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radiantfracture) wrote2021-06-10 06:50 pm
radiantfracture) wrote2021-06-10 06:50 pm
IO #3 -- Maria Campbell (Métis)
(A series for Indigenous History Month about Indigenous authors who have meant a lot to me as an instructor and to the students I teach.)
* * * * * *
(Photo Credit: Ted Whitecalf)
Maria Campbell
I know this seems like another obvious choice -- Maria Campbell (b. 1940) is a household name and a beloved Métis author, broadcaster, and Elder (CBC.ca). Her 1973 autobiographical book, Halfbreed, is one of the best-known books from that late-60's / early-70s wave of Indigenous publishing in the mainstream. If that was all she'd done, it would be important, but she's done a lot of other things.
The Book of Jessica
It might be less well-known that Campbell is also a playwright. Flight, her first play, was the first all-Indigenous public production in what we currently call Canada. Her play Jessica is also important in the story of Indigenous theatre here.
The Book of Jessica: A Theatrical Transformation tells, in dialogue, a fascinating (and very frustrating) story about the play's creation, as Campbell collaborates with the settler actor/playwright, Linda Griffiths, who performed the play. I mean, if you want to hear colonialism talk (and talk and talk), this is your book -- but also Campbell's voice is here, honest and brilliant.
I'd love to teach from this book sometime, if I could figure out how to do it.
Censorship of Halfbreed
If you follow Canadian publishing and academic writing, you may also know that Halfbreed was censored by the publishers, McClelland and Stewart. It was, first, edited down from 2000 pages to 200. (The longer manuscript, so far as I know, is lost, though we can always hope.)
However, after editing, the book was then censored again at the last minute, without Campbell's consent.
Two pages describing a horrifying sexual assault by an RCMP officer were cut as too controversial -- right before printing, and without consulting Campbell. The injustice of this is obvious; so is the fact that it's a second kind of violation; the cuts also damage the coherence of the book, as her later depression seems to have no clear cause.
Jack McClelland himself said that "the RCMP would issue an injunction and stop the book from ever seeing the light of day." I don't know how he felt he knew that. I think, though, about what this act of silencing and his reasoning around it did to delay bringing the truth of Campbell's life and of colonialism's violence to the larger conversation -- and what that act and that thinking expose about how this nation really works, if he was right, or even thought he was.
In 2018, the missing two pages were re-discovered in an archive by Alix Shield, research assistant of Cree-Métis scholar Deanna Reder. Halfbreed has since been re-issued with the pages restored.
Here's Shield's timeline of the Halfbreed publication history.
Reder is a co-editor of Learn, Teach, Challenge, a brilliant collection of critical works on studying and teaching Indigenous literatures. According to Shield, she and Reder are developing "the People and the Text, building a digital database of Indigenous authors in Northern North America." Obviously this sounds amazing.
* * * * * *
A colleaguefriend and I watched Campbell's 2020 keynote at the Gabriel Dumont Institute on Saturday -- we meant to watch a more recent talk, but it wasn't available online yet. It's very quiet and personal and I liked it a lot.
{rf}
* * * * * *
(Photo Credit: Ted Whitecalf)
Maria Campbell
I know this seems like another obvious choice -- Maria Campbell (b. 1940) is a household name and a beloved Métis author, broadcaster, and Elder (CBC.ca). Her 1973 autobiographical book, Halfbreed, is one of the best-known books from that late-60's / early-70s wave of Indigenous publishing in the mainstream. If that was all she'd done, it would be important, but she's done a lot of other things.
The Book of Jessica
It might be less well-known that Campbell is also a playwright. Flight, her first play, was the first all-Indigenous public production in what we currently call Canada. Her play Jessica is also important in the story of Indigenous theatre here.
The Book of Jessica: A Theatrical Transformation tells, in dialogue, a fascinating (and very frustrating) story about the play's creation, as Campbell collaborates with the settler actor/playwright, Linda Griffiths, who performed the play. I mean, if you want to hear colonialism talk (and talk and talk), this is your book -- but also Campbell's voice is here, honest and brilliant.
I'd love to teach from this book sometime, if I could figure out how to do it.
Censorship of Halfbreed
If you follow Canadian publishing and academic writing, you may also know that Halfbreed was censored by the publishers, McClelland and Stewart. It was, first, edited down from 2000 pages to 200. (The longer manuscript, so far as I know, is lost, though we can always hope.)
However, after editing, the book was then censored again at the last minute, without Campbell's consent.
Two pages describing a horrifying sexual assault by an RCMP officer were cut as too controversial -- right before printing, and without consulting Campbell. The injustice of this is obvious; so is the fact that it's a second kind of violation; the cuts also damage the coherence of the book, as her later depression seems to have no clear cause.
Jack McClelland himself said that "the RCMP would issue an injunction and stop the book from ever seeing the light of day." I don't know how he felt he knew that. I think, though, about what this act of silencing and his reasoning around it did to delay bringing the truth of Campbell's life and of colonialism's violence to the larger conversation -- and what that act and that thinking expose about how this nation really works, if he was right, or even thought he was.
In 2018, the missing two pages were re-discovered in an archive by Alix Shield, research assistant of Cree-Métis scholar Deanna Reder. Halfbreed has since been re-issued with the pages restored.
Here's Shield's timeline of the Halfbreed publication history.
Reder is a co-editor of Learn, Teach, Challenge, a brilliant collection of critical works on studying and teaching Indigenous literatures. According to Shield, she and Reder are developing "the People and the Text, building a digital database of Indigenous authors in Northern North America." Obviously this sounds amazing.
* * * * * *
A colleaguefriend and I watched Campbell's 2020 keynote at the Gabriel Dumont Institute on Saturday -- we meant to watch a more recent talk, but it wasn't available online yet. It's very quiet and personal and I liked it a lot.
{rf}