The purpose of this thesis was to draw new insights on Thomas Berger’s classic American novel, Little Big Man, and his representation of fictional violence that is a substantial aspect of any text on the Indian Wars and “Custer’s Last Stand”. History’s major world wars led to shifts in the political climate and a noted change in the way that violence was represented in the arts. Historical, fictional, and cinematic treatments of “Custer’s Last Stand” and violence were each considered in relation to the text. Berger's version of the famed story is a revision of history that shows the protagonist as a dual-member of two violent societies. The thesis concluded that Berger’s updated American legends and unique “white renegade” character led to a representation of violence that spoke to the current state of affairs in 1964 when the world was becoming much more hostile and chaotic place.

This study is an educator's interpretation of the transcribed testimony of four Dene witnesses to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry conducted by Justice Thomas Berger in the Canadian north during the mid-1970s. This study uses Calvin Schrag's (1986) notion of communicative praxis to provide a form of critical hermeneutics for the interpretation of text. Communicative praxis offers us a way to understand texts as discourse about something, by someone, and for someone. The world, the self, and the other are all displayed in any particular communicative event and thus it is in the holistic space of communicative praxis where thought, language and action interplay and are contextualized in our everyday lives. The orienting question brought to the reading of each of these texts has been "What is going on in this person's testimony?" In other words, what is this person's experience of being human, and of being Dene, and in what way is that experience disclosed through the language of their text? This piece explores who the four speakers were (the backdrop of historical circumstances as well as social practices and traditions within which the witnesses lived their lives, and in which they gave their testimony to the Inquiry), what they were saying (particularly what the speakers referenced about their lived world, as well as what they signified about the cultural, linguistic and historical tradition in which they stood) and to whom they were speaking and how they were saying it (the rhetorical moment). The speakers employed metaphor, irony, personal stories, as well as more rational forms of persuasion to call into question the morality of white people and those Western social and institutional practices which had dramatically altered the landscape of Dene lives and Dene land, and were continuing to do so. The interpretation elucidates the Dene ideal of respectfulness of "the other," a notion of the other which includes human life, as well as all living beings and the Earth itself; and a call to envision the future in terms of our children and the-yet-to-be-born. The study concludes with a personal elucidation of the pedagogical significance of the text interpretations. / Graduate

In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.

In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.