Gerald Vizenor
Encyclopedia
Gerald Robert Vizenor is a Native American (Anishinaabe
) writer, and an enrolled
member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
, White Earth Reservation. One of the most prolific Native American writers, with over 30 books to his name, Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley
, where he was Director of Native American Studies. Vizenor is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies
at the University of New Mexico
.
grandmother, his Swedish American
mother, and a succession of uncles in Minneapolis and the White Earth Reservation. Following the death of his informal stepfather, who had been his primary caregiver, Vizenor lied about his age to enter the Minnesota National Guard
in 1950 at age 15. Honorably discharged before his unit went to Korea
, Vizenor joined the army two years later, serving in a Japan still reeling from the impact of nuclear attack
. This period would inspire his interest in haiku
, and much later his 2004 "kabuki
novel" Hiroshima Bugi.
Returning to America in 1953, Vizenor took advantage of G.I. Bill funding to start a degree at New York University
: this was followed by additional postgraduate study at Harvard University
and the University of Minnesota
, where he also undertook graduate teaching. During this period he married and had a son.
. During this time he served as director of the American Indian Employment and Guidance Center in Minneapolis, which brought him into close contact with dislocated Native Americans from reservations, many finding it profoundly difficult to survive in a culture of white racism and cheap alcohol. This period is the subject of his collection Wordarrows: Whites and Indians in the New Fur Trade, some of the stories in which were inspired by real events. Working with homeless and poor Natives may have been the reason that Vizenor looked askance at the emerging American Indian Movement
(AIM), seeing radical leaders such as Dennis Banks
and Clyde Bellecourt
as being more concerned with personal publicity than the "real" problems faced by American Indians.
In this spirit, Vizenor began working as a staff reporter on the Minneapolis Tribune, quickly rising to become an editorial contributor. His investigation into the case of Thomas James White Hawk, while never pretending that White Hawk was innocent, raised difficult questions about the nature of justice in dealing with colonized peoples. It was credited with being the work that led to the death sentence
on White Hawk being commuted.
During this period Vizenor coined the phrase “cultural schizophrenia” to describe the state of mind of many Natives torn between Native and White cultures. His investigative journalism into the activities of American Indian activists uncovered many instances of hypocrisy and drug dealing among the movement’s leaders, and earned him a number of death threats.
, Illinois, Vizenor was quickly appointed to set up and run the Native American Studies
program at Bemidji State University
. Later he was professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota
in Minneapolis (1978–1985), which he satirized mercilessly in his fictions. During this time he was also a visiting professor at Tianjin University
, China. Following four years at the University of California
, Santa Cruz, where he was Provost
of Kresge College
, and an endowed chair for one year at the University of Oklahoma
, Vizenor took up a professorship at the University of California
, Berkeley. He is current professor of American Studies
at the University of New Mexico
.
, translations of traditional tribal tales, screenplays and of course many novels. He has been named as a member of the literary movement Kenneth Lincoln dubbed the Native American Renaissance
. His first novel, Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart (1978), later revised as Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles
(1990), brought him immediate attention. One of few science fiction novels by a Native American, it portrayed a procession of tribal pilgrim
s through a surreal
, dystopia
n landscape of an America suffering an environmental apocalypse brought on by white greed for oil. Simultaneously postmodern
and deeply traditional, inspired by N. Scott Momaday
's pioneering works, Vizenor drew on poststructuralist theory and Anishinaabe trickster
stories to portray a world in the grip of what he called “terminal creeds” – belief systems incapable of change. In one of the most famous and controversial passages, the character Belladonna Darwin Winter-Catcher proclaims that Natives are better and purer than whites, and is killed for her belief in racial separatism
with poisoned cookies.
Subsequent novels have seen a shifting and overlapping cast of tricksters turn up anywhere from China to White Earth to the University of Kent
. Frequently quoting philosophers such as Umberto Eco
, Roland Barthes
and Jean Baudrillard
, Vizenor’s fiction is allusive, humorous and playful, but always ultimately serious in dealing with the state of Native America. Proclaiming himself as much the enemy of those who would romanticize the figure of the Native as he is of those who would continue colonial oppression, Vizenor constantly returns to the theme that the “Indian” was an invention of European invaders – before Columbus’ first landing, there was no such thing as an “Indian”, only the peoples of various tribes (such as Anishinaabe
or Dakota
).
To deconstruct
the idea of "Indianness," Vizenor uses strategies of irony
and jouissance
. For instance, in the lead up to Columbus Day
in 1992, he published The Heirs of Columbus
, in which he teasingly claims that Columbus
was in fact a Mayan Indian
trying to return home. In Hotline Healers, he claims that Richard Nixon
, the American president
who did more for American Indians than any other, did so as part of a deal in exchange for traditional “virtual reality
” technology.
, which has provided an important venue for critical work on and by Native writers.
