Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction (Volume 15) (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series) - Hardcover

Ruppert, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080612749X ISBN 13: 9780806127491

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995

Synopsis

“Mediation” is the term James Ruppert uses to describe his theory of reading Native American fiction. Focusing on the novels of six major contemporary American writers—N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Silko, Gerald Vizenor, D’Arcy McNickle, and Louise Erdrich—Ruppert analyzes the ways these writers draw upon their bicultural heritage, guiding Native and non-Native readers to different and expanded understandings of each other’s worlds.
           
While Native American writers may criticize white society, revealing its past and present injustices, their emphasis, Ruppert argues, is on healing, survival, and continuance. Their fiction aims to produce cross-cultural understanding rather than divisiveness. To that end they articulate the perspectives and values of competing worldviews, creating characters who manifest what Ruppert calls “multiple identities”—determined by Native and non-Native perceptions of self.
 
These writers might incorporate Native oral storytelling techniques, adapting them to written form, or they may reconstruct Native mythologies, investing them with new meaning by applying them to contemporary situations. As novelists, they also include characteristic features of western European writing—such as the omniscient narrator or the detective story.
           
Ruppert demonstrates how a rich blending of different traditions is producing extraordinary breadth and innovation in Native American literature.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Mediation is the term James Ruppert uses to describe his important new theory of reading Native American fiction. Focusing on novels of six major contemporary American writers - N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Silko, Gerald Vizenor, D'Arcy McNickle, and Louise Erdrich - Ruppert analyzes the ways in which these writers draw upon their bicultural heritage, guiding Native and non-Native readers alike to a different and expanded understanding of each other's worlds. While Native American writers may criticize white society, revealing its past and present injustices, their emphasis, Ruppert argues, is on healing, survival, and continuance. Their fiction aims to produce cross-cultural understanding rather than divisiveness. To that end they articulate the perspectives and values of competing world views. In particular they create characters who manifest what Ruppert calls "multiple identities" - determined by both Native and non-Native perceptions of the self. These writers use a variety of narrative techniques deriving from different cultural traditions. They might incorporate Native oral storytelling techniques, adapting them to written form, or they might reconstruct Native mythologies, investing them with new meaning and relevance by applying them to contemporary situations. As novel-writers, they also include features more characteristic of western European writing - such as the omniscient narrator or the detective-story plot.

About the Author:

James Ruppert is Professor of English and Alaskan Native Studies at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 080612749X
• ISBN 13: 9780806127491
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192