From the Iron House: Imprisonment in First Nations Writing (Indigenous Studies)

Rymhs, Deena

ISBN 10: 1554585805 / ISBN 13: 9781554585809

Edité par Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016

A propos de cet article

In English.

N° de réf. du vendeur ria9781554585809_new

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: From the Iron House: Imprisonment in First Nations Writing (Indigenous Studies)
• Éditeur: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 2016
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1554585805
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781554585809
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• État de l'article: New

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

In From the Iron House: Imprisonment in First Nations Writing, Deena Rymhs identifies continuities between the residential school and the prison, offering ways of reading "the carceral"--that is, the different ways that incarceration is constituted and articulated in contemporary Aboriginal literature. Addressing the work of writers like Tomson Highway and Basil Johnston along with that of lesser-known authors writing in prison serials and underground publications, this book emphasizes the literary and political strategies these authors use to resist the containment of their institutions.
The first part of the book considers a diverse sample of writing from prison serials, prisoners' anthologies, and individual autobiographies, including Stolen Life by Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson, to show how these works serve as second hearings for their authors--an opportunity to respond to the law's authority over their personal and public identities while making a plea to a wider audience. The second part looks at residential school narratives and shows how the authors construct identities for themselves in ways that defy the institution's control. The interactions between these two bodies of writing--residential school accounts and prison narratives--invite recognition of the ways that guilt is colonially constructed and how these authors use their writing to distance themselves from that guilt.
Offering new ways of reading Native writing, From the Iron House is a pioneering study of prison literature in Canada and situates its readings within international criticism of prison writing. Contributing to genre studies and theoretical understandings of life writing, and covering a variety of social topics, this work will be relevant to readers interested in indigenous studies, Canadian cultural studies, postcolonial studies, auto/biography studies, law, and public policy.

À propos de l'auteur

Deena Rymhs is an associate professor in the Program in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois. She is the author of From the Iron House (WLU Press, 2008) and Roads, Mobility, and Violence in Indigenous Literature and Art from North America (2019).