In his own full-length studies, Vizenor is concerned with deconstructing
the semiotics
of Indianness. For instance, the title of Fugitive Poses relates to Vizenor's assertion that the term indian is a social-science construction that replaces native peoples, who become absent or "fugitive". Similarly, the term "manifest manners" refers to the continued legacy of Manifest Destiny
, especially the way native peoples are still bound by narratives of dominance that replace them with "indians". In place of a unified “Indian” signifier
, he suggests that Native peoples be referred to as tribal, and always where possible put into their own particular tribal context. To discuss more general Native studies, he suggests using the term "postindian," which would get across the idea of disparate, heterogeneous tribal cultures unified only by Euro-American
attitudes and actions towards them. Among his many other neologisms is “survivance”, a cross between the words "survival" and "resistance," which Vizenor uses as a replacement for “survival”, saying that it carries an implication of an ongoing, changing process, rather than the simple continuance of old ways into the modern world, and pointing out that for tribal peoples, the act of survival is based in resistance.
He continues to be critical of both Native American nationalism and Euro-American colonial attitudes.
Stories Migrating Home: Anishnaabe Prose, Kimberly Blaeser (Editor), Loonfeather Press: Wisconsin
Talking Leaves: Contemporary Native American Short Stories, Craig Lesley, Katheryn Stavrakis (Editor) Dell Books
Earth Song, Sky Spirit: Short Stories of the Contemporary Native American Experience, Clifford E. Trafzer (Editor)
Earth Power Coming: Short Fiction in Native American Literature, Simon J. Ortiz (editor), Navajo Community College Press
Songs from This Earth on Turtle's Back: An Anthology of Poetry by American Indian Writers, Joseph Bruchac (Editor), Greenfield Review Press
Smoke Rising: The Native North American Literary Companion, Janet Witalec, Visible Ink Press.
Words in the Blood: Contemporary Indian Writers of North and South America, Jamake Highwater
(Editor), New American Library.
Blue Dawn, Red Earth: New Native American Storytellers, Clifford E. Trafzer (Editor), Anchor Books
The Lightning Within: An Anthology of Contemporary American Indian Fiction, Edited and with an Introduction by Alan R. Velie, University of Nebraska Press
.
American Indian Literature: An Anthology, Alan R. Velie, University of Oklahoma Press.
Harper's Anthology of 20th century Native American Poetry, Duane Niatum (Editor) HarperCollins
Twenty Six Minnesota Writers, Monico D. Degrazia (Editor), Nodin Press.
After Yesterday's Crash: The Avant-Pop Anthology, Larry McCaffery
(Editor), Penguin USA
The New Native American Novel: Works in Progress, Mary Bartlett (Editor), University of New Mexico Press.
The Writer's Notebook, Howard Junker, HarperCollins
.
Listening to Ourselves: More Stories from 'the Sound of Writing, Alan Cheuse, Caroline Marshall (Editor), Anchor Books.
Avant-Pop: Fiction for a Daydream Nation, Larry McCaffery (Editor), Fc2/Black Ice Books
Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980–1990, Ishmael Reed
, Kathryn Trueblood, Shawn Wong (Editor), W W Norton & Co.
Without Discovery: A Native Response to Columbus (Turning Point Series), Ray Gonzalez (Editor), Broken Moon Press.
A Gathering of Flowers: Stories About Being Young in America, Joyce Carol Thomas (Editor), Harpercollins Juvenile Books.
American Short Fiction, Spring 1991 by Laura Furman, University of Texas Press
.
An Illuminated History of the Future by Curtis White
(Editor), Fc2/Black Ice Books.
Fiction International, San Diego State University Press
.
An Other Tongue: Nation and Ethnicity in the Linguistic Borderlands, Alfred Arteaga (Editor), Duke University Press.
Contemporary Archaeology in Theory, (Social Archaeology), Robert Preucel (Editor), Ian Hodder (Editor), Blackwell Pub.
Encyclopedia of North American Indians, by Frederick E. Hoxie (Editor), Houghton Mifflin
Co.
A Companion to American Thought (Blackwell Reference), Richard Wightman Fox (Editor), James T. Kloppenberg (Editor), Blackwell Pub.
Culture and the Imagination, Proceedings of the Third Stuttgart Seminar on Cultural Studies
, Verlag Für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Stuttgart, Germany, 1995
From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America, Ronald Takaki
(Editor), Oxford University Press
.
.
Other Words: American Indian Literature, Law, and Culture, (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series), Jace Weaver, Univ. Oklahoma Press.
Postindian Conversations, Gerald Robert Vizenor, A. Robert Lee, University of Nebraska Press.
Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans, Michael Katakis (Editor), University of Pennsylvania Museum Press.
Mythic Rage and Laughter: An Interview with Gerald Vizenor, Dallas Miller, 1995, Studies in American Indian Literatures, 7, 77, 1995 Spring.
Subverting the Dominant Paradigm: Gerald Vizenor's Trickster Discourse, Kerstin Schmidt, Studies in American Indian Literatures, 7, 65, 1995 Spring.
That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community, Jace Weaver, Oxford University Press.
Text as trickster: postmodern language games in Gerald Vizenor's 'Bearheart. (Maskers and Tricksters), An article from: MELUS, by Elizabeth Blair
Gerald Vizenor and his 'Heirs of Columbus': a postmodern quest for more discourse. An article from: The American Indian Quarterly by Barry E Laga
Monkey kings and mojo: postmodern ethnic humor in Kingston, Reed, and Vizenor, An article from: MELUS, by John Lowe
Postmodern bears in the texts of Gerald Vizenor (Critical Essay), An article from: MELUS, by Nora Baker Barry
"Bad Breath": Gerald Vizenor's Lacanian fable. (Critical Essay), An article from: Studies in Short Fiction by Linda Lizut Helstern
Native American Writers of the United States, (Dictionary of Literary Biography, V. 175), Kenneth M. Roemer (Editor), Gale Research.
