Abstract

A Madagascar-based exhumation ritual called Famadihana might not seem like the blueprint for creating discourse in an American college classroom. Yet we often approach texts (particularly in literature) as sacred relics that can only be handled after careful training by the instructor, who acts as intepreter if not shamen. This presentation will look at how I recently used the model of a Famadihana to create a more meaningful discourse between the class and the text (in this instance, the contemporary memoir Girls of Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith). Similar to this Merina tribal ritual in Madagascar, the text was approached as a more animate object that could “speak” back to the classroom. More than just being a book depicting a personal history, the text was seen as a repository of cultural heritage and values--similar to the perception that the Malagasy have towards the dead in the ritual of Famadihana.