396 pages
The concept and idea of survivance has revolutionized our understanding of the lives, creative impulses, literary practices, and histories of the Native peoples of North America. Engendered and articulated by the Anishinaabe critic and writer Gerald Vizenor, survivance throws into relief the dynamic, inventive, and enduring heart of Native cultures well beyond the colonialist trappings of absence, tragedy, and powerlessness. Vizenor argues that many people in the world are enamored with and obsessed by the concocted images of the Indian—the simulations of indigenous character and cultures as essential victims. Native survivance, on the other hand, is an active sense of presence over historical absence, deracination, and oblivion.
The nature of survivance is unmistakable in Native stories, natural reason, active traditions, customs, and narrative resistance and is clearly observable in personal attributes such as humor, spirit, cast of mind, and moral courage in literature. In this anthology, eighteen scholars discuss the themes and practices of survivance in literature, examining the legacy of Vizenor’s original insights and exploring the manifestations of survivance in a variety of contexts.
Contributors interpret and compare the original writings of William Apess, Eric Gansworth, Louis Owens, Carter Revard, Gerald Vizenor, and Velma Wallis, among others.
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
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 Survivance
Arnold Krupat
7. As Long as the Hair Shall Grow: Survivance in Eric Gansworth's Reservation Fictions
Susan Bernardin
8. The War Cry of the Trickster: The Concept of Survivance in Gerald Vizenor's Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point
Alan Velie
9. Shifting the Ground: Theories of Survivance in From Sand Creek and Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57
Linda Lizut Helstern
10. Total Apocalypse, Total Survivance: Nuclear Literature and/or Literary Nucleus--Melville, Salinger, Vizenor
Takayuki Tatsumi
11. Facing the Wiindigoo: Gerald Vizenor and Primo Levi
Joe Lockard
12. Tactical Mobility as Survivance: Bone Game and Dark River by Louis Owens
John Gamber
13. Ghosts in the Gaps: Diane Glancy's Paradoxes of Survivance
James Mackay
14. The Naked Spot: A Journey toward Survivance
Diane Glancy
15. Survivance in the Works of Velma Wallis
James Ruppert
16. Writing Survivance: A Conversation with Joseph Boyden
Allan J. Ryan
17. A Lantern to See By: Survivance and a Journey into the Dark Heart of Oklahoma
Jace Weaver
18. Survivance Memories: The Poetry of Carter Revard
A. Robert Lee
Contributors
Index