Woodland word warrior: An introduction to the works of Gerald Vizenor, A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff.
Survival This Way: Interviews With American Indian Poets, Joseph Bruchac III (Editor), (Sun Tracks Books, No 15) University of Arizona Press.
Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak, Laura Coltelli, University of Nebraska Press.
Partial Recall: With Essays on Photographs of Native North Americans, Lucy Lippard (Editor)
Contemporary Authors. Autobiography Series (Vol 22. Issn 0748-0636), Gale Research
American Contradictions: Interviews With Nine American Writers, Wolfgang Binder (Editor), Helmbrecht Breinig (Editor), Wesleyan University Press.
Native American Autobiography: An Anthology (Wisconsin Studies in American Autobiography), Arnold Krupat (Editor), University of Wisconsin Press.
Growing Up in Minnesota: Ten Writers Remember Their Childhoods, Chester G. Anderson, University of Minnesota Press.
Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest, Mark Vinz (Editor), Thom Tammaro (Editor), University of Minnesota Press.
Gerald Vizenor, a special edition, Louis Owens (Editor), Studies in American Indian Literatures, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 1997, including:
Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel, (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies, Vol 3), Louis Owens, University of Oklahoma Press.
Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies, Vol 15), James Ruppert, University of Oklahoma Press.
Native American Perspectives on Literature and History, (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series, Vol 19) by Alan R. Velie (Editor), University of Oklahoma Press.
The Turn to the Native, by Arnold Krupat, University of Nebraska Press.
Cultural Difference and the Literary Text: Pluralism and the Limits of Authenticity in North American Literatures, Edited by Winfried Siemerling and Katrin Schwenk
I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers, Brian Swann, Arnold Krupat, Brompton Books Corp.
Buried Roots and Indestructible Seeds: The Survival of American Indian Life in Story, History, and Spirit, Martin Zanger (Editor), Mark A. Lindquist, University of Wisconsin Press.
Sacred Trusts: Essays on Stewardship and Responsibility, Michael Katakis, Russell Chatham (Illustrator), Mercury House.
Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to Present, 1492–1992, Peter Nabokov, Penguin USA
Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Mit Press
.
Listening to Native Americans: Making Peace with the Past for the Future, John Barry Ryan, in Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture, Vol. 31, No.1 Winter 1996 pp. 24–36.
Transformation in Progress by Annalee Newitz and Jillian Sandell, in Bad Subjects, an online journal.
Spring Wind Rising: The American Indian Novel and the Problem of History, Stripes, James D., A dissertation.
Text.
Ways in: Approaches to Reading and Writing About Literature, Gilbert H. Muller, John A. Williams, McGraw Hill Text.
The Harper American Literature, Volume 1; 2nd Edition, Donald McQuade, Robert Atwan, Martha Banta, Justin Kaplan, Harpercollins College Div.
a video clip and audio of Vizenor reading the following poems:
Stone Babies from Weber Studies
Gerald Vizenor in Dialogue with A. Robert Lee from Weber Studies
Anishinaabe
Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
) writer, and an enrolled
Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood
A Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood or Certificate of Degree of Alaska Native Blood is an official U.S. document that certifies an individual possesses a specific degree of Native American blood of a federally recognized Indian tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community...
member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe is a centralized government for six Chippewa bands in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was created on June 18, 1934, and the organization and its constitution were recognized by the Secretary of the Interior two years later on July 24, 1936...
, White Earth Reservation. One of the most prolific Native American writers, with over 30 books to his name, Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, where he was Director of Native American Studies. Vizenor is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies
American studies
American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It traditionally incorporates the study of history, literature, and critical theory, but also includes fields as diverse as law, art, the media, film, religious studies, urban...
at the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
.
Early life
Gerald Vizenor’s father was murdered in an unsolved homicide when Vizenor himself was less than two years old. He was raised by his AnishinaabeAnishinaabe
Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
grandmother, his Swedish American
Swedish American
Swedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
mother, and a succession of uncles in Minneapolis and the White Earth Reservation. Following the death of his informal stepfather, who had been his primary caregiver, Vizenor lied about his age to enter the Minnesota National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
in 1950 at age 15. Honorably discharged before his unit went to Korea
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, Vizenor joined the army two years later, serving in a Japan still reeling from the impact of nuclear attack
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
. This period would inspire his interest in haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
, and much later his 2004 "kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
novel" Hiroshima Bugi.
Returning to America in 1953, Vizenor took advantage of G.I. Bill funding to start a degree at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
: this was followed by additional postgraduate study at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, where he also undertook graduate teaching. During this period he married and had a son.
Activism
Between 1964 and 1968, Vizenor was a community advocateAdvocacy
Advocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an...
