Introduction to the introduction: entering Native space -- Oral encounters: moving the forest and rocks by song -- "Still the same unbelieving Indian": Native voices in the emerging republic -- Red progressives and Indian "pass-words" -- Sunset, sunrise: the American Indian novel and the dawning of the Native American literary renaissance -- "Many of our songs are maps": poetry in the Native American literary renaissance and beyond -- "Every one of those stars has a story": narrative and nationhood -- Teaching Louise Erdrich's Tracks: a case study -- Conclusion: greetings from Standing Rock.
Summary:
This introduction makes available for students, instructors, and aficionados a refined set of tools for decolonizing our approaches prior to entering the unfamiliar landscape of Native American literatures. This book will introduce Indigenous perspectives and traditions as articulated by Indigenous authors whose voices have been a vital, if often overlooked, component of the American dialogue for more than 400 years. Paramount to this consideration of Native-centered reading is the understanding that literature was not something bestowed upon Native peoples by the settler culture, either through benevolent interventions or violent programs of forced assimilation. Native literature precedes colonization, and Native stories and traditions have their roots in both the precolonized and the decolonizing worlds. As this far-reaching survey of Native literary contributions will demonstrate, almost without fail, when Indigenous writers elected to enter into the world of western letters, they did so with the intention of maintaining Indigenous culture and community. Writing was and always remains a strategy for survival--Back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.