Tag: indigenous peoples

October 13, 2021

Indigenous-Settler Relationships in the Zombie Apocalypse

A review of Blood Quantum (2019) By Derek Newman-Stille Blood Quantum, like many zombie movies, is a commentary on consumption. The movie explores the idea of a zombie outbreak that Indigenous people are immune from. It is a powerful commentary on settler-Indigenous relationships, exploring historic and continual settler violence toward Indigenous people, played out in literal acts of attacks, as...

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July 19, 2020

What Big Teeth You Have

A review of Cherie Dimaline’s Empire of Wild (Random House, 2019) By Derek Newman-Stille A fascinating blend of Red Ridinghood, werewolf fiction, Greek myth, and Rogarou legends of Metis people from the Georgian Bay area, Cherie Dimaline’s Empire of Wild weaves together monstrous wolves into a book that is partially horror story and partially a call for social change. Like...

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June 8, 2019

The Teaching Rocks

The Teaching Rocks A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Petropaths” in Take Us To Your Chief (Douglas &McIntyre, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Petropaths” is a tale of the ongoing nature of colonial violence, centred on the exploration of the way that this continued assault has created a generation of indigenous youth who are, as he suggests “stuck...

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March 15, 2019

Dreaming of Justice

Dreaming of Justice A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Dreams of Doom” in Take Us To Your Chief And Other Stories (Douglas & McIntyre, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Dream catchers have fascinated the cultural imagination and been used by white authors as a plot feature in their stories (such as Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher), so it is powerful that Drew Hayden...

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March 13, 2019

Decolonized Space

Decolonized Space A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Lost in Space” in Take Us To Your Cheif (Douglas & McIntyre, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “Lost in Space”, Drew Hayden Taylor explores the first Anishinabe man to travel into space. He is travelling as part of a mining operation set out amongst asteroids. Hayden Taylor uses the imagery of being...

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March 11, 2019

Colonialism

Colonialism A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “A Culturally Inappropriate Armageddon Part II: Old Men and Old Sayings ” in Take Us to Your Chief And Other Stories (Douglas & McIntyre, 20160. By Derek Newman-Stille Indigenous people have been accustomed to alien invasions and the decimation of land and culture and Drew Hayden Taylor adapts the history of colonialism to...

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February 11, 2019

Stealing Resources From Indigenous People

Stealing Resources From Indigenous People A review of The Champions: Northern Lights (Marvel Comics, 2018) By Derek Newman-Stille Although an American comic created by Marvel Comics, The Champions: Northern Lights is set in Nunavut and features some distinctly Canadian elements. Firstly, the superhero team Champions comes into contact with Alpha Flight, another Marvel Comics creation – a superhero team set...

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July 26, 2017

Radical Acts of Beauty

A review of Daniel Heath Justice’s “The Boys Who Became The Hummingbirds” in Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection Volume 2” (Edited by Hope Nicholson, Alternative History Comics, 2017) By Derek Newman-Stille Daniel Heath Justice’s “The Boys Who Became The Hummingbirds” is a comic about resilience and transformation, highlighting the desire of a two-spirit boy to change the world around him...

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July 1, 2017

Canada Day Complexities and Questioning the 150

By Derek Newman-Stille Like many marginalized Canadians, Canada Day can evoke some complicated feelings. We are often very aware of the oppressions that have been carried out in the name of “Canada”: residential schools for aboriginal people, asylums that perpetuated the torture of people with disabilities, the Pink scare, bathhouse raids, and other attacks on queer Canadians, the razing of...

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May 31, 2016

Putting the Punk Back in Steampunk

Putting the Punk Back in Steampunk A review of Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction Edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Steampunk has often struck me as a genre that has tended toward overly rosey views of the Edwardian and Victorian Eras. The steampunk tales I have read have often uncritically represented colonialism as adventure, portrayed technology divorced...

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