. During this time he served as director of the American Indian Employment and Guidance Center in Minneapolis, which brought him into close contact with dislocated Native Americans from reservations, many finding it profoundly difficult to survive in a culture of white racism and cheap alcohol. This period is the subject of his collection Wordarrows: Whites and Indians in the New Fur Trade, some of the stories in which were inspired by real events. Working with homeless and poor Natives may have been the reason that Vizenor looked askance at the emerging American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
(AIM), seeing radical leaders such as Dennis Banks
Dennis Banks
Dennis Banks , a Native American leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author, is an Anishinaabe born on Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. Banks is also known as Nowa Cumig...
and Clyde Bellecourt
Clyde Bellecourt
Clyde Howard Bellecourt is a White Earth Ojibwe civil rights organizer noted for co-founding the American Indian Movement in 1968 with Dennis Banks, Herb Powless, and Eddie Benton Banai, among others. His older brother, the late Vernon Bellecourt, was also active...
as being more concerned with personal publicity than the "real" problems faced by American Indians.
In this spirit, Vizenor began working as a staff reporter on the Minneapolis Tribune, quickly rising to become an editorial contributor. His investigation into the case of Thomas James White Hawk, while never pretending that White Hawk was innocent, raised difficult questions about the nature of justice in dealing with colonized peoples. It was credited with being the work that led to the death sentence
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
on White Hawk being commuted.
During this period Vizenor coined the phrase “cultural schizophrenia” to describe the state of mind of many Natives torn between Native and White cultures. His investigative journalism into the activities of American Indian activists uncovered many instances of hypocrisy and drug dealing among the movement’s leaders, and earned him a number of death threats.
Teaching career
Beginning teaching at Lake Forest CollegeLake Forest College
Lake Forest College, founded in 1857, is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. The college has 1,500 students representing 47 states and 78 countries....
, Illinois, Vizenor was quickly appointed to set up and run the Native American Studies
Native American Studies
Native American Studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that examines the history, culture, politics, issues and contemporary experience of Native peoples in North America, or, taking a hemispheric approach, the Americas...
program at Bemidji State University
Bemidji State University
Bemidji State University is a public state university in Bemidji, Minnesota, USA, located on the shores of Lake Bemidji. It is a part of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities .-History:BSU was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School...
. Later he was professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in Minneapolis (1978–1985), which he satirized mercilessly in his fictions. During this time he was also a visiting professor at Tianjin University
Tianjin University
Tianjin University is a national university under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education of China. It is the first university in modern Chinese education history. It was part of Peiyang University in 1895...
, China. Following four years at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Santa Cruz, where he was Provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
of Kresge College
Kresge College
Kresge College is one of the residential colleges that make up the University of California, Santa Cruz. Founded in 1971, Kresge is located on the western edge of the UCSC campus. Kresge is the sixth of ten colleges at UCSC, and originally one of the most experimental. The first provost of Kresge,...
, and an endowed chair for one year at the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
, Vizenor took up a professorship at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Berkeley. He is current professor of American Studies
American studies
American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It traditionally incorporates the study of history, literature, and critical theory, but also includes fields as diverse as law, art, the media, film, religious studies, urban...
at the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
.
Fiction
Vizenor has published collections of haiku, poems, plays, short storiesShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, translations of traditional tribal tales, screenplays and of course many novels. He has been named as a member of the literary movement Kenneth Lincoln dubbed the Native American Renaissance
Native American Renaissance
The Native American Renaissance was a term originally coined by critic Kenneth Lincoln in his 1983 book of the same title. Lincoln’s goal was to explore the explosion in production of literary works by Native Americans in the decade and a half after N. Scott Momaday had won the Pulitzer Prize in...
. His first novel, Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart (1978), later revised as Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles
Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles
Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles is a 1990 novel by Gerald Vizenor; it is a revised version of his 1978 debut novel Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart...
(1990), brought him immediate attention. One of few science fiction novels by a Native American, it portrayed a procession of tribal pilgrim
Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...
s through a surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n landscape of an America suffering an environmental apocalypse brought on by white greed for oil. Simultaneously postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and deeply traditional, inspired by N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday
Navarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.-Background:...
's pioneering works, Vizenor drew on poststructuralist theory and Anishinaabe trickster
Nanabozho
In Anishinaabe mythology, particularly among the Ojibwa, Nanabozho is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creation. Nanabozho is the Ojibwe trickster figure and culture hero...
stories to portray a world in the grip of what he called “terminal creeds” – belief systems incapable of change. In one of the most famous and controversial passages, the character Belladonna Darwin Winter-Catcher proclaims that Natives are better and purer than whites, and is killed for her belief in racial separatism
Racial separatism
Racial separatism refers to a belief that people of different races should live apart. It can be used in either the sense of:* Racial segregation* White separatism or Black separatism...
with poisoned cookies.
Subsequent novels have seen a shifting and overlapping cast of tricksters turn up anywhere from China to White Earth to the University of Kent
University of Kent
The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
. Frequently quoting philosophers such as Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
, Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
and Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...
, Vizenor’s fiction is allusive, humorous and playful, but always ultimately serious in dealing with the state of Native America. Proclaiming himself as much the enemy of those who would romanticize the figure of the Native as he is of those who would continue colonial oppression, Vizenor constantly returns to the theme that the “Indian” was an invention of European invaders – before Columbus’ first landing, there was no such thing as an “Indian”, only the peoples of various tribes (such as Anishinaabe
Anishinaabe
Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
or Dakota
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
).
