Animations of Indigenous Law in Louise Erdrich鈥檚 "LaRose"
Join us for an Annie MacDonald Langstaff workshop with Professor Beth Piatote, UC Berkeley. Tomlinson Visiting Professor John Borrows and Boulton Fellow Kerry Sloan will provide commentary.
Abstract
In her talk, Professor Piatote will consider Louise Erdrich鈥檚 LaRose, the second in a trilogy of novels that, as they unfold, all show the failures of law, whether indigenous or settler-colonial, to provide satisfaction, or what we may consider 鈥渏ustice鈥� in the face of loss. Given the failures of 鈥渏ustice,鈥� the question arises whether the 鈥減ursuit of justice鈥� is a reasonable purpose of law at all. The question of how to go on living in the face of loss becomes the central theme of LaRose, and offers an alternative vision of the function of law through the animation of older Ojibwe practices of law. Drawing upon history and indigenous concepts of law as the base of analysis, this paper explores the novel鈥檚 vision of survival in the face of loss, the reverberations of colonial violence in the present, the particular burdens borne by women, and the difficult task of carrying out indigenous principles of law.
About the speaker
Beth Piatote is Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, with research interests in Native American literature, history, law and culture, American literature and cultural studies, and Ni:mi:pu: (Nez Perce) language and literature.
