Indigenous Agency and Compliance: Contemporary Literature about Dayaks

PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (3) ◽  
pp. 686-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Tsao
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Dominant Discourse

Based on an analysis of three literary texts about Dayaks—the indigenous peoples of Kalimantan (Borneo) in Indonesia—this essay argues that strategic submission can play an important role in indigenous peoples' attempts to obtain and maintain agency under the shadow of dominant discourse. Discussions foundational to the field of postcolonial studies have tended to focus on the importance of subversion, resistance, and counterdiscourse in liberating the oppressed subject. Taking reading cues from anthropological and sociological accounts of Dayak compliance with various constructions of Dayaks, this essay looks at how the writing of literature about Dayaks (by both non-Dayaks and Dayaks) functions as an enactment of and meditation on the application of dominant discourse to indigenous peoples and the opportunities that such discourse affords for carving out spaces of autonomy.

scholarly journals Pós-colonialismo e tradução: uma análise do romance Half a Life e sua tradução para o português

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-320
Author(s):  
Mirian Ruffini ◽  
Gabriel Both Borella
Keyword(s):  
Original Work ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Postcolonial Discourse

The publication of translations of postcolonial literary works is increasingly gaining space in the Brazilian publishing market. In this article, the articulation between Translation Studies and Postcolonial Studies is sought through the analysis of the post-colonial novel Half a Life, by V.S. Naipaul, and its translation to Brazilian Portuguese, entitled Meia Vida. Discussions of ideological aspects in the translation of postcolonial texts and the very choice of what is translated and by whom are questions raised by the text, as well as the challenges of translating postcolonial literary texts. Finally, it is discussed how the postcolonial discourse of the original work is transmitted through translation, ascertaining possible suppression or maintenance of the postcolonial tone of the original work in the translated work.

scholarly journals Gonzo, Ironic Nostalgia, Magical Realism, or, How to Re-Narrate Traumatic Transnational Borderland Stories. Examples from the Twenty-First Century Polish(-German) Literature

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Magdalena Baran-Szołtys
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
German Literature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Borders ◽  
New Generation

This paper focuses on the former Austrian crown land of Galicia and Lodomeria and its return in literary texts of a new generation that can recall it only from collective and family memory. Spaces like Galicia are situated in shifting political borders and often marked by (fragmented) memories connected to traumas caused by migration, forced resettlements, expulsions, or violence. The rediscovery of these spaces, often from nostalgia for a lost home and bygone times, is the starting point of many narratives of the postmemory generations in contemporary literature. Authors use new rhetorical strategies when dealing with adversarial nationalistic and traumatic topics: ironic nostalgia, gonzo, and magical realism. These narratives do not verify “truths,” instead they play with different myths, possibilities, and “alternative futures.” The analysis includes Tomasz Różycki’s Dwanaście stacji (2004), Sabrina Janesch’s Katzenberge (2010), and Ziemowit Szczerek’s Przyjdzie Mordor i nas zje (2013).

Frantz Fanon

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Alessandrini
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Black Skin ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
Famous Book ◽  
To Come

Frantz Fanon (b. 1925–d. 1961)—psychiatrist, political theorist, poet, polemicist, diplomat, journalist, soldier, doctor, playwright, revolutionary—is one of the foremost writers of the 20th century on the topics of racism, colonialism, and decolonization. In his short lifetime, he produced two enduring books: Black Skin, White Masks (Peau noire, masques blancs), still regarded as the preeminent study of the lived experience of racism, and The Wretched of the Earth (Les damnés de la terre), regarded at the time of its publication as “the handbook of decolonization,” and presenting itself to us today as both a clear-eyed prediction of the lasting legacy of neocolonialism, and as a visionary account of a truly postcolonial condition yet to come. These two books encapsulate the major themes not only of Fanon’s writing but also of his extraordinary life. Black Skin, White Masks captures Fanon’s experience as a native of Martinique and thus as the product of a colonial education who came to experience metropolitan racism upon his arrival in France (Fanon, having fought in Europe during the Second World War, returned to France to study medicine). The book draws upon Fanon’s training in psychiatry and psychoanalysis but also upon Marxism, existentialism, the work of the négritude movement, and a number of literary texts in order to analyze the lived experience of racism. Having completed his medical studies, Fanon took up a position at the Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria in November 1953. While working in Algeria, Fanon introduced a number of innovative programs and also authored and coauthored many articles on the practice and theory of psychiatry (many of these texts are available in English, thanks to the publication of Fanon’s previously uncollected writings in Alienation and Freedom, published in 2018). However, as he recounts in The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon was responsible for treating both Algerians fighting for independence and also French police and army officers—both the tortured and the torturers. This experience was to shape his remarkable theorization of colonial and anticolonial violence, one of the key themes of The Wretched of the Earth, which has inspired ongoing critical debate. In 1956 Fanon resigned his position and joined the FLN (National Liberation Front) in Tunis, where he served as an editor of the movement’s newspaper, El Moudjahid. It was during this time that Fanon wrote L’an V de la révolution algérienne (Year V of the Algerian Revolution, translated as A dying colonialism), his sociological study of the Algerian liberation struggle. Shortly after its publication, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. While undergoing treatment, Fanon worked to produce in a period of ten weeks his last (and what would come to be his most famous) book, The Wretched of the Earth. Published only weeks before his death in December 1961, The Wretched of the Earth remains a key text for postcolonial studies. Fanon’s unsparing analysis of the movement for decolonization and the struggle toward what he called the “African Revolution”—as well as his call for a new form of humanism not overdetermined by the crimes of racism, slavery, and colonialism—continues to resonate with readers.