To deconstruct
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
the idea of "Indianness," Vizenor uses strategies of irony
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
and jouissance
Jouissance
The term jouissance, in French, denotes "pleasure" or "enjoyment." The term has a sexual connotation lacking in the English word "enjoyment", and is therefore left untranslated in English editions of the works of Jacques Lacan. In his Seminar "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis" Lacan develops his...
. For instance, in the lead up to Columbus Day
Columbus Day
Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday...
in 1992, he published The Heirs of Columbus
The Heirs of Columbus
The Heirs of Columbus is a 1991 novel by Gerald Vizenor that, in the face of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in America, inverts the historical record by re-imagining Columbus as a descendant of Mayans and Sephardic Jews who now wants to return home, that is, to America...
, in which he teasingly claims that Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
was in fact a Mayan Indian
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
trying to return home. In Hotline Healers, he claims that Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, the American president
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
who did more for American Indians than any other, did so as part of a deal in exchange for traditional “virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
” technology.
Non-fiction
Vizenor has authored several studies of Native American affairs, including Manifest Manners and Fugitive Poses, and in addition has edited several collections of academic work on Native American writing. He is the founder-editor of the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies series at the University of Oklahoma PressUniversity of Oklahoma Press
The University of Oklahoma Press is the publishing arm of the University of Oklahoma. It has been in operation for over seventy-five years, and was the first university press established in the American Southwest. It was founded by William Bennett Bizzell, the fifth president of the University of...
, which has provided an important venue for critical work on and by Native writers.
In his own full-length studies, Vizenor is concerned with deconstructing
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
the semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
of Indianness. For instance, the title of Fugitive Poses relates to Vizenor's assertion that the term indian is a social-science construction that replaces native peoples, who become absent or "fugitive". Similarly, the term "manifest manners" refers to the continued legacy of Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
, especially the way native peoples are still bound by narratives of dominance that replace them with "indians". In place of a unified “Indian” signifier
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
, he suggests that Native peoples be referred to as tribal, and always where possible put into their own particular tribal context. To discuss more general Native studies, he suggests using the term "postindian," which would get across the idea of disparate, heterogeneous tribal cultures unified only by Euro-American
European American
A European American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe...
attitudes and actions towards them. Among his many other neologisms is “survivance”, a cross between the words "survival" and "resistance," which Vizenor uses as a replacement for “survival”, saying that it carries an implication of an ongoing, changing process, rather than the simple continuance of old ways into the modern world, and pointing out that for tribal peoples, the act of survival is based in resistance.
He continues to be critical of both Native American nationalism and Euro-American colonial attitudes.
Awards
- American Book AwardAmerican Book AwardThe American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
for Shrouds of White Earth, 2011. - MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award, 2011.
- Distinguished Minnesotan, Bemidji State UniversityBemidji State UniversityBemidji State University is a public state university in Bemidji, Minnesota, USA, located on the shores of Lake Bemidji. It is a part of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities .-History:BSU was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School...
, 2005 - Distinguished Achievement Award, Western Literature Association, 2005
- Lifetime Achievement Award, Native Writers' Circle of the AmericasNative Writers' Circle of the AmericasThe Native Writers' Circle of the Americas is an organization of Native American writers, most notable for its literary awards, presented annually to Native American writers in three categories: First Book of Poetry, First Book of Prose, and Lifetime Achievement...
, 2001 - PENInternational PENPEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
Excellence Award, 1996 - PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary AwardPEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary AwardAccording to its website, PEN Oakland was founded in 1989 by Ishmael Reed, who came up with the idea, and co-founders Floyd Salas, Reginald Lockett and Claire Ortalda, in order to “promote works of excellence by writers of all cultural and racial backgrounds and to educate both the public and the...
, 1990 - Artists Fellowship in Literature, California Arts CouncilCalifornia Arts CouncilThe California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento. Its eleven council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature...
, 1989 - New York Fiction Collective Prize, 1988
- American Book AwardAmerican Book AwardThe American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
, 1988 - New York Fiction Collective Award, 1986
- Best American Indian Film, San Francisco Film Festival, 1984
- Film-in-the-Cities Award, Sundance Festival, 1983
Fiction
- Shrouds of White Earth (U of New Mexico P)
- Father Meme (U of New Mexico P)
- Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57 (Nebraska UP)
- Chancers (Oklahoma UP)
- Hotline Healers: An Almost Browne Novel (Wesleyan UP)
- Bearheart: The Heirship ChroniclesBearheart: The Heirship ChroniclesBearheart: The Heirship Chronicles is a 1990 novel by Gerald Vizenor; it is a revised version of his 1978 debut novel Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart...
(Minnesota UP) (revised version of Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart) - The Heirs of ColumbusThe Heirs of ColumbusThe Heirs of Columbus is a 1991 novel by Gerald Vizenor that, in the face of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in America, inverts the historical record by re-imagining Columbus as a descendant of Mayans and Sephardic Jews who now wants to return home, that is, to America...
