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    Letters as literature: semantic and discursive features of irony in "Letters to Howard"

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    Author
    Cook, Corinna Jo
    Chair
    Schneider, William
    Committee
    Koester, David
    Ruppert, James
    Keyword
    Alaska
    letters to the editor
    Alaska Natives
    claims
    correspondence
    government relations
    newspapers
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11122/11385
    Abstract
    This thesis examines the literary features of the Letters to Howard, a series of letters to the editor of the Alaskan newspaper, the Tundra Times. Published over the course of several months in 1973, the letters were signed by two semi-fictional characters: an old Eskimo man, Naugga Ciunerput, and a lost VISTA volunteer, Wally Morton, the two lone inhabitants of the imagined Land's End Village, Alaska. Naugga and Wally had a pointed agenda: they were addressing editor Howard Rock and his readership with their concerns regarding the newly-passed Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA. In truth, Naugga and Wally's letters were written by two graduate students, Fred Bigjim (an Inupiaq from Nome studying education) and James Ito-Adler (a law student who had switched to anthropology). The use of irony in these letters is the subject of my analysis here; I focus first on the semantic layers of irony and second on its discursive dimensions. This thesis' ultimate goal is to illuminate the ways in which these letters contest history, frame the nature and distribution of power, and examine the myriad tensions at play between Native peoples' historic, cultural, and political ties to the land.
    Description
    Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2011
    Table of Contents
    Foreword -- Introduction -- 1. Angles on the historical and political scene surrounding "Letters to Howard" -- Alaska Native Land Claims -- The civil rights political climate of the 1960s -- Implications of the Statehood Act -- Understanding oil -- The essentials of ANCSA -- A brief overview of the development of literacy among Alaska Natives -- The role of published news in Native Alaskan history -- Political critics: Fred Bigjim and James Ito-Adler's literary collaboration -- 2. Assemblies of meaning: the semantics of irony -- Markers and method: considering the recognition and attribution of irony -- Understanding irony's edge in "Letters to Howard" -- Parting thoughts -- 3. Discursive dimensions: the politics of irony -- Plural meaning -- A discursive angle on voice and pacing -- A timely return to irony -- Transideological politics -- History and power, framing issues through story -- Tracing one letter's irony -- And so in the end -- Conclusion -- References.
    Date
    2011-12
    Type
    Thesis
    Collections
    Arctic and Northern Studies

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