Tag Archives: Indigenous Literature
On Wonderworks and Indigenous World-Building: A Travel Guidebook Assignment for Darcy Little Badger’s Elatsoe
This in-class exercise is based on Darcy Little Badger’s novel Elatsoe and chapter four of Daniel Heath Justice’s Why Indigenous Literatures Matter Indigenous wonderworks are neither strictly “fantasy” nor “realism,” but maybe both at once, or something else entirely, although they generally push against the expectations of rational materialism. They rooted in the specificities of […]
“How do I play these” (with your thumbs, asshole): Attending to the Indigenous structure of video games within the contexts of digitālis nullius
For me, the process of writing about Indigenous games begins with thinking about the relationship between gaming, code, and settler colonialism, as well as the ways in which I am complicit in what I call digitālis nullius, the erasure of Indigenous presence from technological spaces. As I hope to make evident as I progress through this blog post, code, narratology, and game mechanics are not abstract from larger conversations about settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty.
“How do I play these?” (with your thumbs, asshole): playing Indigenous Video Games
For me, the process of writing about Indigenous games begins with thinking about the relationship between gaming, code, and settler colonialism, as well as the ways in which I am complicit in what I call digitālis nullius, the erasure of Indigenous presence from technological spaces. As I hope to make evident as I progress through this blog post, code, narratology, and game mechanics are not abstract from larger conversations about settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty.
“the road to reconciliation is paved with g—dintentions”: Lack as Resistance in Joshua Whitehead’s Full-Metal Indigiqueer
Joshua Whitehead’s inaugural book of poetry, Full-Metal Indigiqueer is a series of poems told through Zoa, a trickster figure rendered through the lens of technology. Whitehead combines the figures of the singularity, virus, and hacker into a narrator that inhabits and deconstructs the Western literary cannon and popular media culture by infiltrating and re-writing the […]
Indigenous Digital Poetics: Joshua Whitehead’s Full-Metal Indigiqueer
Joshua Whitehead’s inaugural book of poetry, Full-Metal Indigiqueer is a series of poems told through Zoa, a trickster figure rendered through the lens of technology. Whitehead combines the figures of the singularity, virus, and hacker into a narrator that inhabits and deconstructs the Western literary cannon and popular media culture by infiltrating and re-writing the […]
Strategic Plans for the Apocalypse: Critical Engagement with Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves
Groups of 4-5 Assignment Framework Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves ends with a new beginning. While capitalist-driven climate change is leading to the decimation of settler nation states (and the rapid decline of the settler population), French and his family are full of hope for the futures of Indigenous peoples—particularly now that Isaac, who holds […]
Strategic Plans for the Apocalypse: Teaching the Marrow Thieves
This is a creative group assignment for teaching Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves. Students collaborate to write and format a “strategic plan” for the university proposed at the end of the novel.
Review: Katherena Vermette, river woman
Toronto: Anansi, 2018. Pp. 118. Softcover, $19.95. I need to hear the stories of the river about when she was young and her brown water clean loved -Katherena Vermette, “riverstory” The Red River, the focus of Katherena Vermette’s second book of poetry, river woman, begins its journey north at the confluence of the rivers Bois […]
Review of Katherena Vermette’s river woman
The Red River, the focus of Katherena Vermette’s second book of poetry, river woman, begins its journey north at the confluence of the rivers Bois de Sioux and Otter Trails.
Reconciliation: “Like an Echo Turned Inside Out”
On the penultimate page of her 2017 dystopian speculative fiction novel, The Marrow Thieves, Métis author and editor Cherie Dimaline evokes the sound of an echo as a means elucidate the reunification of two residential school surviours: The scene is significant for a number of reasons, not least of all because it contains the only […]
Novel Alliances 