ABSTRACT
What is the nature of Native American literature? What is it, exactly? What is the social function of Native American literature? What does, or should, it actually do? Despite a much-heralded “renaissance” in Native American writing that has brought international celebrity to a growing number of native writers and international attention to native issues and perspectives, there remains an important place in Native American literary criticism for unassuming questions like these. Some would surely agree that the importance of such questions has never been keener. While basic questions over the nature and function of Native American writing might not need to be expressed in such broad, rudimentary terms, such questions lie at the heart of the nationalism versus cosmopolitanism issues that critics are engaging today. One of the more decisive exchanges that helped to mainstream these issues was the heated wrangle over literary canons that took place nearly twenty years ago between Arnold Krupat and Robert Allen Warrior, Jr. Since then, additional voices have joined, like those of critics Jace Weaver and Craig Womack, helping to make the nationalism versus cosmopolitanism debate the central question within Native American literary studies today. As anyone who follows these exchanges can attest, questions about what native writing is and does are still very inconclusive, so critical disagreements such as these, despite the factionalism they may create, deserve our close attention, if not our own scholarly contributions.
