Wai Chee Dimock
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780226477077
- eISBN:
- 9780226477244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226477077.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter takes up the question of reparation. How can we begin to make amends, and how to ensure that such efforts are not fantasies? The chapter looks at the long-distance atonement of Faulkner ...
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This chapter takes up the question of reparation. How can we begin to make amends, and how to ensure that such efforts are not fantasies? The chapter looks at the long-distance atonement of Faulkner as he reaches out in apology to Japan after World War II, hoping in the same gesture to reach out in apology to displaced Choctaws and Cherokees in Mississippi. This attempt at reparation, largely wishful, becomes less so when crowd-sourced by chance, distributed to Native and immigrant authors far from Faulkner’s orbit, whose weak connectivity makes them resourceful mediators. Gerald Vizenor, Jim Barnes, and Lucien Stryk are rarely seen in the company of Faulkner. Unbeknownst to him, they have built a resilient set of ties giving substance to his hoped-for atonement. Taking many forms over the years, from teaching appointments in regional universities, to dedicated translation of Japanese haiku, to the sending and receiving of postcards, this trans-Pacific network, low-key and steadfast, links the catastrophe of New World genocide to the catastrophe of the atomic bombs without being fixated on either—a nonlinear mediation, speaking for Faulkner and perhaps in his despite.Less
This chapter takes up the question of reparation. How can we begin to make amends, and how to ensure that such efforts are not fantasies? The chapter looks at the long-distance atonement of Faulkner as he reaches out in apology to Japan after World War II, hoping in the same gesture to reach out in apology to displaced Choctaws and Cherokees in Mississippi. This attempt at reparation, largely wishful, becomes less so when crowd-sourced by chance, distributed to Native and immigrant authors far from Faulkner’s orbit, whose weak connectivity makes them resourceful mediators. Gerald Vizenor, Jim Barnes, and Lucien Stryk are rarely seen in the company of Faulkner. Unbeknownst to him, they have built a resilient set of ties giving substance to his hoped-for atonement. Taking many forms over the years, from teaching appointments in regional universities, to dedicated translation of Japanese haiku, to the sending and receiving of postcards, this trans-Pacific network, low-key and steadfast, links the catastrophe of New World genocide to the catastrophe of the atomic bombs without being fixated on either—a nonlinear mediation, speaking for Faulkner and perhaps in his despite.
Angela Woollacott
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199641802
- eISBN:
- 9780191779091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641802.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, Cultural History
In the Australian colonies—as in Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand—the status of fully independent manhood with political rights was linked to the quest for colonial self-government. While they ...
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In the Australian colonies—as in Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand—the status of fully independent manhood with political rights was linked to the quest for colonial self-government. While they looked to Canada for the model of self-government, Australian settlers and residents reconceived themselves as new actors on the imperial and global stage, forging democratic modernity through constitutional innovation. Responsible government constitutions for New South Wales, Tasmania, and Victoria were enacted in 1855, for South Australia in 1856, and for Queensland in 1859 when it separated from New South Wales. Other electoral reforms followed, especially male suffrage and the secret ballot. To explore the ways in which political reformers in the Australian colonies embodied imperial connections and experience, and were aware of questions of indigenous dispossession, this chapter considers Henry Samuel Chapman, one of the leading advocates of responsible government in the white settler colonies.Less
In the Australian colonies—as in Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand—the status of fully independent manhood with political rights was linked to the quest for colonial self-government. While they looked to Canada for the model of self-government, Australian settlers and residents reconceived themselves as new actors on the imperial and global stage, forging democratic modernity through constitutional innovation. Responsible government constitutions for New South Wales, Tasmania, and Victoria were enacted in 1855, for South Australia in 1856, and for Queensland in 1859 when it separated from New South Wales. Other electoral reforms followed, especially male suffrage and the secret ballot. To explore the ways in which political reformers in the Australian colonies embodied imperial connections and experience, and were aware of questions of indigenous dispossession, this chapter considers Henry Samuel Chapman, one of the leading advocates of responsible government in the white settler colonies.
