The Trickster in Contemporary North American Literature

The Trickster in Contemporary North American Literature PDF Author: Cheri Rene Crenshaw
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Tricksters in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description

The Trickster in Contemporary North American Literature

The Trickster in Contemporary North American Literature PDF Author: Cheri Rene Crenshaw
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Tricksters in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Trickster Figure in American Literature

The Trickster Figure in American Literature PDF Author: Winifred Morgan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137344725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Humor in Contemporary Native North American Literature

Humor in Contemporary Native North American Literature PDF Author: Eva Gruber
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 9781571132574
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
Encompassing view of humor in recent Native North American literature, with particular focus on Native self-image and identity. In contrast to the popular cliché of the "stoic Indian," humor has always been important in Native North American cultures. Recent Native literature testifies to the centrality of this tradition. Yet literary criticism has so farlargely neglected these humorous aspects, instead frequently choosing to concentrate on representations of trauma and cultural disruption, at the risk of reducing Native characters and Native cultures to the position of the tragicvictim. This first comprehensive study explores the use of humor in today's Native writing, focusing on a wide variety of texts spanning all genres. It combines concepts from cultural studies and humor studies with approaches byNative thinkers and critics, analyzing the possible effects of humorous forms of representation on the self-image and identity formation of Native individuals and Native cultures. Humor emerges as an indispensable tool for engaging with existing stereotypes: Native writers subvert degrading clichés of "the Indian" from within, reimagining Nativeness in a celebration of laughing survivors, "decolonizing" the minds of both Native and non-native readers, andcontributing to a renewal of Native cultural identity. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Native Studies both literary and cultural. Due to its encompassing approach, it will also provide a point of entry for the wider readership interested in contemporary Native writing. Eva Gruber is Assistant Professor in the American Studies section of the Department of Literature at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

American Trickster

American Trickster PDF Author: Emily Zobel Marshall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783481110
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Get Book Here

Book Description
Our fascination with the trickster figure, whose presence is global, stems from our desire to break free from the tightly regimented structures of our societies. Condemned to conform to laws and rules imposed by governments, communities, social groups and family bonds, we revel in the fantasy of the trickster whose energy and cunning knows no bounds and for whom nothing is sacred. One such trickster is Brer Rabbit, who was introduced to North America through the folktales of enslaved Africans. On the plantations, Brer Rabbit, like Anansi in the Caribbean, functioned as a resistance figure for the enslaved whose trickery was aimed at undermining and challenging the plantation regime. Yet as Brer Rabbit tales moved from the oral tradition to the printed page in the late nineteenth-century, the trickster was emptied of his potentially powerful symbolism by white American collectors, authors and folklorists in their attempt to create a nostalgic fantasy of the plantation past. American Trickster offers readers a unique insight into the cultural significance of the Brer Rabbit trickster figure, from his African roots and through to his influence on contemporary culture. Exploring the changing portrayals of the trickster figure through a wealth of cultural forms including folktales, advertising, fiction and films the book scrutinises the profound tensions between the perpetuation of damaging racial stereotypes and the need to keep African-American folk traditions alive. Emily Zobel Marshall argues that Brer Rabbit was eventually reclaimed by twentieth-century African-American novelists whose protagonists ‘trick’ their way out of limiting stereotypes, break down social and cultural boundaries and offer readers practical and psychological methods for challenging the traumatic legacies of slavery and racism.

Trickster

Trickster PDF Author: Matt Dembicki
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 9781682752739
Category : Comic books, strips, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the original graphic anthology of Native American trickster tales, Trickster brings together Native American folklore and the world of comics. This inspired collaboration pairs twenty-four native storytellers with twenty-four accomplished artists, telling cultural tales from across North America.

Handbook of Native American Literature

Handbook of Native American Literature PDF Author: Andrew Wiget
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135639108
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 617

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Handbook of Native American Literature is a unique, comprehensive, and authoritative guide to the oral and written literatures of Native Americans. It lays the perfect foundation for understanding the works of Native American writers. Divided into three major sections, Native American Oral Literatures, The Historical Emergence of Native American Writing, and A Native American Renaissance: 1967 to the Present, it includes 22 lengthy essays, written by scholars of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures. The book features reports on the oral traditions of various tribes and topics such as the relation of the Bible, dreams, oratory, humor, autobiography, and federal land policies to Native American literature. Eight additional essays cover teaching Native American literature, new fiction, new theater, and other important topics, and there are bio-critical essays on more than 40 writers ranging from William Apes (who in the early 19th century denounced white society's treatment of his people) to contemporary poet Ray Young Bear. Packed with information that was once scattered and scarce, the Handbook of NativeAmerican Literature -a valuable one-volume resource-is sure to appeal to everyone interested in Native American history, culture, and literature. Previously published in cloth as The Dictionary of Native American Literature

Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction

Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction PDF Author: James Ruppert
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806127491
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mediation is the term James Ruppert uses to describe his important new theory of reading Native American fiction. Focusing on novels of six major contemporary American writers - N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Silko, Gerald Vizenor, D'Arcy McNickle, and Louise Erdrich - Ruppert analyzes the ways in which these writers draw upon their bicultural heritage, guiding Native and non-Native readers alike to a different and expanded understanding of each other's worlds. While Native American writers may criticize white society, revealing its past and present injustices, their emphasis, Ruppert argues, is on healing, survival, and continuance. Their fiction aims to produce cross-cultural understanding rather than divisiveness. To that end they articulate the perspectives and values of competing world views. In particular they create characters who manifest what Ruppert calls "multiple identities" - determined by both Native and non-Native perceptions of the self. These writers use a variety of narrative techniques deriving from different cultural traditions. They might incorporate Native oral storytelling techniques, adapting them to written form, or they might reconstruct Native mythologies, investing them with new meaning and relevance by applying them to contemporary situations. As novel-writers, they also include features more characteristic of western European writing - such as the omniscient narrator or the detective-story plot.

Writing Tricksters

Writing Tricksters PDF Author: Jeanne Rosier Smith
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520206564
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Brilliant. Smith shows us how to bridge and link authors into an understanding of contemporary American literature that occupies shared ground, yet she insists on the imperative of educating ourselves in many U.S. traditions. The result is a book that meets the extremely difficult challenge of working multiculturally without either erasing or overdetermining difference. This discussion will have applications well beyond the group of authors discussed here."--Elizabeth Ammons, coeditor of Tricksterism in Turn-of-the-Century American Literature: A Multicultural Perspective "Transcultural and thoroughly documented, this study of contemporary ethnic texts by women is comparative in the most scholarly sense. No reader of modern American fiction could argue against its trickster premises: the power to laugh at old worlds, and invent new ones."--Kenneth Lincoln, author of Indi'n Humor: Bicultural Play in Native America "Communicates keen insights on fictional techniques and cultural themes in clear, elegant and jargon-free language. I believe that this study will serve as an excellent model for future multicultural literary criticism."--Bonnie TuSmith, author of All My Relatives "Highly accessible to a diverse audience, Writing Tricksters forces readers to examine the power of storytelling traditions to cultural and individual survival. Smith's cross-cultural discussion of the trickster is right on the cusp of an important, evolving analytical direction."--Alanna Kathleen Brown, Montana State University "Few scholars have attempted to find the lines of contact and connection between ethnic writers. Writing Tricksters is fresh and original, an important addition to the growing corpus of truly multicultural critical texts."--Joseph Skerrett, coeditor of Memory, Narrative, and Identity

Native American Women

Native American Women PDF Author: Gretchen M. Bataille
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135955867
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 501

Get Book Here

Book Description
This A-Z reference contains 275 biographical entries on Native American women, past and present, from many different walks of life. Written by more than 70 contributors, most of whom are leading American Indian historians, the entries examine the complex and diverse roles of Native American women in contemporary and traditional cultures. This new edition contains 32 new entries and updated end-of-article bibliographies. Appendices list entries by area of woman's specialization, state of birth, and tribe; also includes photos and a comprehensive index.

Challenging Realities: Magic Realism in Contemporary American Women's Fiction

Challenging Realities: Magic Realism in Contemporary American Women's Fiction PDF Author: M. Ruth Noriega Sánchez
Publisher: Universitat de València
ISBN: 8437085365
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Get Book Here

Book Description
Les arrels del realisme màgic en els escrits de Borges i altres autors d'Amèrica Llatina han estat àmpliament reconeguts i ben documentades produint una sèrie d'estudis crítics, molts dels quals figuren en la bibliografia d'aquest treball. Dins d'aquest marc, aquest llibre presenta als lectors una varietat d'escriptores de grups ètnics, conegudes i menys conegudes, i les col·loca en un context literari en el que es tracten tant a nivell individual com a escriptores així com a nivell col·lectiu com a part d'un moviment artístic més ampli. Aquest llibre és el resultat del treball realitzat a les universitats de Sheffield i la de València i representa una valuosa investigació i una important contribució als estudis literaris.