Transatlantic voices : interpretations of Native North American literatures / edited by Elvira Pulitano.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Pulitano, Elvira, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--Indian authors--History and criticism.

American fiction.

American fiction--Indian authors.

Criticism--Europe.

Criticism.

Characters and characteristics in literature.

Indians of North America--Intellectual life.

Indians of North America.

Indians in literature.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xxxv, 298 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2007]

Summary:

Transatlantic Voices is the first collection of critical essays by European scholars on contemporary Native North American literatures. Devoted to the primary genres of Native literature-fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry-the essays chart the course of recent theories of Native literature, delineate the crosscurrents in the history of Native literature studies, and probe specific themes of trauma and memory as well as changing mythologies. These essays also incorporate incipient transnational and transcultural methodologies in their approach to Native North American writing.

Blending western critical approaches-from cultural studies to postcolonialism and trauma theory-with indigenous epistemological perspectives, the contributors to Transatlantic Voices advocate "the inescapable hybridity and intermixture of ideas" proposed by Paul Gilroy in his study of black diasporic identity. Native North American writers forcefully suggest that the study of American ethnicities in the twenty-first century can no longer be confined to the borders of the United States. Given the increasing transnational aspect of American studies, a collection such as Transatlantic Voices, presenting scholars from countries as diverse as Germany, France, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Finland, offers a timely contribution to such border crossing in scholarship and writing.

Contents:

Part 1 Theoretical Crossings 1

1 "They Have Stories, Don't They?": Some Doubts Regarding an Overused Theorem / Hartwig Isernhagen 3

2 Plotting History: The Function of History in Native North American Literature / Bernadette Rigal-Cellard 24

3 Transculturality and Transdifference: The Case of Native America / Helmbrecht Breinig 44

Part 2 From Early Fiction to Recent Directions 63

4 American Indian Novels of the 1930s: John Joseph Mathews's Sundown and D'Arcy McNickle's Surrounded / Gaetano Prampolini 65

5 Transatlantic Crossings: New Directions in the Contemporary Native American Novel / Brigitte Georgi-Findlay 89

Part 3 Trauma, Memory, and Narratives of Healing 109

6 Of Time and Trauma: The Possibilities for Narrative in Paula Gunn Allen's The Woman Who Owned the Shadows / Deborah L. Madsen 111

7 "Keep Wide Awake in the Eyes": Seeing Eyes in Wendy Rose's Poetry / Kathryn Napier Gray 129

8 Anamnesiac Mappings: National Histories and Transnational Healing in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead / Rebecca Tillett 150

Part 4 Comparative Mythologies, Transatlantic Journeys 171

9 Vizenor's Trickster Theft: Pretexts and Paratexts of Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart / Paul Beekman Taylor 173

10 "June Walked over It like Water and Came Home": Cross-Cultural Symbolism in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and Tracks / Mark Shackleton 188

11 Encounters across Time and Space: The Sacred, the Profane, and the Political in Linda Hogan's Power / Yonka Krasteva 206

12 Double Translation: James Welch's Heartsong of Charging Elk / Ulla Haselstein 225

13 Clowns, Indians, and Poodles: Spectacular Others in Louis Owens's I Hear the Train / Simone Pellerin 249

14 Oklahoma International: Jim Barnes, Poetry, and the Sites of Imagination / A. Robert Lee 268.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780803237582

0803237588

9780803260344

0803260342

OCLC:

123539576