ABSTRACT

The Routledge Companion to Native American Literature engages the multiple scenes of tension — historical, political, cultural, and aesthetic — that constitutes a problematic legacy in terms of community identity, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, language, and sovereignty in the study of Native American literature. This important and timely addition to the field provides context for issues that enter into Native American literary texts through allusions, references, and language use.

The volume presents over forty essays by leading and emerging international scholars and analyses:

  • regional, cultural, racial and sexual identities in Native American literature
  • key historical moments from the earliest period of colonial contact to the present
  • worldviews in relation to issues such as health, spirituality, animals, and physical environments
  • traditions of cultural creation that are key to understanding the styles, allusions, and language of Native American Literature
  • the impact of differing literary forms of Native American literature.

This collection provides a map of the critical issues central to the discipline, as well as uncovering new perspectives and new directions for the development of the field. It supports academic study and also assists general readers who require a comprehensive yet manageable introduction to the contexts essential to approaching Native American Literature. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present and future of this literary culture.

Contributors: Joseph Bauerkemper, Susan Bernardin, Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez, Kirby Brown, David J. Carlson, Cari M. Carpenter, Eric Cheyfitz, Tova Cooper, Alicia Cox, Birgit Däwes, Janet Fiskio, Earl E. Fitz, John Gamber, Kathryn N. Gray, Sarah Henzi, Susannah Hopson, Hsinya Huang, Brian K. Hudson, Bruce E. Johansen, Judit Ágnes Kádár, Amelia V. Katanski, Susan Kollin, Chris LaLonde, A. Robert Lee, Iping Liang, Drew Lopenzina, Brandy Nālani McDougall, Deborah Madsen, Diveena Seshetta Marcus, Sabine N. Meyer, Carol Miller, David L. Moore, Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Mark Rifkin, Kenneth M. Roemer, Oliver Scheiding, Lee Schweninger, Stephanie A. Sellers, Kathryn W. Shanley, Leah Sneider, David Stirrup, Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., Tammy Wahpeconiah

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

The Indigenous Contexts of “Native.” “American.” “Literature.”

part |95 pages

Identities

chapter |13 pages

Indigenous American Literature

The Inter-American Hemispheric Perspective

chapter |12 pages

Clear-Cut

The Importance of Mixedblood Identities and the Promise of Native American Cosmopolitanism to Native American Literatures

chapter |11 pages

Recovering a Sovereign Erotic

Two-Spirit Writers “Reclaim a Name for Ourselves”

part |93 pages

Key Moments

chapter |11 pages

Finding Voice in Changing Times

The Politics of Native Self-Representation during the Periods of Removal and Allotment

chapter |14 pages

Federalism Reconfigured

Native Narrations and the Indian New Deal

chapter |11 pages

Embodied Jurisgenesis

NAGPRA, Dialogue, and Repatriation in American Indian Literature

part |93 pages

Sovereignties

chapter |12 pages

“That We May Stand Up and Walk Ourselves”

Indian Sovereignty and Diplomacy after the Revolutionary War

chapter |12 pages

“What Can I Tell Them That They Will Hear?”

Environmental Sovereignty and American Indian Literature

chapter |9 pages

A Seat at the Table

Political Representation for Animals

chapter |11 pages

Where Food Grows on Water

Food Sovereignty and Indigenous North American Literatures

chapter |11 pages

(Alter)Native Medicine and Health Sovereignty

Disease and Healing in Contemporary Native American Writings

chapter |11 pages

Native American Activism and Survival

Political, Legal, Cultural

chapter |13 pages

Identity, Culture, Community, and Nation

Literary Theory as Politics and Praxis

part |116 pages

Literary Forms

chapter |11 pages

Crossing the Bering Strait

Transpacific Turns and Native Literatures

chapter |12 pages

Reverse Assimilation

Native Appropriations of Euro-American Conventions

chapter |11 pages

Native Short Story

Authorships, Styles

chapter |12 pages

“A New Legacy for Future Generations”

Native North American Performance and Drama

chapter |13 pages

Native American Poetry

Loosening the Bonds of Representation

chapter |10 pages

Native American Novels

The Renaissance, the Homing Plot, and Beyond

chapter |11 pages

Film in the Blood, Something in the Eye

Voice and Vision in Native American Cinema

chapter |11 pages

Indigenous Uncanniness

Windigo Revisited and Popular Culture

chapter |14 pages

Future Pasts

Comics, Graphic Novels, and Digital Media