Summary

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 enamoured 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 humour, 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.

Author Biography

Gerald Vizenor is professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence and Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance, both published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Contributors include Susan Bernardin, Helmbrecht Breinig, John Gamber, Diane Glancy, Linda Lizut Helstern, Karl Kroeber, Arnold Krupat, A. Robert Lee, Joe Lockard, James Mackay, Deborah Madsen, James Ruppert, Allan J. Ryan, Takayuki Tatsumi, Alan Velie, Gerald Vizenor, Jace Weaver, and Ying-wen Yu.

Gerald Vizenor Aesthetics of Survivance: Theory and Practice An Introduction
Why It's A Good Thing Gerald Vizenor Is Not An Indian
Native Survivance in the Americas: Resistance and Remembrance in Narratives
On Subjectivity and Survivance: Re-Reading Trauma through The Heirs of Columbus and The Crown of Columbus
Playing Indian: Manifest Manners, Simulation and Pastiche
William Apess, Storier of Survivance
As Long as the Hair Shall Grow: Survivance in Eric Gansworth's Reservation Fictions
The War-Cry of the Trickster: The Concept of Survivance in Gerald Vizenor'sBear Island: The War at Sugar Point
Shifting the Ground: Theories of Survivance in From Sand Creekand Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57
Total Apocalypse, Total Survivance: Nuclear Literature and/or Literary Nucleus-Melville, Salinger, Vizenor
Facing the Wiindigoo: Gerald Vizenor and Primo Levi
Tactical Mobility as Survivance:Bone Gameand Dark Riverby Louis Owens
Ghosts in the Gaps: Glancy's Paradoxes of Survivance
The Naked Spot: A Journey Toward Survivance
Survivance in the Works of Velma Wallis
Writing Survivance: A Conversation with Joseph Boyden
A Lantern to See By: Survivance and a Journey into the Dark Heart of Oklahoma
Survivance Memories: The Poetry of Carter Revard
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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