“This is no stodgy history or ethnographic monograph, but a book about art so grandly conceived and executed as to constitute a work of art in itself.”聽American Indian Art Magazine
“The Trickster Shift is a visually stunning combination of cultural philosophy, social commentary and art criticism. Nowhere else is the subject of Native humour in art explored in such depth by the very people who employ it.”聽Aboriginal Voices
“Ryan’s book is extravagant and witty, full of gorgeous art and artist dialogue, edged with irony, comic awareness and acute perceptions.”聽Bellingham Herald
“In The Trickster Shift Canadian anthropologist Allan J. Ryan astutely mixes interviews, stories, detailed scholarship and vivid plates鈥攑aintings, drawings, photography, assemblages, installations, stoneware, mixed-media, metals, and numerous other artforms and materials鈥攊nto a standard-setting work in the field of First Nations art.”聽Independent Publisher Magazine Online
“There’s nothing dry about this book except its wit. The title subtly alludes both to the artist’s role as shape-shifting shaman, and to Trickster’s current tenure as an instrument for cultural critique. It’s a reference as well to the gentle but profound shifting of realities that results from the transformative power of humour on cultural perspectives.”聽Monday Magazine
“An outstanding study of the trickster in the consciousness of Native artists and their visual art… The first formal, book-length study of the traces and figurative treasons of tricksters in contemporary Native visual arts.”聽Gerald Vizenor
“The author takes a body of artwork that has not previously been treated in any seriously critical fashion, and offers new, refreshing, and convincing insights that challenge previous ideas about Canadian First Nations contemporary art.”聽Aldona Jonaitis
“Ryan’s The Trickster Shift is a richly illustrated volume that is destined to become a classic. A triumph of first-rate scholarship, it is a post-modern commentary on the mythical figure that inspired Indian humour long before the whiteman set foot on this continent.”聽Harvey Mindess
“Ryan’s book captures the subtle humour and social satire of the new Native arts in Canada … If there’s one book to read for insight into [this] new world … this is it.”聽George F. Macdonald
Camilla Blakeley reflected on her experience editing The Trickster Shift聽in the essay 鈥淢erely Conventional Signs: The Editor and the Illustrated Scholarly Book,鈥� which appeared in the collection聽Editors, Scholars, and the Social Text, edited by Darcy Cullen (University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 149-173). Read a PDF of the essay here.