(Wesleyan UP) - Griever: An American Monkey King in ChinaGriever: An American Monkey King in ChinaGriever: An American Monkey King in China is a 1986 novel by Gerald Vizenor. It won the 1986 New York Fiction Collective Award and the 1988 American Book Award...
(Minnesota UP) - The Trickster of LibertyThe Trickster of LibertyThe Trickster of Liberty is a 1988 novel by Gerald Vizenor that acts as a prequel to his earlier novels Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles and Griever: An American Monkey King in China. The novel is a collection of stories about the mixedblood descendants of Luster Browne and their lives on the...
: Tribal Heirs to a Wild Baronage (Emergent Literatures) - Earthdivers: Tribal Narratives on Mixed Descent (Minnesota UP)
- Landfill Meditation: Crossblood Stories (Wesleyan UP)
- Dead Voices: Natural Agonies In The New World (U. of Oklahoma Press)
Poetry
- Almost Ashore (Salt Publishing, 2006)
- Bear Island: The War At Sugar Point (Minnesota UP, 2006)
- Empty Swings (Haiku in English Series) (Nodin Press)
- Matsushima (Pine Island Nodin Press, 1984)
- Raising the Moon Vines (Nodin Press)
- Seventeen Chirps (Nodin Press)
- Two Wings the Butterfly (privately printed)
- Water Striders (Moving Parts Press)
- Slight Abrasions: A Dialogue in Haiku, with Jerome Downes (Nodin Press)
- Summer in the Spring: Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories (Oklahoma UP)
- South of the Painted Stones (1963)
- The Old Park Sleepers (1961)
- Poems Born in the Wind (1960)
Other works
- Native Liberty: Natural Reason and Cultural Survivance (Nebraska UP, 2009)
- Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence (Nebraska UP, 1998)
- Shadow Distance: A Gerald Vizenor Reader (Wesleyan UP)
- Wordarrows: Indians and Whites in the New Fur Trade (Minnesota UP)
- Crossbloods; Bone Courts, Bingo, and Other Reports (Minnesota UP)
- Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance (Wesleyan UP) (later renamed Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance
- The Everlasting Sky; New Voices from the People Named the Chippewa (MacMillan)
- The People Named the Chippewa: Narrative Histories (Minnesota UP)
- Touchwood : A Collection of Ojibway Prose (Many Minnesotas Project, No 3) (New Rivers Press)
- Thomas James Whitehawk: Investigative Narrative in the Trial, Capital Punishment, and Commutation of the Death Sentence of Thomas James Whitehawk (Four Winds Press, 1968)
Edited collections of essays
- Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence (Nebraska UP, 2008)
- Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures (Oklahoma UP)
Autobiography
- Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors (Minnesota UP)
- Postindian Conversations, with A. Robert LeeA. Robert Lee-Life:His boyhood was spent in Manchester before moving on to a BA in English from University College London in 1963. He received a research MA from King's College London in 1965, with a thesis on Herman Melville, and holds a Ph.D from the University of Kent, UK. From 1967 until 1996 he taught at...
(Nebraska UP)
Books about Gerald Vizenor
- Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition, by Kimberley Blaeser
- Loosening the Seams: Interpretations of Gerald Vizenor, by A. Robert Lee
- Four American Indian Literary Masters: N. Scott MomadayN. Scott MomadayNavarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.-Background:...
, James Welch, Leslie Marmon SilkoLeslie Marmon SilkoLeslie Marmon Silko is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...
and Gerald Vizenor, by Alan R. Velie - Gerald Vizenor: Profils Americains 20, ed. Simone Pellerin. Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2007. (In English)
- Gerald Vizenor: Texts and Contexts, ed. A. Robert LeeA. Robert Lee-Life:His boyhood was spent in Manchester before moving on to a BA in English from University College London in 1963. He received a research MA from King's College London in 1965, with a thesis on Herman Melville, and holds a Ph.D from the University of Kent, UK. From 1967 until 1996 he taught at...
and Deborah Madsen, 2011. - Understanding Gerald Vizenor, by Deborah Madsen, 2010.
Anthologies
Visit Teepee Town: Native Writings After the Detours, Diane Glancy, Mark Nowak (Editors), Coffeehouse Press.Stories Migrating Home: Anishnaabe Prose, Kimberly Blaeser (Editor), Loonfeather Press: Wisconsin
Talking Leaves: Contemporary Native American Short Stories, Craig Lesley, Katheryn Stavrakis (Editor) Dell Books
Earth Song, Sky Spirit: Short Stories of the Contemporary Native American Experience, Clifford E. Trafzer (Editor)
Earth Power Coming: Short Fiction in Native American Literature, Simon J. Ortiz (editor), Navajo Community College Press
Songs from This Earth on Turtle's Back: An Anthology of Poetry by American Indian Writers, Joseph Bruchac (Editor), Greenfield Review Press
Smoke Rising: The Native North American Literary Companion, Janet Witalec, Visible Ink Press.
Words in the Blood: Contemporary Indian Writers of North and South America, Jamake Highwater
Jamake Highwater
Jamake Highwater was an US writer and journalist who claimed Native American ancestry.-Earlier life as Jay Marks:The exact date of Highwater's birth is unknown but it might be any time between 1923-1933...
