Nativist Approach of Robert Allen Warrior and Craig S. Womack 59

Crossreading Texts, Bridging Cultures: The Dialogic Approach of Greg Sarris and Louis Owens 101

Liberative Stories and Strategies of Survivance: Gerald Vizenor’s Trickster Hermeneutics 145

Conclusion 187 Notes 193 Bibliography 213 Index 229

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Paula Gunn Allen, Robert Warrior, Craig Womack, Greg Sarris, Louis Owens, and Gerald Vizenor, whose works allowed me to shape ideas for this book. I have gained enormously from Louis Owens’s scholarship on Native American literature, and I particularly wish to ac- knowledge his constant support over the past several years and his willing- ness to consider this book’s potential from very early drafts. Gary Harrison provided me with excellent suggestions during extensive writing and re- writing, and I wish to thank him for his thoughtful and stimulating critique. Thanks also to Deborah Jenson, who offered valuable recommendations per- taining to the theoretical aspects of this study, and to Gerald Vizenor, for his generous encouragement and valued friendship. I extend sincere gratitude to Elaine Jahner, for allowing me to cite from her unpublished work and for her kindness over a few telephone conversations, and offer many thanks to Daniel Simon, who read through this manuscript with care and patience. I must also thank Jacquelyn Kilpatrick and A. Robert Lee, for their careful and thoughtful reading and guidance. I am grateful as well for the genuine support that I have received over the past few years from Jim Thorson and for much insight from Pat Smith. Almost a decade after the Fulbright Fellowship that first brought me to the University of New Mexico, I offer bouquets of thanks to Mario Corona, at the University of Bergamo, and to Giuseppe Lombardo, at the University of Messina, for being such an