Native authenticity : transnational perspectives on Native American literary studies / edited by Deborah L. Madsen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Madsen, Deborah L.

Series:

Native traces.

Native traces

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American literature.

Indians in literature.

Indians of North America--Ethnic identity.

Indians of North America.

Authenticity (Philosophy) in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (209 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An indispensable resource for readers, students, and scholars of Native literatures in North America, Native Authenticity offers a clear, comprehensive, and systematic look at the diversity of critical approaches to the idea of "Indian-ness." Some of the foremost transatlantic scholars of Native Studies in North America and Europe share their insights on this highly-charged aspect of the contemporary theoretical field of Native Studies. The issue of "authenticity" or "Indian-ness" generates a controversial debate in studies of indigenous American literatures. The articulation of Native identity through the prism of Euro-American attempts to confine "Indian" groups to essentialized spaces is resisted by some Native writers, while others recognize a need for essentialist categories as a key strategy in the struggle for social justice and a perpetually renewed sense of Native sovereignty. Pressure from neo-colonial essentializing practices is in conflict with a politics of cultural sovereignty, which demands a notion of "Indian" essence or "authenticity" as a foundation for community values, heritage, and social justice. Contributors participate in a scholarly and pedagogical search for an intellectual paradigm for Native literary studies that is apart from, yet cognizant with, powerful colonial legacies. The complex politics of Polynesian authenticity versus Native indigeneity is engaged by Native Hawaiian writers as they negotiate conflicting demands upon personal and tribal identities. Related to this questioning is the authenticity debate in Canadian First Nations writing, where the claim to authenticity rests upon a claim to historical precedence; also related is the highly contentious claim by some Chicano/a writers to an indigenous heritage as a claim to authority and "American" authenticity. Essays in this volume are focused upon the diverse and sophisticated responses of Native writers and scholars, while offering comparative perspectives on Native Hawaiian, Chicano, and Canadian literatures.

Contents:

Contemporary discourses on "Indianness": introduction / Deborah L. Madsen

Questions about the question of "authenticity": notes on Moolelo Hawaii and the struggle for Pono / Paul Lyons

Cycles of selfhood, cycles of nationhood: authenticity, identity, community, sovereignty / David L. Moore

"Back when I used to be Indian": Native American authenticity and postcolonial discourse / Lee Schweninger

The x-blood files: whose story? whose Indian? / Malea Powell

Modernism, authenticity and Indian identity: Frank "Toronto" Prewett (1893-1962) / Joy Porter

Transdifference in the work of Gerald Vizenor / Helmbrecht Breinig

Traces of others in our own other, monocultural ideals, multicultural resistance / Juan Bruce-Novoa

Sacred community, sacred culture: authenticity and modernity in Canadian First Nations writing / Richard J. Lane

In conversation: postindian reflections: chickens and piranha, casinos, and sovereignty / Gerald Vizenor and A. Robert Lee.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438431697

1438431694

OCLC:

794699133