Brenna Duperron explores how Indigenous knowledge can be applied to non-Indigenous literature, giving more insight into works across time and geography.
“My work decolonizes our approach to medieval texts by reading them through Indigenous knowledge systems.”
@brenna_duperron
When we analyse texts, we do so through a particular lens. We understand the text from a particular worldview or perspective. In English Literature, we call this “readings.” You can do a feminist reading where you focus on gender dynamics or a critical race reading where you understand how the text defines and constructs race […]
In My Conversations with Canadians (2017), Stōlo Elder Lee Maracle describes how Colonial white society assigned itself some crazy Knower’s Chair and handed white people the authority to sit in it. They alone get to teach from this chair and decide what is true knowledge, what is false, etc. The emphasis in Maracle is on […]
A quick recap of the series so far: In Part 1, I shared the stories of The Rolling Head and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Sir Gawain). In Part 2, I discussed the interweaving of land, race, and Indigeneity. In Part 3, “The Rolling Head” stories remind us that the lines between monster and human are blurred, which […]
In Part 1, I began with the stories of The Rolling Head and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Sir Gawain). In Part 2, I considered the colonial interweaving of land, race, and Indigeneity in both texts. In Part 3, the Rolling Head stories remind us that the lines between monster and human are blurred, which helps us […]
In Part 1, I introduced the stories of The Rolling Head and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Part 2, our series began its red reading (according to Jill Carter (Anishinaabe), red reading is the theoretical approach to literature wherein a canonical text is read through an Indigenous perspective) of Sir Gawain with a […]
Let us continue the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Green Knight offered Sir Gawain one year to arrange his affairs. At the end of the year, he is to voyage to the Green Knight’s home to receive his matching cut. The interlude from game to journey includes detailed descriptions of the […]
When King Arthur’s court was still young, an anonymous 14th century English poet tells us, they were visited by a fantastical man. A half-giant, enrobed entirely in green, interrupts Camelot’s New Year’s Feast to challenge the Knights of the Roundtable to a game. The rules are simple: each player will receive a matching cut from […]
