Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence

396 Pages·2009·9.148 MB·English

by  Gerald Vizenor (editor)

SURVIVANCE

SURVIVANCE
NARRATIVES OF
NATIVE PRESENCE
EDITED BY GERALD VIZENOR
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS • LINCOLN Ala UNnN
© 2008 by the
Board of Regents
of the University of Nebraska
"Aesthetics of Survivance"
© 2008 by Gerald Vizenor
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the
United States of America
§
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Survivance:
narratives of Native presence /
edited by Gerald Vizenor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical
references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8032-1083-7
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Indians of North America
-Social conditions.
2. Indians, Treatment of
-North America.
3. Indians of North America
-Public opinion.
4. Public opinion
-United States
5. Indian literature.
6. American literature
-Indian authors
-History and criticism.
I. Vizenor, Gerald Robert,
1934-
E98.s67S872008
305·897-dc22
2008021780
Designed and typeset in
Charlotte Sans &
Dirty Headline by
R. W. Boeche.
The application of the name Indians to the native peoples and tribes
of the New World is an erroneous usage, originating in the belief that
the Spanish discoverers of America that they had reached the eastern
shores of Asiatic countries already partially known. As it happens, the
name is now, even apart from the addition of Americans, customarily
applied to the aborigines of the Western hemisphere, while it is used
with far less frequency as a collective name for the inhabitants of the
great country of the East known from the remotest times in India.
Entry for Indians, America,
Encyclopedia Britannica, ninth ed.
In one of their traditions it is stated that "when the white man first came
in sight of the 'Great Turtle' island of Mackinaw, they beheld walk­
ing on the pebbly shores, a crane and a bear who received them kind­
ly, invited them to their wigwams, and placed food before then," This
allegory denotes that Ojibways of the Crane and Bear Totem families
first received the white strangers, and extended to them the hand of
friendship and rites of hospitality, and in remembrance of this occur­
rence they are said to have been the favorite clans with the old French
discoverers.
William Warren, History of the Ojibway Nation
As the reader will have understood, I borrow from these two traditions:
from theory of literature, the reflections on general notions, princi­
ples, and criteria; from literary theory, the criticism of literary good
sense and the reference to formalism. Providing recipes, then, is not the
point. Theory is not method, technique, cuisine. On the contrary, the
purpose is to become skeptical of all recipes, to eliminate them by re­
flection. My intention, then, is not in the least to facilitate things, but
to be vigilant, suspicious, skeptical, in a word: critical or ironic. The­
ory is a school of irony.
Antoine Compagnon,
Literature, Theory, and Common Sense

CONTENTS
1. Aesthetics of Survivance
Literary Theory and Practice
GERALD VIZENOR
2. Why It's a Good Thing
Gerald Vizenor Is Not an Indian
KARL KROEBER
3. Native Survivance in the Americas
Resistance and Remembrance in Narratives
by Asturias, Tapahonso, and Vizenor 39
HELMBRECHT BREINIG
4. On Subjectivity and Survivance
Rereading Trauma through The Heirs of Columbus
and The Crown of Columbus
DEBORAH L. MADSEN
5. Playing Indian
Manifest Manners, Simulation, and Pastiche
YING-WEN YU
6. William Apess
Storier of SUfYivance 103
ARNOLD KRUPAT
7. As Long as the Hair Shall Grow
SUfYivance in Eric Gansworth's ResefYation Fictions 123
SUSAN BERNARDIN
8. The War Cry ofthe Trickster
The Concept oJSufYivance in
Gerald Vizenor's Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point '47
ALAN VELI E
9. Shifting the Ground
Theories of SUfYivance in From Sand Creek
and Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57
LlNDA LIZUT HELSTERN
10. Total Apocalypse, Total Survivance
Nuclear Literature and/or Literary Nucleus­
Me/vil/e, Salinger, Vizenor
TAKAYUKI TATSUMI
11. Facing the Wiindigoo
Gerald Vizenor and Primo Levi 209
JOE LOCKARD
12. Tactical Mobility as Survivance
Bone Game and Dark River by Louis Owens 221
JOHN GAMBER
'3. Ghosts in the Gaps
Diane Glancy's Paradoxes oJSufYivance 247
JAMES MACKAY
'4. The Naked Spot
A Journey toward SUfYivance
DIANE GLANCY
'5. Survivance in the Works ofVelma Wallis
JAMES RUPPERT
16. Writing Survivance
A Conversation with Joseph Boyden 297
ALLAN J. RYAN
'7. A Lantern to See By
SUfYivance and a Journey into
the Dark Heart of Oklahoma 3'3
JACE WEAVER
18. Survivance Memories
The Poetry of Carter Revard 333
A. ROBERT LEE
Contributors
Index