Overview

Starting with the premise that American Indians have been colonized, Horne outlines the dangers of colonial mimicry. She proposes a theory of subversive mimicry through which writers can use the language of the colonial power to subvert it and inscribe diverse First Nations voices. Drawing on select works by Thomas King, Beatrice Culleton, Ruby Slipperjack, Jeannette Armstrong, Lee Maracle, and Tomson Highway, the study also elucidates decolonizing strategies with which readers can collaborate.

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9780820442983

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« What is so strategic and vital about 'Contemporary American Indian Writing' is that it celebrates artistic deployment of subversive mimicry in all its expression of parody, satire, wit, and pathos. Deftly weaving theoretical paradigms with the voices of Native American writers, Dee Horne invites us to follow the writers' 'dance along the colonial precipice' and in so doing to embrace an understanding of the value of subversive mimicry to all writers as a powerful disruption of established theoretical approaches that cling to binary oppositions that are now reaching a tiresome level of pedestrian predictability.

A solid academic work appropriate for all research libraries and for those libraries collecting North American Indian materials. (J. Ruppert, Choice) Dee Horne's 'Contemporary American Indian Writing' may be the most important contribution to Native American/First Nations Studies in recent years. It provides a much-needed theoretical framework for understanding the cultural roots, the variety, and the hybridity of Indian literatures. In an analysis that is both scholarly and invitingly readable, Horne deftly challenges cultural essentialism and the marginalization of Indian experiences and perspectives. 'Contemporary American Indian Writing' unsettles many of the easy and persistent assumptions about Indian literatures and does so both usefully and excitingly. (Reuben Ellis, Hope College Editor of 'Stories and Stone: Writing the Anasazi Homeland') What is so strategic and vital about 'Contemporary American Indian Writing' is that it celebrates artistic deployment of subversive mimicry in all its expression of parody, satire, wit, and pathos. Deftly weaving theoretical paradigms with the voices of Native American writers, Dee Horne invites us to follow the writers' 'dance along the colonial precipice' and in so doing to embrace an understanding of the value of subversive mimicry to all writers as a powerful disruption of established theoretical approaches that cling to binary oppositions that are now reaching a tiresome level of pedestrian predictability. (Jo-Anne Fiske, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and Women's Studies, The University of Northern British Columbia)

Author Information

The Author: Dee Horne is Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Northern British Columbia. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto. She has published numerous articles in professional journals and teaches First Nations literature.

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