The Presence and Use of the Native American and African American Oral Trickster Traditions in Zitkala-Sa's Old Indian Legends and American Indian Stories and Charles Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman My dissertation examines early Native American and African American oral trickster tales and shows how the pioneering authors Zitkala-Sa (Lakota) and Charles W. Chesnutt (African American) drew on them to provide the basis for a written literature that critiqued the political and social oppression their peoples were experiencing. The dissertation comprises 5 chapters. Chapter 1 defines the meaning and role of the oral trickster figure in Native American and African American folklore. It also explains how my participation in the Native American and African American communities as a long-time storyteller and as a trained academic combine to allow me to discern the hidden messages contained in Native American and African American oral and written trickster literature. Chapter 2 pinpoints what is distinctive about the Native American oral tradition, provides examples of trickster tales, explains their meaning, purpose, and cultural grounding, and discusses the challenges of translating the oral tradition into print. The chapter also includes an analysis of Jane Schoolcraft's short story "Mishosha" (1827). Chapter 3 focuses on Zitkala-Sa's Old Indian Legends (1901) and American Indian Stories (1921). In the legends and stories, Zitkala-Sa is able to preserve much of the mystical, magical, supernatural, and mythical quality of the original oral trickster tradition. She also uses the oral trickster tradition to describe and critique her particular nineteenth-century situation, the larger historical, cultural, and political context of the Sioux Nation, and Native American oppression under the United States government. Chapter 4 examines the African American oral tradition, provides examples of African and African American trickster tales, and explains their meaning, purpose, and cultural grounding. The chapter ends with close readings of the trickster tale elements embedded in William Wells Brown's Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), Harriett Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), and Martin R. Delany's Blake, or the Huts of America (serialized 1859 - 1862). Chapter 5 shows how Charles Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman rests upon African-derived oral trickster myths, legends, and folklore preserved in enslavement culture. Throughout the Conjure tales, Chesnutt uses the supernatural as a metaphor for enslaved people's resistance, survival skills and methods, and for leveling the ground upon which Blacks and Whites struggled within the confines of the enslavement and post-Reconstruction South. Native American and African American oral and written trickster tales give voice to their authors' concerns about the social and political quality of life for themselves and for members of their communities. My dissertation allows these voices a forum from which to "speak." / English

Le dialogue entre la pratique et la théorie est la base de cette étude. Le défi est la réflexion à trois niveaux: la création de numéros et de spectacles par le jeu du clown; la recherche de sa théorie; et les expérimentations pédagogiques. L'interrogation sur le clown a commencé au Brésil et s'est déroulée dans quatre pays européens à travers des spectacles, des résidences artistiques, des ateliers et des rencontres avec des artistes à partir de la Cia da Bobagem. Le clown est une figure populaire et banale à la fois, mais il y a des traces primitives de son jeu. Cette étude met l'accent sur cet art sous de nombreux aspects: ses principes, son histoire, ses artistes, sa pratique interculturelle, sa liberté, sa poésie, son incompréhension et ses métamorphoses au fil du temps. C'est une invitation à voyager ensemble dans un monde paradoxalement très proche mais toujours mystérieux. La première partie aborde le parcours artistique du chercheur influencé par la recherche e sa curiosité théorique. Ce sont 15 ans de vie clownesque vécu au Brésil et intensifié en Europe avec la création de quatre spectacles et la réalisation de plusieurs cours de clowns à Bruxelles. La rentrée au Brésil est étudiée à partir des projets subventionés. La deuxième partie montre un esquisse théorique sur le clown du XVIe jusqu’aujourd’hui : dès les moralités aux clowns actuels. L’etymologie du mot clown ouvre ce chapitre qui fait une possible relation du trickster et du clown. La troisième partie fait une réflexion sur le jeu comme un outil d’apprentissage du clown. Il y a la tentative de met en lumière les principes du jeu clownesque et les élements pédagogiques appliqué dans la Cia da Bobagem. Pour conclure, la thèse essaye de montrer que la pratique du clown permet une intégration professionnelle et que la théorie peut amplifier la conception du clown à travers la psychologie, l’anthropologie et l’histoire. La transmission du jeu clownesque par la pédagogie du plaisir peut être l’autre façon de jouer et de transmettre le clown au-delà de la souffrance. / The dialogue between practice and theory is the basis of this study. The challenge is the reflection in three levels: the creation of numbers and shows by the play of clown; the investigation of clown theory; and the pedagogy experimentations. The interrogation about clown began in Brazil and came to four European countries through performances, artistic residences, workshops and meetings with artists by Cia da Bobagem group. The clown is a popular and a banal figure at the same time, but there are primitive traces of his play. This work explores this art by many aspects: his principles, his history, his artists, his intercultural practice, his freedom, his poetry, his incomprehension, and his metamorphoses over time. It is an invitation to travel together in a world paradoxically very near, but still mysterious. The first part shows the artistc journey of the researcher influenced by the research and theoretical curiosity. These are fifteen years of clown lived in Brazil and intensified in Europe with the creation of four shows and the realization of several clown classes in Brussels. The return to Brazil is studied from funded projects. The second part opens on the etymology of the word clown opens this chapter which makes a possible relation of the trickster and the clown, than indicates a theoretical sketch about the clown from the sixteen century to the present day: from morality to actual clowns. The third part is about the game as a learning tool of the clown. There is the attempt to highlight the principles of the clown game and the pedagogical elements applied in Cia da Bobagem. The thesis shows that the practice of clowning allows a professional integration, that the theory amplifies the conception of clown through psychology, anthropology and history, and that the transmission of the clown game by the pedagogy of pleasure can be the other way to play and transmit the clown beyond suffering.

