Humouring settler colonialism: Derek Hilligoss, The Rhetoric of Gallows Humor: The Settler Colonial Unconscious in Reservation Dogs, PhD dissertation, University of Kansas, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

Humouring settler colonialism: Derek Hilligoss, The Rhetoric of Gallows Humor: The Settler Colonial Unconscious in Reservation Dogs, PhD dissertation, University of Kansas, 2026

02Jul26

Abstract: This dissertation examines how Native comedy operates as a rhetorical and psychoanalytic critique of settler colonialism. Focusing on the television series Reservation Dogs, I argue that gallows humor, which is defined as comedy engaging death, trauma, and suffering, functions as a distinctly Native rhetorical practice that reveals and resists ongoing colonial violence. Drawing on rhetorical studies, Native studies, and Lacanian psychoanalysis, the project theorizes the “settler colonial death drive,” defined as the unconscious compulsion within settler society to reproduce eliminatory logics that render Native life precarious. Through close textual and contextual analysis, I demonstrate how Reservation Dogs uses humor to expose these conditions while fostering survivance, refusal, and community. Chapter one situates Native comedy historically as a form of gallows humor emerging from conditions of marginalization. Chapter two analyzes the Tall Man trope and representations of suicide, reframing death as a structural condition rather than individual pathology. Chapter three examines the Deer Lady to theorize the gendered dimensions of settler colonial violence and Native feminist refusal. Ultimately, this project positions Native gallows humor as a critical rhetorical practice that confronts, rather than escapes, the enduring violences of settler colonialism.

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