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World(build)ing in Mohawk- and Seneca-Language Films

World(build)ing in Mohawk- and Seneca-Language Films This essay brings Zayin Cabot’s concept of “ecologies of participation” into conversation with contemporary Mohawk- and Seneca-language films and language revitalization movements. For Indigenous peoples, these participatory events are often interactive storying of worlds, whether told in film, social media, or oral tradition. As a particularly salient example, the essay considers Mohawk director Karahkwenhawi Zoe Hopkins’s adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope in Star Wars Tsyorì:wat IV—Yonhská:neks (2013) in a comparative analysis with both the Navajo-language Star Wars: Episode IV and the Seneca-language films Kohgeh and Tših to highlight critical choices Karahkwenhawi makes in translation, both linguistic and visual, vis-à-vis settler colonial consumer culture. The essay concludes that her adaptation foregrounds supposed “advances” of Western technocratic capitalism; highlights the constructed, fallible, and ephemeral nature of these technologies; and potentiates other technologies and ecologies based in Mohawk ontologies. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png English Language Notes Duke University Press

World(build)ing in Mohawk- and Seneca-Language Films

Kelsey, Penelope; Gómez, Leila
English Language Notes , Volume 58 (1) – Apr 1, 2020
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12 pages

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Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Regents of the University of Colorado
ISSN
0013-8282
eISSN
2573-3575
DOI
10.1215/00138282-8237531
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This essay brings Zayin Cabot’s concept of “ecologies of participation” into conversation with contemporary Mohawk- and Seneca-language films and language revitalization movements. For Indigenous peoples, these participatory events are often interactive storying of worlds, whether told in film, social media, or oral tradition. As a particularly salient example, the essay considers Mohawk director Karahkwenhawi Zoe Hopkins’s adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope in Star Wars Tsyorì:wat IV—Yonhská:neks (2013) in a comparative analysis with both the Navajo-language Star Wars: Episode IV and the Seneca-language films Kohgeh and Tših to highlight critical choices Karahkwenhawi makes in translation, both linguistic and visual, vis-à-vis settler colonial consumer culture. The essay concludes that her adaptation foregrounds supposed “advances” of Western technocratic capitalism; highlights the constructed, fallible, and ephemeral nature of these technologies; and potentiates other technologies and ecologies based in Mohawk ontologies.

Journal

English Language Notes – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2020

References

  • Fifty Years Young: How the Music of ‘Sesame Street’ Keeps Up with the Times.
    Cornish, Audie
  • Immersion Key to Retaining Language, Says Zoe Hopkins
    Martell, Creeden
  • The Force Is with the Navajo: Star Wars Gets a New Translation
  • Zoe Hopkins Before & After.
  • Visual Sovereignty
    Raheja, Michelle H. Nohelani Teves, Stephanie Smith, Andrea Raheja, Michelle H.
  • Translated into Navajo, Star Wars Will Be
    Trudeau, Christine
  • Fifty Years Young: How the Music of ‘Sesame Street’ Keeps Up with the Times.
    Cornish, Audie
  • Immersion Key to Retaining Language, Says Zoe Hopkins
    Martell, Creeden
  • The Force Is with the Navajo: Star Wars Gets a New Translation
  • Zoe Hopkins Before & After.
  • Visual Sovereignty
    Raheja, Michelle H. Nohelani Teves, Stephanie Smith, Andrea Raheja, Michelle H.
  • Translated into Navajo, Star Wars Will Be
    Trudeau, Christine