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La Llorona Don’t Swim The LA River is a collection of poems that explore the issues of growing up in East LA as a young, bilingual Chicana. These poems are an attempt to capture my experiences through story telling by blending Spanish, English, street slang, and the casual spoken diction. The speaker embodies several versions of the trickster figure: linguistic tricksterism, cultural tricksterism, gender tricksterism, and religious tricksterism. She navigates linguistic tricksterism through the code switching of English and Spanish, using Spanglish as her main dialect, and often blending in slang, creating Slanglish. In cultural tricksterism, she focuses on the experiences of the working class, the migrant workers, the bilingual speakers, and the overall generational changes in the Mexican culture. The speaker constantly searches for the meaning of what it is to be a woman and what it means to love through gender tricksterism. She looks to her mother, la Virgen De Guadalupe, and La Llorona to try and understand her complex identity. La Llorona Don’t Swim The LA River works to form a different type of spirituality through sacred humanism from the point of view of the religious trickster. These poems pose the question: where else can God be found other than church and the bible? The speaker seeks God in tattoos, in punk music, in the moshpit, in the city, and in people. She forms a new approach to tradition through the persistence of kind rebellion, her own personal version of love.

Cette thèse aborde des pratiques performatives contemporaines qui détournent les représentations conventionnelles des Premières Nations d'Amérique du Nord, pour dénoncer ou déjouer les clichés qui leur sont associés, pour exprimer ou évoquer l'amérindianité de manière critique et créative, et pour mettre en place une représentation personnelle et non conventionnelle du sujet amérindien. Les œuvres ici étudiées ont été réalisées dans les trente dernières années et sont issues principalement de l'art de performance (performance art) mais aussi des arts visuels et de la poésie, parfois combinés sous un mode interdisciplinaire. Ce corpus réunit, à la manière d'un commissariat d'exposition, des œuvres choisies parmi le travail de douze créateurs principalement (mais pas exclusivement) amérindiens : KC Adams, Lori Blondeau, Yves Boisvert, Jimmie Durham, Marvin Francis, Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Edgar Heap of Birds, Terrance Houle, James Luna, Kent Monkman et Josée Yvon. La diversité de leurs pratiques respectives permet de dresser un éventail varié des différentes possibilités de détournement des stéréotypes liés aux Premières Nations. La réflexion menée avec ces œuvres se situe dans un croisement entre les théories de la performance (performance studies), les études culturelles (cultural studies) et l'étude des Premières Nations (native studies). Elle est également nourrie par des travaux issus de la sémiologie, de l'histoire de l'art, des études littéraires et de l'anthropologie. Cette recherche interdisciplinaire aborde dans un premier temps (chapitre 1) la construction symbolique de l'amérindianité, qui se trouve élargie et défigée par les pratiques performatives abordées dans cette thèse. Trois œuvres de performance sont ensuite analysées de manière détaillée : The Artifact Piece (1987) de James Luna (chapitre 2), Two Undiscovered Amerindians (1992-1994) de Coco Fusco et Guillermo Gomez-Pena (chapitre 3) et Putting the Wild back to the West (2004-2010) de Lori Blondeau et Adrian Stimson (chapitre 4). Le chapitre 5 étudie quant à lui une sélection d'œuvres artistiques et littéraires, qui possèdent une forte dimension performative, parmi le travail des autres artistes et écrivains mentionnés plus tôt. L'analyse de ces pratiques performatives se montre particulièrement attentive à la tension entre stéréotype et subjectivité, de même qu'entre violence et ironie. Elle vise à démontrer qu'il est possible, en détournant les signes qui évoquent les Premières Nations de manière conventionnelle et reconnaissable, d'exprimer autrement l'amérindianité. Ces détournements affectent la perception des Premières Nations chez le spectateur et permettent de disconvenir des idées reçues à leur sujet. Ils mettent également en œuvre une amérindianité performative qui s'incarne par une attitude ironique, inscrivant l'expression identitaire et culturelle dans une dynamique qui remet en mouvement la représentation et la signification. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Stéréotype, Performance, Détournement, Représentation, Premières Nations, Pratiques performatives, Cliché, Convention, Disconvenance, Performativité, Amérindianité, Trickster.

