Editorial
A
little over two years ago, when we began the process of imagining what Transmotion might become, we envisioned
a journal that would push boundaries, both in terms of the diversity and
sophistication of its published content and in terms of its accessibility
(through the on-line format and use of an open access platform). With our
second volume, published here as a double issue, we believe we are truly coming
into our own in realizing that vision. Volume 2 highlights the full range of
subject matter and approaches that are addressed in this journal's statement of
editorial philosophy. We are excited to be publishing the first set of what we
hope will be many contributions focused on the visual and performing arts. We
are also pleased to be able to feature an increasingly broad range of literary
scholarship and creative work. The diversity of subject matter and approaches
on display here is very much in the spirit of Gerald Vizenor's own
boundary-breaking and incisive work.
The
guest-curated special section of this double issue includes its own
introduction, by Andrea Carlson. Carlson's contextualization of the
contributions by Rhiana Yazzie, Allan Ryan, Emily Johnson, Pallas Erdrich, and
Deborah Root requires no editorial amplification here. Suffice it to say that
the editors are grateful to her for catching the spirit of our initial "curatorial"
request to her, and in assembling a series of works that tease out visions of
resistance and transformation. Such a vision is also on display in Stephen
Graham Jones's open letter to Indian writers, a practical guide to the
aesthetic, political, and personal benefits of literary transgression. We are
grateful to the inestimable Dr. Jones for permission to publish this piece
(which was first delivered as an address at the Native American Literature
Symposium in Albuquerque, NM in 2015). And we feel confident that he will
appreciate the creative contributions included in the present issue. Terese Mailhot's non-fiction
essay "Paul Simon's Money" combines the personal and political in the wickedly smart
and edgy manner that readers of her work have come to expect. With David Heska Wanbli Weiden's
short story "Spork," we also publish a new voice that takes up Stephen Graham
Jones's call for indigenous writing to become increasingly experimental in
terms of genre and tone. Finally, we once again have the great fortune to
feature a piece by Diane Glancy, in this case an appreciation of Gerald
Vizenor's work ("Totem") that pushes the boundaries of form and content for the
scholarly essay.
The
more conventional literary scholarship published in Volume 2 foregrounds
generic diversity and experimentation in the realm of indigenous fiction, while
also highlighting the ways that literary criticism can engage in constructive and
politically relevant debate. Miriam Brown Spiers's essay, "Reimagining Resistance:
Achieving Sovereignty in Indigenous Science Fiction," employs a theoretically
sophisticated approach to genre in unpacking what is rapidly becoming a
canonical work of contemporary native fiction, Blake Hausman's Riding the Trail of Tears. Placing that
novel in dialogue with the work of science fiction theorist Darko Suvin and
Vine Deloria allows Spiers to explore Hausman's indigenization of science
fiction tropes in a manner that will be applicable to other writers as well. Finally,
we are pleased to be able to include in this issue a pair of articles that engage
with James Welch's complicated novel The
Heartsong of Charging Elk. Tammy Wahpeconiah's "'An
Evening's Curiosity': Image and Indianness in James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk" contextualizes
and interprets Welch's work in relation to pervasive and persistent myths of
the American west. For evidence of the ongoing relevance of this work, one need
look no further than the coverage of the water protector activism at the
Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, where American audiences are fed a steady diet
of images painting these contemporary events as scenes out of the
nineteenth-century "Wild West." Complementing Wahpeconiah's
piece, we complete our issue with John Gamber's "In the Master's Maison: Mobile
Indigeneity in The Heartsong of Charging
Elk and Blue Ravens." Gamber reads Welch's book in dialogue with Vizenor,
comparing each writer's treatment of the theme of exile and manipulation of the
classic "homing plot" that has structured much native fiction since the 1960s. Gamber's sophisticated discussion takes up the intersection
between those formal issues and broader contemporary debates surrounding
indigenous masculinity, concluding that these novels foreground the important,
if sometimes vexed, possibilities for Native movement and relocation (or, as we
might say, transmotion).
---
Transmotion is open access, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the
University of Kent: all content is fully available on the open internet with no paywall or institutional access required,
and it always will be. We are published under a Creative Commons 4.0 license,
meaning in essence that any articles or reviews may be copied and re-used
provided that the source and author is acknowledged. We strongly believe in
this model, which makes research and academic insight available and useable for
the widest possible community. We also believe in keeping to the highest
academic standards: thus all articles are double-blind peer reviewed by at least
two reviewers, and each issue approved by an editorial board of senior
academics in the field (listed in the Front Matter of the full PDF and in the
online 'About' section).
David Carlson November
2016
Theodore Van Alst
James Mackay
David Stirrup