Toward a Native American Critical Theory (review)

European contact is a given; toward the purpose of contributing something toward Native studies, however, I am more interested in what can be innovated and initiated by native people in analyzing their own culture rather than deconstructing Native viewpoints and arguing for their European underpinnings or even concentrating on white atrocities and Indian victims.

Craig Womack, Red on Red

I'm not sure what to make of Toward a Native American Critical Theory, the new book by Elvira Pulitano. On one hand, I'm always open to reading just about anything by someone named Elvira, and the title is intriguing enough to reel in anyone interested in Native studies. Unless the author of such a book is either dim or dull, there is almost no chance the study will not be controversial, which is definitely a plus. In this arena, Pulitano does not disappoint, providing many reasons to pick up the book, and, as this issue of aiq would suggest, many reasons to review it.

On the macro level, Pulitano's project is an admirable one. Her initial claim is that despite the number of people theorizing about Native culture and literature, "to date no monograph-length account exists that might indicate a development of a Native American critical theory, nor can we talk about a school or circle that has grown up around such a critical endeavor" (2). Pulitano's tone here is one of lament because she feels that while Native American critical theories may have been invited out on the floor, they have refused to dance (or at least danced very poorly). One assumes, of course, that Pulitano fancies her book the first belle at the ball, but in my mind several folks are already cutting the Native critical theory rug. In fact, people like Louis Owens and Vine Deloria have been getting jiggy with it for quite a while. Even so, according to Pulitano, no seminal work on critical theory has emerged from Native discourse that has done for/to Native studies what Foucault, Derrida, Stephen Greenblatt, Terry Eagleton and others have done for identifiable schools of critical theory. Indeed, it would appear that Pulitano bemoans the fact that there is no Cherokee Baudrillard, no Navajo Cixous. Though she admits up front that as a non-Native her project cannot fill the lacunae she identifies, one suspects she hopes her book will, nonetheless, inscribe her name into what she sees as a long empty dance card.

Right off the bat, it's clear that Pulitano takes the etiquette and consequence of critical theory very seriously. To that end, Pulitano adorns herself in the classic theoretical accoutrement—a wicked critical vocabulary and an aggressive, almost adversarial posture. Both force the reader to take note that the author is neither dull nor dim. She has done her reading. She knows how to use polysyllabic words. By the time we get to page 11, Pulitano has already trotted out "multidirectional," "multigeneric," "liminality," "paracolonialism," "transculturation," "assimilationist," "hetroglot," "mediational," interfusional," and "catachresis." On page 14, we get "polyvocality," and "hegemonic" and "monolithic" appear throughout. I was looking for "heteroglossia," but I never found it. What one does find, though—and this is pretty interesting given her predilection for theoretical jargon—is that Pulitano leans more heavily on the "critical" than the "theory." Like her forerunners Foucault, Derrida, Spivak, and Said, Pulitano is often on the attack, identifying weaknesses, poking holes in arguments, dismantling theoretical structures. But, unlike these figures, she never really advances her own theory. Rather than construct, Pulitano prefers to deconstruct, but this gesture comes less out of antagonism than a devotion to a critical methodology. Unlike some rather flashy decon readings of the '80s and '90s, Pulitano eschews play for work. Without question, she believes in her project.

While I'm fine with the project, I don't necessarily believe in her...