University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2004 Writing counter-histories of the Americas: Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac Of The Dead Glenda Moylan-Brouff University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Moylan-Brouff, Glenda, Writing counter-histories of the Americas: Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac Of The Dead, PhD thesis, School of Social Sciences, Media and Communications, Universoity of Wollongong, 2004. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/340 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au
Writing Counter-Histories of the Americas: Leslie Marmon Silko s Almanac Of The Dead A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Doctor of Philosophy University of Wollongong by Glenda Moylan-Brouff, B. A. Hons. School of Social Sciences, Media and Communications 2004 i
This thesis is all my own work and has not been submitted for a degree to any other institution or university. Glenda Moylan-Brouff December, 2004. ii
Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Re-evaluating Dominant Representations of Geronimo and the Apache Nation; Mapping the Politics of Colonial 14 Recuperation Chapter Two: Re-figuring Geronimo: Story/History and the Politics of Cultural Difference 71 Chapter Three: Photography and the Politics of Visual Representation 122 Chapter Four: Native American Interventions in the Politics of Photographic Representation 168 Chapter Five: Writing Indigenous Histories: The Politics of Genre and Cultural Difference in Leslie Marmon Silko s Almanac Of The Dead 218 Chapter Six: Re-articulating the Politics of Native American Prophecy: Temporality and Resistance in Leslie Marmon Silko s Almanac Of The Dead 261 Conclusion 308 Appendix 315 Works Cited 327 iii
Abstract Writing Counter-histories of the Americas: Leslie Marmon Silko s Almanac Of The Dead This thesis stages a critical interrogation of the colonial politics that have shaped and continue to shape representations of Native Americans in a North American context. This critical interrogation is based on a reading of Leslie Marmon Silko's landmark text Almanac Of The Dead. I argue that Silko's deployment of Native American counter-discourses of history and story-telling contests Eurocentric epistemologies and ideologies and their entrenched colonial relations of power/knowledge. In the course of this thesis, I focus on the complex representational economies that constitute Silko's text in order to draw attention to Native American histories of resistance to material and symbolic practices of colonialism. Silko's text, I argue, is distinguished by an extraordinary range of representational practices that cut across Eurocentric epistemological categories and taxonomies. Drawing on a rich repertoire of genres and cultural practices -- including the novel, history, photography, the almanac, political manifesto, prophecy and oral story-telling -- Silko effectively challenges dominant, Eurocentric representations of Native Americans whilst, importantly, staging a project of cultural and historical reclamation. The complexity of Silko's text, I argue, cannot be appreciated unless it is contextualised within the colonial economies of power/knowledge that have shaped the Americas post the invasion of 1492 and the tactics of resistance maintained by Native Americans in the face of ongoing colonial practices. As such, throughout the course of this thesis, I rigorously map the complex intertextual relations that constitute the fabric of Silko's text. At every level of her text, I conclude, Silko stages contestatory interventions that challenge and critique dominant colonial systems of representation whilst simultaneously marking, re-articulating and valorising Native American epistemologies and cosmologies that overturn these same colonial systems. iv
Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of many people. I am particularly indebted to my supervisors, Joseph Pugliese and Guy Davidson, whose intellectual mentorship and dedication to this project ensured its completion under often trying circumstances. I want to also thank my close friend and colleague, Colleen McGloin for her moral and intellectual support over the duration of the thesis. In the U.S context, I am grateful to Gerald Vizenor for his patient responses to my relentless questions about Native American Studies and the politics of representation. Especial thanks also to Chris Eyres for opening my eyes to the diversity and complexity of Native American participation in the visual arts arena. Similarly, I would like to thank Tim Troy and Marcia Tiede from the University of Arizona library for their good humoured assistance towards my research on contemporary Native American photography and on photography in general. Several people provided technical support in the final stages of this thesis. I want to particularly acknowledge the always warm and generous assistance and encouragement of Lynell Ratcliffe. I also want to thank Gaye Brayley and Becky Walker for their help in formatting the thesis and Eric Maldonado and Byron MacFarlane for their IT support. Finally, I want to thank the following members of my family whose constant love and support have enabled me to persist with and ultimately complete this project; my father, Charles Brouff, my partner, Chris Bartlett, my son Blake Elliott, and lastly, Boris, Tyson, Barbara, Bella and Donna. v