(Editor), New American Library.
Blue Dawn, Red Earth: New Native American Storytellers, Clifford E. Trafzer (Editor), Anchor Books
The Lightning Within: An Anthology of Contemporary American Indian Fiction, Edited and with an Introduction by Alan R. Velie, University of Nebraska Press
University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...
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American Indian Literature: An Anthology, Alan R. Velie, University of Oklahoma Press.
Harper's Anthology of 20th century Native American Poetry, Duane Niatum (Editor) HarperCollins
Twenty Six Minnesota Writers, Monico D. Degrazia (Editor), Nodin Press.
After Yesterday's Crash: The Avant-Pop Anthology, Larry McCaffery
Larry McCaffery
Lawrence F. "Larry" McCaffery Jr. is a literary critic, editor, and retired professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University...
(Editor), Penguin USA
The New Native American Novel: Works in Progress, Mary Bartlett (Editor), University of New Mexico Press.
The Writer's Notebook, Howard Junker, HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
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Listening to Ourselves: More Stories from 'the Sound of Writing, Alan Cheuse, Caroline Marshall (Editor), Anchor Books.
Avant-Pop: Fiction for a Daydream Nation, Larry McCaffery (Editor), Fc2/Black Ice Books
Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980–1990, Ishmael Reed
Ishmael Reed
Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.Reed has been described as one of the most controversial...
, Kathryn Trueblood, Shawn Wong (Editor), W W Norton & Co.
Without Discovery: A Native Response to Columbus (Turning Point Series), Ray Gonzalez (Editor), Broken Moon Press.
A Gathering of Flowers: Stories About Being Young in America, Joyce Carol Thomas (Editor), Harpercollins Juvenile Books.
American Short Fiction, Spring 1991 by Laura Furman, University of Texas Press
University of Texas Press
The University of Texas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texana, anthropology, U.S...
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An Illuminated History of the Future by Curtis White
Curtis White
Curtis White is an American essayist and author. He serves as professor of English at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, and as President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Book Culture. Most of his career has been spent writing experimental fiction, but he has turned recently...
(Editor), Fc2/Black Ice Books.
Fiction International, San Diego State University Press
San Diego State University College of Arts & Letters
San Diego State University, College of Arts & LettersThe College of Arts and Letters provides liberal arts education at San Diego State University...
.
An Other Tongue: Nation and Ethnicity in the Linguistic Borderlands, Alfred Arteaga (Editor), Duke University Press.
Contemporary Archaeology in Theory, (Social Archaeology), Robert Preucel (Editor), Ian Hodder (Editor), Blackwell Pub.
Encyclopedia of North American Indians, by Frederick E. Hoxie (Editor), Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
Co.
A Companion to American Thought (Blackwell Reference), Richard Wightman Fox (Editor), James T. Kloppenberg (Editor), Blackwell Pub.
Culture and the Imagination, Proceedings of the Third Stuttgart Seminar on Cultural Studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
, Verlag Für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Stuttgart, Germany, 1995
From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America, Ronald Takaki
Ronald Takaki
Ronald Toshiyuki Takaki was an academic, historian, ethnographer and author. Born in Oahu, Hawai'i, his work addresses stereotypes of Asian Americans, such as the model minority concept.-Early life:...
(Editor), Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
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Published interviews with or essays on Gerald Vizenor
Contemporary Authors: Biography – Vizenor, Gerald Robert (1934–), Thomson GaleThomson Gale
Gale is an educational publishing company based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the United States, in the western suburbs of Detroit. It was part of the Thomson Learning division of the Thomson Corporation, a Canadian company, but became part of Cengage Learning in 2007.The company, formerly known...
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Other Words: American Indian Literature, Law, and Culture, (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series), Jace Weaver, Univ. Oklahoma Press.
Postindian Conversations, Gerald Robert Vizenor, A. Robert Lee, University of Nebraska Press.
Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans, Michael Katakis (Editor), University of Pennsylvania Museum Press.
Mythic Rage and Laughter: An Interview with Gerald Vizenor, Dallas Miller, 1995, Studies in American Indian Literatures, 7, 77, 1995 Spring.
Subverting the Dominant Paradigm: Gerald Vizenor's Trickster Discourse, Kerstin Schmidt, Studies in American Indian Literatures, 7, 65, 1995 Spring.
That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community, Jace Weaver, Oxford University Press.
Text as trickster: postmodern language games in Gerald Vizenor's 'Bearheart. (Maskers and Tricksters), An article from: MELUS, by Elizabeth Blair
Gerald Vizenor and his 'Heirs of Columbus': a postmodern quest for more discourse. An article from: The American Indian Quarterly by Barry E Laga
Monkey kings and mojo: postmodern ethnic humor in Kingston, Reed, and Vizenor, An article from: MELUS, by John Lowe
Postmodern bears in the texts of Gerald Vizenor (Critical Essay), An article from: MELUS, by Nora Baker Barry
"Bad Breath": Gerald Vizenor's Lacanian fable. (Critical Essay), An article from: Studies in Short Fiction by Linda Lizut Helstern
Native American Writers of the United States, (Dictionary of Literary Biography, V. 175), Kenneth M. Roemer (Editor), Gale Research.
