Holly Withero, BA English & Comparative Literature

Environmental Trauma and Native American Survivance

My Dissertation is an in-depth analysis of three Native American novels: Leslie Silko’s ‘Ceremony’ (1977), Louise Erdrich’s ‘Tracks’ (1988) and Linda Hogan’s ‘Solar Storms’
(1994). The focus of this piece is the impact of colonialism on Indigenous environments and communities. The project will look at how the chosen Native American novelists present the relationship between Native American communities and their environment, how settler colonial laws and industries capitalise on land and how this in turn affects the Indigenous communities within these territories. When analysing the novels I will concentrate largely on environmental and personal trauma, how each are connected and the authors’ presentation of healing through re-connection to environment and community. The project is inspired by recent topical conversations surrounding Indigenous rights and environmental justice, for example the recent protests at Standing Rock and Morice River Bridge over the construction of pipelines on Indigenous territory. The overall aim of the dissertation, however, is not to impose the role of ‘victims’ on these communities but to examine how the novelists demonstrate Indigenous resilience. My main research question is how these novels become a part of Native American ‘survivance’, a term first employed in Native American Studies by Gerald Vizenor, meaning the continuance of Native stories as renunciations of 'victimry'.