Thesis (M.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Simultaneously culture heroes and stumbling buffoons, Tricksters bring cultural tools to the people and make the world more habitable. There are common themes in these figures that remain fruitful for the advancement of culture, theory, and critical praxis. This dissertation develops a method for opening a dialogue with Trickster figures. It draws from established literature to present a newly conceived and more flexible Trickster archetype. This archetype is more than a collection of traits; it builds on itself processually to form a method for analysis. The critical Trickster archetype includes the fundamental act of crossing borders; the twin ontologies of ambiguity and liminality; the particular tactics of humor, duplicity, and shape shifting; and the overarching cultural roles of culture hero and stumbling buffoon. Running parallel to each archetypal element, though, are Trickster's overarching critical spirit of Quixotic utopianism and underlying telos of manipulating human relationships. The character 'Q' from Star Trek: The Next Generation is used to demonstrate the critical Trickster archetype. To be more useful for critical cultural studies, Trickster figures must also be connected to their socio-cultural and historical contexts. Thus, this dissertation offers a second set of analytics, a dialogical method that connects Tricksters to the worlds they make more habitable. This dialogical method, developed from the work of M. M. Bakhtin and others, consists of three analytical tools: utterance, intertextuality, and chronotope. Utterance bounds the text for analysis. Intertextuality connects the utterance, the text, to its context. Chronotope suggests particular spatio-temporal relationships that help reveal the cultural significance of a dialogical performance. Performance artists Andre Stitt, Ann Liv Young, and Steven Leyba are used to demonstrate the method of Trickster dialogics. A concluding discussion of Trickster's unique chronotope reveals its contributions to conceptions of utopia and futurity. This dissertation offers theoretical advancements about the significance and tactics of subversive communication practices. It offers a new and unique method for cultural and performative analyses that can be expanded into different kinds of dialogics. Trickster dialogics can also be used generatively to direct and guide the further development of performative praxis. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication Studies 2013

No description available.

The thesis titled Putting Chopin and the Rez Together: Multicultural Features in Tomson Highway's Work focuses on the work of renowned Native Canadian playwright, novelist, and musician Tomson Highway. The paper analyses those features of his writing and music that express the idea of multiculturalism and hybridity. It discusses the nature of the characters in his work and the image of the central character of Native mythology, the trickster. The analysis of dramatic techniques and music shows the way Highway combines his Euro-Canadian education and Native sensibility. Highway supports and promotes the notion of multiculturalism by his work. It has helped him to find personal as well as creative independence.

An analysis of the names and violence in Richard Wright's The Outsider reveals Wright's aesthetic program for the novel. Wright's recurring themes and the meanings of the name and aliases of his protagonist are indicative of African American vernacular tradition. Despite Wright's physical distance from African American life in the United States at the time of the novel's writing, he still conveys a strong connection to the African American experience, linking that experience with the suffering of all oppressed people. By using the idea of double-consciousness and various forms of signification, including masking, naming, and improvisation, Wright locates his work within the African American folk tradition and celebrates the freedom and subversive nature of African American expression.