Erasure, the Imperial Framing and Positioning
In his last talk, a former Fulbright Director Tom Robertson discussed Tharu's agency/power. I watched few starting minutes and will share my general observation. During his presentation, he also comments on an Ojibwe scholar David Treuer's "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present," and dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." Interestingly, Robertson uses the later book to extract 'bikas' (development), not GENOCIDE though the presenter claims that those books are used as a point of motivation to build his arguments. Robertson's point of motivation seems misplaced if one knows what Truer is arguing in his book. Questioning the "dead Indian" narrative and certain thesis stressed by Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Truer emphasizes that "The year 1890 was not the end of us, our cultures, our civilizations. It was a cruel, low, painful point, yes--maybe even the lowest point since European arrived