Questions of perspective in Eden Robinson’s Monkey beach : learning with story and spirituality in Indigenous fiction
department or school: Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: DeWitt, Zachary
issued: 2024-05-13T16:38:01Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: There exists, within Indigenous theory and literary scholarship, a simultaneous belief in the educative power of Indigenous fictions for settler readers and the assertion that it may well be impossible for a settler reader to ever understand Indigenous culture within its cultural context. A myriad of tensions arise between these competing worldviews — those related to questions of differing epistemologies, the legacy of colonization, and the continued integrity and survival of Indigenous knowledge. In analyzing Haisla and Heiltsuk author Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach, this thesis attempts to step through some of these tensions by looking at Indigenous story as an expression of relational and responsive theory, rather than as a cultural object. I argue that Monkey Beach offers a unique confrontation with the tensions that many settler readers experience when they read, even as it asks such readers to move beyond them, in an effort to narrate Indigenous survival. Following from the work of Indigenous theorists and scholars, I argue first that the novel is interested in the education of both its main character and the reader, before turning to a reading of the pedagogical affect of spirituality in the novel. I show that explicit engagement with the novel’s spiritual themes not only represents an underexplored aspect of Monkey Beach, but also that discussions of spirituality help us engage with questions of epistemology and tensions in perspective. More specifically, this thesis takes seriously the reality of spiritual forces in Monkey Beach, and how the signification of those forces shapes the perspectives along which they can be understood. In forwarding this argument, I propose that attention to spiritual matters — and more specifically, the way that story is cosmological — helps us attend to Indigenous survival and offers us a different perspective through which settler readers respond to Indigenous fiction.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88282
note: Questions of Perspective in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach: Learning with Story and Spirituality in Indigenous Fiction by Zach DeWitt B.A.Sc., Quest University Canada, 2021 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) April 2024 © Zach DeWitt, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: Questions of Perspective in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach: Learning with Story and Spirituality in Indigenous Fiction submitted by Zach DeWitt in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts. Dr. Jodey Castricano, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisor Dr. Kerrie Charnley, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Allison Hargreaves, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Jessica Stites Mor, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences ______________________________________________________________________________ University Examiner iii Abstract There exists, within Indigenous theory and literary scholarship, a simultaneous belief in the educative power of Indigenous fictions for settler readers and the assertion that it may well be impossible for a settler reader to ever understand Indigenous culture within its cultural context. A myriad of tensions arise between these competing worldviews — those related to questions of differing epistemologies, the legacy of colonization, and the continued integrity and survival of Indigenous knowledge. In analyzing Haisla and Heiltsuk author Eden Robinson’s Monkey …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0443091
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Castricano, Carla Jodey, 1947-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88282