Talk:Gerald Vizenor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
WikiProject Biography     (Rated B-Class) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. Biography Portal B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: Well-written article on Native American writer's life and work. Sufficient discussion of major works, literary importance, and writer's particular contribution to Native literature and American literature as a whole. Could be improved by further standardizing article format and citations, as well as including a few more sources. Could also be improved (although not necessary) by writing starts for author's most important works. Efrafra 08:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC) (edit) WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Anishinaabe This article is within the scope of the sub-project WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Anishinaabe, an attempt to gather and assess articles on the Anishinaabe peoples for the larger project WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which collaborates on Native American, First Nations, and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you specialize in articles related to the Ojibwa, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Nipissing, Algonquin, Saulteaux, or Oji-Cree, please visit WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Anishinaabe as well. ??? This article has not yet been rated on the assessment scale. Suggested article edit guidelines: To help us prioritise our workload, and in readiness for Wikipedia:1.0, we need to assess our articles for Quality. If this article is Unassessed, please assess it. See the Article Classification for instructions. If you disagree with a rating, you can change it or discuss it at Article Classification. Before assessing this article, be sure to check the existing Archive of assessments made under the previous system (used until July 2006), and feel free to help in migrating the existing comments besides from adding your own evaluation. After assessing this article's quality, please make sure it to add it to the Lists at Article Classification, following the grading scheme detailed there. View comments (edit) Well-written article on Native American writer's life and work. Sufficient discussion of major works, literary importance, and writer's particular contribution to Native literature and American literature as a whole. Could be improved by further standardizing article format and citations, as well as including a few more sources. Could also be improved (although not necessary) by writing starts for author's most important works. Efrafra 08:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC) WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America This article is part of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which collaborates on Native American, First Nations, Inuit, Métis and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. ??? This article has not yet been rated on the assessment scale. Suggested article edit guidelines: To help us prioritise our workload, and in readiness for Wikipedia:1.0, we need to assess our articles for Quality. If this article is Unassessed, please assess it. See the Article Classification for instructions. If you disagree with a rating, you can change it or discuss it at Article Classification. Before assessing this article, be sure to check the existing Archive of assessments made under the previous system (used until July 2006), and feel free to help in migrating the existing comments besides from adding your own evaluation. After assessing this article's quality, please make sure it to add it to the Lists at Article Classification, following the grading scheme detailed there. View comments (edit) Well-written article on Native American writer's life and work. Sufficient discussion of major works, literary importance, and writer's particular contribution to Native literature and American literature as a whole. Could be improved by further standardizing article format and citations, as well as including a few more sources. Could also be improved (although not necessary) by writing starts for author's most important works. Efrafra 08:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
This article has an assessment summary page.

[edit] Vizenor's prolific output

The statement that Vizenor is the most published Native writer needs support. As a matter of fact, I believe he remains behind Robert Conley (Cherokee) in number of books. He certainly was behind Conley when I counted the total output of both in the late 1990s. JStripes 01:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• He also remains behind Diane Glancy - I have removed the incorrect statement. Vizjim 06:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Wow! Diane Glancy has more! I had no idea she had been so busy. JStripes 12:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• • It's a ridiculous number - she's got well in excess of 30 books. Vizjim 13:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Belladonna

Was a belief in racial separatism the reason Belladonna was poisoned by the hunters and breeders at Orion? When she was served the poisoned cookies, a breeder explained, "when questions are unanswered and there is no humor the messages become terminal creeds, and the good hunters and breeders here seek nothing that is terminal . . . So the questioners become celebrants when there is nothing more to learn" (Darkness, p.193; Bearheart: Heirship, p.197). Indeed, Louis Owens sides with her interrogators, suggesting that Vizenor employs them to deconstruct her utterance of "Indian identity" (Other Destinies, p.7). JStripes 04:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Would you be willing to reword the interpretation? Vizjim 06:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• It will be difficult to do without drawing on my unpublished dissertation, but perhaps I'll find a way.

[edit] University of Minnesota

Where does the information that U Minn. American Indian studies ceased to exist originate? As you can see from the reference I've added, the department exists. That isn't to say that it always has existed. Where, specifically, does he satirize the department in his fictions? We should have a reference there. JStripes 12:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

It does appear that the Department of American Indian Studies at U Minnesota had only indirect funding (professors employed in other departments) 1990-1997. See http://www.cla.umn.edu/amerind/heritage.htm. I don't see much reason for putting Vizenpr's notion that this is a "failed department" into the body of the article unless he has said so in print in some substantial way. JStripes 16:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Standardization of author pages?

I'm thinking we may want to stick to some of the general form of Wikipedia author articles for the sake of user-friendliness--especially for the bibliographies (i.e. italics for title, correct capitalization, etc). This will save us all a lot of work. For this reason, I'd like to actually get rid of the publishers citation, although if the book is hard to find or out of print, I could see this being an important fact. For now, I've abbreviated them (MLA), and removed unnecessary details like the particular series a book was printed within. I'll try to come back later and put in the correct dates. I've also left all the subtitles in, although I think the standard is to leave them out. Sometimes they're helpful identifiers; sometimes superfluous. Any thoughts? Also, I think we're supposed to use American spellings for American authors. Efrafra 08:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about the British spellings on a lot of these articles, it's something I tend to forget to correct. (I'm British). There is a standard guideline on bibliographies, which I keep meaning to get round to look at. I think with Vizenor's books, however, it might be worth leaving the subtitles in as he seems to use them to communicate a sense of the book, rather than the usual factual information. Vizjim 09:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)