Literary Research Methodologies

MA seminar
WRITING the NARRATIVE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catherine RAINWATER:
CORPUS:
“Louise Erdrich is a contemporary writer of German-American and Chippewa
heritage. Like many literary works by Native Americans, her novels, Love
Medicine (I984), The Beet Queen (I986), and Tracks (I988), reflect the
ambivalence and tension marking the lives of people, much like herself, from
dual cultural backgrounds.” (p.405)
THESIS:
“My study reveals how textual evocation of various conflicting codes, or
antithetical strands within associative fields, produces in the reader an
experience of marginality.” (p.406)
METHOD:
“Semiotic analysis reveals Erdrich's preoccupation with marginality beyond
the thematic level. Such analysis also discloses various structural features
of Erdrich's texts that frustrate narrativity, "the process by which a perceiver
actively constructs a story from the fictional data provided by any narrative
medium." This frustration amounts to a textually induced or encoded
experience of marginality as the foremost component of the reader's
response.” (p.406)
Susan Stanford Friedman:
CORPUS:
Title + Introduction: “In what sense is Erdrich's work "political," if not "polemical"? Where does
Tracks - drafted well before she published Love Medicine (1984) and The Beet Queen (1986),
but not published until 1988 - fit into debates about representing the political and the
postmodern in the contemporary novel?” (p.107)
THESIS:
“Rather, the political vision of the novel emerges out of its complex, often hilarious, and
ultimately indeterminate play with questions of identity and spirituality as these are
constituted in culture and history [= also method]. Erdrich's desire to avoid the polemical, I
want to suggest, resides in her distrust of a fundamentalist certainty about fixed truth and her
embrace of a syncretist politics based in fluid, multi-faceted, shape-changing, hard-won
truths” (p.108)
METHOD:
“… the novel overtly sets up a contrast between Nanapush as the reliable narrator who
retains his Anishinabe religion and the unreliable narrator, the convert Pauline whose self-
hatred takes the form of a denial of her Indian heritage and the adoption of a self-destructive
Catholicism. But on the other hand, as an expression of religious syncretism, the novel
covertly uses Nanapush and Pauline to draw significant parallels between Anishinabe
spirituality and Catholic mysticism. From this perspective, the novel acknowledges an
interpenetration and hybridization of Anishinabe and European spirituality and identity”
(p.108)
Karah STOKES:
CORPUS:
Title + “June Kashpaw dies in the opening scene of Love Medicine but appears as a ghost in
The Bingo Palace; the scene of her death is retold from a different point of view as the
opening of Tales of Burning Love. Sister Leopolda apparently dies in Love Medicine but
appears as a centenarian in Tales of Burning Love.” (p.90)
THESIS:
“Even though she grew up off-reservation speaking English, and writes a novel, a European
form, Louise Erdrich's work is informed and ordered by elements of Anishinabe as well as
of German-American, Catholic, and Midwestern cultures. These elements tantalize non-
Anishinabe readers by lending a different shape to her fiction, a shape that they can sense
but cannot fully distinguish. In order to discern the different shape of her novels, readers
must educate themselves about the Anishinabe background of the works.” (p.89)
METHOD:
“This oral influence is demonstrated formally in the episodic form of the novels and the fact
that, as in traditional stories of the Anishinabe, the same characters evolve through many
works. … In addition to formal features, however, Erdrich's work also draws on characters,
plot patterns and relationships from traditional Anishinabe culture and mythology.
Specifically, stories about Oshkikwe and Matchikwewis, a polar pair of sisters in a cycle
of stories commonly told by Anishinabe women, gives the reader a new perspective on the
relationships between women that are central to Erdrich's novels.” (p.90)
 CORPUS + PROBLEMATIC
Catherine Rainwater:
“Louise Erdrich is a contemporary writer of German-American and Chippewa heritage.
Like many literary works by Native Americans, her novels, Love Medicine (I984), The
Beet Queen (I986), and Tracks (I988), reflect the ambivalence and tension marking
the lives of people, much like herself, from dual cultural backgrounds.” (p.405)
IN RELATION TO –
Susan Stanford Friedman:
“In what sense is Erdrich's work "political," if not "polemical"? Where does Tracks -
drafted well before she published Love Medicine (1984) and The Beet Queen (1986),
but not published until 1988 - fit into debates about representing the political and the
postmodern in the contemporary novel?” (p.107)
Karah Stokes:
“June Kashpaw dies in the opening scene of Love Medicine but appears as a ghost in
The Bingo Palace; the scene of her death is retold from a different point of view as
the opening of Tales of Burning Love. Sister Leopolda apparently dies in Love
Medicine but appears as a centenarian in Tales of Burning Love.” (p.90)
 THESIS / UNIFYING ARGUMENT
Catherine Rainwater:
“My study reveals how textual evocation of various conflicting codes, or antithetical strands
within associative fields, produces in the reader an experience of marginality.” (p.406)
IN RELATION TO –
Susan Stanford Friedman:
“Rather, the political vision of the novel emerges out of its complex, often hilarious, and
ultimately indeterminate play with questions of identity and spirituality as these are
constituted in culture and history [= also method]. Erdrich's desire to avoid the polemical, I
want to suggest, resides in her distrust of a fundamentalist certainty about fixed truth and her
embrace of a syncretist politics based in fluid, multi-faceted, shape-changing, hard-won
truths” (p.108)
Karah Stokes:
“Even though she grew up off-reservation speaking English, and writes a novel, a European
form, Louise Erdrich's work is informed and ordered by elements of Anishinabe as well as
of German-American, Catholic, and Midwestern cultures. These elements tantalize non-
Anishinabe readers by lending a different shape to her fiction, a shape that they can sense
but cannot fully distinguish. In order to discern the different shape of her novels, readers
must educate themselves about the Anishinabe background of the works.” (p.89)
 METHOD
Catherine Rainwater:
“Semiotic analysis reveals Erdrich's preoccupation with marginality beyond the thematic level.
Such analysis also discloses various structural features of Erdrich's texts that frustrate
narrativity, "the process by which a perceiver actively constructs a story from the fictional data
provided by any narrative medium." This frustration amounts to a textually induced or encoded
experience of marginality as the foremost component of the reader's response.” (p.406)
IN RELATION TO –
Susan Stanford Friedman:
“… the novel overtly sets up a contrast between Nanapush as the reliable narrator who retains
his Anishinabe religion and the unreliable narrator, the convert Pauline whose self-hatred takes
the form of a denial of her Indian heritage and the adoption of a self-destructive Catholicism. But
on the other hand, as an expression of religious syncretism, the novel covertly uses Nanapush
and Pauline to draw significant parallels between Anishinabe spirituality and Catholic mysticism.
From this perspective, the novel acknowledges an interpenetration and hybridization of
Anishinabe and European spirituality and identity” (p.108)
Karah Stokes:
“This oral influence is demonstrated formally in the episodic form of the novels and the fact that,
as in traditional stories of the Anishinabe, the same characters evolve through many works. … In
addition to formal features, however, Erdrich's work also draws on characters, plot patterns and
relationships from traditional Anishinabe culture and mythology. Specifically, stories about
Oshkikwe and Matchikwewis, a polar pair of sisters in a cycle of stories commonly told by
Anishinabe women, gives the reader a new perspective on the relationships between women that
are central to Erdrich's novels.” (p.90)