Woodland word warrior: An introduction to the works of Gerald Vizenor, A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff.
Survival This Way: Interviews With American Indian Poets, Joseph Bruchac III (Editor), (Sun Tracks Books, No 15) University of Arizona Press.
Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak, Laura Coltelli, University of Nebraska Press.
Partial Recall: With Essays on Photographs of Native North Americans, Lucy Lippard (Editor)
Contemporary Authors. Autobiography Series (Vol 22. Issn 0748-0636), Gale Research
American Contradictions: Interviews With Nine American Writers, Wolfgang Binder (Editor), Helmbrecht Breinig (Editor), Wesleyan University Press.
- First published in German as Facing America, Multikulturelle Literatur def heutigen USA in Texten und Interviews, Rotpunktverlag, LeipzigLeipzigLeipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany, 1994.
Native American Autobiography: An Anthology (Wisconsin Studies in American Autobiography), Arnold Krupat (Editor), University of Wisconsin Press.
Growing Up in Minnesota: Ten Writers Remember Their Childhoods, Chester G. Anderson, University of Minnesota Press.
Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest, Mark Vinz (Editor), Thom Tammaro (Editor), University of Minnesota Press.
Gerald Vizenor, a special edition, Louis Owens (Editor), Studies in American Indian Literatures, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 1997, including:
- "Interior Dancers": Transformations of Vizenor's Poetic Vision, Kimberly M. Blaeser
- The Ceded Landscape of Gerald Vizenor's Fiction, Chris LaLonde
- Blue Smoke and Mirrors: Griever's Buddhist Heart, Linda Lizut Helstern
- Liberation and Identity: Bearing the Heart of The Heirship Chronicles, Andrew McClure
- Liminal Landscapes: Motion, Perspective and Place in Gerald Vizenor's Fiction, Bradley John Monsma
- Waiting for Ishi: Gerald Vizenor's Ishi and the Wood Ducks and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Elvira Pulitano
- Doubling in Gerald Vizenor's Bearheart: The Pilgrimage Strategy or Bunyan Revisited, Bernadette Rigel-Cellard
- Legal and Tribal Identity in Gerald Vizenor's The Heirs of Columbus, Stephen D. Osborne
Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel, (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies, Vol 3), Louis Owens, University of Oklahoma Press.
Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies, Vol 15), James Ruppert, University of Oklahoma Press.
Native American Perspectives on Literature and History, (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series, Vol 19) by Alan R. Velie (Editor), University of Oklahoma Press.
- (Articles by Rodriguez, Velie and Blaeser address Vizenor's writings.)
The Turn to the Native, by Arnold Krupat, University of Nebraska Press.
Cultural Difference and the Literary Text: Pluralism and the Limits of Authenticity in North American Literatures, Edited by Winfried Siemerling and Katrin Schwenk
I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers, Brian Swann, Arnold Krupat, Brompton Books Corp.
Buried Roots and Indestructible Seeds: The Survival of American Indian Life in Story, History, and Spirit, Martin Zanger (Editor), Mark A. Lindquist, University of Wisconsin Press.
Sacred Trusts: Essays on Stewardship and Responsibility, Michael Katakis, Russell Chatham (Illustrator), Mercury House.
Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to Present, 1492–1992, Peter Nabokov, Penguin USA
Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Mit Press
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
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Listening to Native Americans: Making Peace with the Past for the Future, John Barry Ryan, in Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture, Vol. 31, No.1 Winter 1996 pp. 24–36.
Transformation in Progress by Annalee Newitz and Jillian Sandell, in Bad Subjects, an online journal.
Spring Wind Rising: The American Indian Novel and the Problem of History, Stripes, James D., A dissertation.
Textbooks
The McGraw-Hill Introduction to Literature, Gilbert H. Muller, McGraw HillMcGraw-Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
Text.
Ways in: Approaches to Reading and Writing About Literature, Gilbert H. Muller, John A. Williams, McGraw Hill Text.
The Harper American Literature, Volume 1; 2nd Edition, Donald McQuade, Robert Atwan, Martha Banta, Justin Kaplan, Harpercollins College Div.
Writing available online
Almost Ashore from the Salt Publishing site, includinga video clip and audio of Vizenor reading the following poems:
- Blue Horses
- Choir of Memory
- Depot Graves
- Guthrie Theater
- Huffy Henry
- Paul Celan
- Raising the Flag
- September Light
- White Earth
Stone Babies from Weber Studies
Gerald Vizenor in Dialogue with A. Robert Lee from Weber Studies
External links
- Official Gerald Vizenor site
- http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/ewk/1844712710.htmSalt PublishingSalt PublishingSalt Publishing is an independent publisher whose origins date back to 1990 when poet John Kinsella launched Salt Magazine in Western Australia. The journal rapidly developed an international reputation as a leading publisher of new poetry and poetics...
website for Almost Ashore – includes video footage, excerpts and biography] - Gerald Vizenor at the Minnesota Authors Biography Project
- Gerald Vizenor at the Native American Authors Project
- Interview with “The Berkleyan”
- In conversation with A. Robert Lee
- Vizenor’s academic resume. (NB this is not up-to-date)
- Talk at University of Minnesota 2006