Introduction: Scottish Colonial Literature, 1603–1707

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Kirsten Sandrock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Utopian Literature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlantic Literature

This chapter establishes the book's key claim that Scottish colonial literature in the seventeenth century is poised between narratives of possession and dispossession. It introduces the term colonial utopian literature to frame the intricate relationship between colonialism and utopianism in the seventeenth century. The chapter uses the instances of book burnings in Edinburgh and London in 1700 that revolved around Scotland's colonial venture in Darien as a starting point for the discussion to make a case for the centrality of literary texts in the history of Scottish colonialism. In addition, it introduces the historical context of seventeenth-century Scottish colonialism, especially in relation to the emergent British Empire, inner-British power dynamics, and other European imperial projects. On a theoretical level, the chapter enters debates about Scotland's position in colonial and postcolonial studies through its focus on pre-1707 Atlantic literature. It also makes a fresh argument about Atlantic writing contributing to the transformation of utopian literature from a fictional towards a reformist genre.

scholarly journals LITERATURE AND SPIRITUALITY IN THE POST-SECULAR AGE

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Faisal Nazir
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
Current State ◽  
Analytical Potential ◽  
And Function

This paper attempts to reconsider the nature and function of the ‘spiritual’ dimension in literary texts and in literary study in the context of the present state of the discipline of literary studies. The present era is often defined as a ‘post-secular’ era, one in which themes of spirituality and mysticism are increasingly noticeable in literary works. The paper argues that to maintain its relevance to contemporary writers and readers, literary criticism has to (re-)address these themes in a concrete and effective way. The paper recommends a comparative approach to the discussion of spirituality and mysticism in contemporary literature and literary criticism. In order to carry effective analytical potential, this approach, the paper emphasizes, has to be developed from specific spiritual traditions. The paper first discusses the disciplinary crisis literary studies have always been exposed to since their inception as a discipline of study in academic institutes. It then reviews the current state of the discipline and describes how the discipline came to be dominated by scientific and social approaches. Finally, it  suggests the reinstitutionof the ‘spiritual’ element in literary study as a way out from the state of crisis in the discipline of literary studies. The paper thus attempts to strengthen the disciplinary identify of literary studies while exploring interdisciplinary aspects of the study literature.

scholarly journals Poetry in Transmedial Perspective: Rethinking Intermedial Literary Studies in the Digital Age

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Experimental Poetry ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Literary Practice ◽  
Media Change ◽  
Single Medium

Abstract In the digital age. literary practice proliferates across different media platforms. Contemporary literary texts are written, circulated and rea|d in a variety of media, ranging from traditional print formats to online environments. This essay explores the implications that the transmedial dispersal of literary culture has for intermedial literary studies. If literature no longer functions as a unified single medium (if it ever did) but unfolds in a multiplicity of media, concepts central to intermediality studies, such as media specificity, media boundaries and media change, have to be reconsidered. Taking as its test case the adaptation of E. E. Cummings’s experimental poetry in Alison Clifford’s new media artwork The Sweet Old Etcetera as well as in YouTube clips, the essay argues for a reconceptualization of contemporary literature as a transmedial configuration or network. Rather than think of literature as a single self-contained medium that engages in intermedial exchange and competition with other media, such as film or music, we can better understand how literature operates and develops in the digital age if we recognize the medial heterogeneity and transmedial distribution of literary practice.

scholarly journals PARCOURS MEMORIELS AMERINDIENS ET GEOPOETIQUE DES CONFINS - AMERINDIAN MEMORIAL ITINERARIES AND GEOPOETICS OF THE CONFINES

Organon ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (57) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Olivieri Godet
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Tierra Del Fuego ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Amazon Forest ◽  
American Continent ◽  
Mots Clés ◽  
Amazonian Forest ◽  
Far North ◽  
Northern Territories

