Body, Mind, and Archives: A Critical Questioning of “Places for Knowledge” in David Treuer’s The Translation of Dr. Apelles

Western conceptualizations of time and space are common topics to be queried within the field of Indigenous literary study. However, while the focus has been laid on temporal and spatial literary conventions, too little attention has been drawn to the conceptualization and norms around an identity forming element: knowledge. This paper is particularly suspicious of Western conceptualizations of “places for knowledge,” as this has very real consequences for how we understand and treat ourselves and others. As such, my work highlights that “places for knowledge” can cloud and limit our perception of reality, which, concerning the project of decolonization in North America, poses a vital problem. This paper hence seeks to provide a deeper understanding of “repositories for knowledge,” by implementing the concept of cultural competence (Hanson 243) as a unit of analysis for close reading that better represents alternative conceptualizations of (places for) knowledge. Specifically, my work analyzes cultural functions of “places for knowledge” in Ojibwe scholar and novelist David Treuer’s The Translation of Dr. Apelles, focusing on the library/archiveas compared to the body as a “place for knowledge” (Treuer 140). Treuer’s novel asks the reader to contend with not knowing/understanding everything and vents that because of the normalized Western understanding of “places for knowledge,” Indians and their cultures were never considered part of Western reality. Consequently, this paper asks: How can literary study more meaningfully help to obliterate Western conceptualizations of knowledge that isolate Indigenous peoples and seal them into the past? In this paper, I argue that reshaping the concept of “places for knowledge” poses very real consequences for decolonization within literary study.