RESUME : Il s’agit d’interroger les figurations des rapports des Amérindiens au continent américain dans des textes littéraires qui ont recours à la mémoire pour mettre en scène des « territoires lointains » et leurs populations autochtones: les territoires nordiques du Canada (Chants polaires de Jean Morisset, 2002) ; la forêt amazonienne (Yuxin-Alma de Ana Miranda, 2009) ; la Terre de Feu (Luna roja de Leopoldo Brizuela, 2002). De l’extrême-Nord à l’extrême-Sud du continent américain, en passant par la forêt amazonienne, c’est la construction imaginaire de la conception de « confins », renvoyant à la dichotomie entre civilisation et terres sauvages, qu’il nous intéresse d’examiner tout en soulignant les modalités spécifiques d’appropriation des éléments d’une mythologie de l’espace américain mises en place par les différents textes littéraires.  MOTS CLES : mémoire, Amérindiens, confins, espace américain ABSTRACT: The representations of American Indians relationship to the American continent are investigated in literary texts that use memory to stage the "distant lands" and their indigenous peoples: the northern territories of Canada (Chants Polaires by Jean Morisset, 2002); the Amazonian forest (Yuxin-Alma by Ana Miranda, 2009); Tierra del Fuego (Luna roja by Leopoldo Brizuela, 2002). From the far north to the far south of the American continent through the Amazon forest, we are interested in the imaginary construction of the conception of "confines", referring to the dichotomy between civilization and wilderness, while emphasizing the specific modalities of appropriation of elements of a mythology of the American space implemented by the various literary texts. KEYWORDS: memory, Amerindians, confines, American space

Paradoxes of power: Indigenous peoples in the Permanent Forum

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjo Lindroth
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Political System ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Self ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Dominant Discourse

In the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PF), indigenous political subjectivities take shape in the power relations that not only make indigenous peoples subjects but also subjugate them. This article discusses the process and the possibilities of resistance that open up for indigenous peoples within it. The approach taken acknowledges the limiting political environment of the UN for indigenous peoples, because it is a non-indigenous political system based on state sovereignty. Yet, it does not view the situation of those peoples in the PF as totally determined by the states and their dominant discourse. The theoretical framework of the article draws on the work of Michel Foucault and his conceptions on power, resistance, subjectification, technologies of domination and of the self. The power struggles in the PF, described through the complex of sovereignty, discipline and government, and the resistances within them engender paradoxical indigenous subjectivities: colonized/decolonized, victim/actor, traditional/modern, global/local. Indigenous peoples are able to engage both in resistance that is a reaction to states’ exercise of power or the creative use of its tools and in indirect resistance that ‘stretches’ the UN system and constitutes action on its own terms.

scholarly journals Disability as a Colonial Construct: The Missing Discourse of Culture in Conceptualizations of Disabled Indigenous Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-51
Author(s):  
Nicole Ineese-Nash
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Community Membership ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Indigenous Children ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Indigenous Elders

This paper explores the concept of disability through a critical disability lens to understand how Indigenous ontologies are positioned within the dominant discourse of disabled peoples in Canada. This paper draws on the inherent knowledge of Indigenous (predominantly Anishinaabek) communities through an integration of story and relational understandings from Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, and community members. Indigenous perspectives paired with academic literature illustrate the dichotomous viewpoints that position Indigenous peoples, most often children, as ‘disabled’ within mainstream institutions, regardless of individual designation. Such positioning suggests that the label of disability is a colonial construct that conflicts with Indigenous perspectives of community membership and perpetuates assimilation practices which maintain colonial harm.

Travel and Home in Homer's Odyssey and Contemporary Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Dougherty
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Return Time ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
New Model ◽  
The Road ◽  
Classical Reception ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
At Home

Travel and Home in Homer’s Odyssey and Contemporary Literature brings Homer’s Odyssey together with contemporary literary texts ranging from Rebecca West’s Return of the Soldier to Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to produce new readings that reframe, reorient, and ultimately revise aspects of Homer’s iconic story of travel and home. While some novels share with the Odyssey a celebration of the creative process of improvisation to rethink the relationship between home and travel, others draw upon nostalgia, our complicated longing for home, to unsettle the inevitability of return. Rather than offering an explicit retelling of Homer’s poem, each of these novels prompts us to revisit the relationship between travel and home that Odysseus and Penelope embody to ask new questions of that well-read text. Does travel reinforce or destabilize our notion of home? Are mobility and domesticity irrevocably gendered or can we imagine a world in which Penelope travels and Odysseus stays home? Just as Odysseus continually reinvents his own identity with each new encounter both abroad and at home, so too, we, as readers, participate in an improvisatory interpretive experiment of our own, and this book sets out a new model for reading ancient and contemporary texts together—one that challenges the conventional chronological assumptions inherent in many works of classical reception. No longer a stable text to which we as readers return time and again to find it the same, the Odyssey, together with the novels with which it engages, changes and adapts with each new literary encounter.

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