In her novel "Power," Linda Hogan provides readers with a close look at how separatism and syncretism, or exclusion and inclusion, are complex ideologies that lead to complex decisions. A close look at the novel reveals that the tensions and sharp dichotomies between the traditional world of the Taiga elders and the European American world,…

Scholars Kali Tal and Cathy Caruth express the importance of trauma literature as "the need to tell and retell the story of the traumatic experience, to make it "real" both to the victim and to the community," and to tell "a reality or truth that is not otherwise available." In "Solar Storms" Linda Hogan vividly recounts the consequences of…

In this article the author starts from the premise that, although there were no renowned Indian poets at Carlisle and other Indian boarding schools in the United States, students in federal boarding schools read and wrote poetry. She argues that the rhetorically bold Carlisle poems--along with the letters and articles published in the Carlisle…

Recently, when preparing course materials for English graduate students on the practical skills and theoretical dimensions of teaching literature, the author surveyed the literature on the "state of the field" of literary studies in English (and the entire concept of a liberal arts education), ranging from high-profile monographs to various…

It is difficult to overestimate the differences between Native American studies in Europe and the United States. In Europe there are no dedicated university programs in Native American studies; instead, disciplinary units such as American studies or departments such as English, history, development studies, and anthropology house teaching and…

American Indian cultures tend to be right hemispheric because of the ways in which they acquire knowledge. Over the thousands of years that American Indian peoples have lived in this hemisphere, strong visual rhetorics were developed, because of this tendency to engage in visual thinking and the socioeconomic need to communicate with others who…

James Welch's "Winter in the Blood" (1974) and "The Death of Jim Loney" (1979) are excellent examples of work that remains essentially misunderstood throughout some three decades of interpretation. Attempts to define these two books in terms of mainstream modernism notwithstanding, they represent a phenomenon not unlike aspects of American folk…

Reviews life and literature of Zitkala Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), Sioux Indian born in 1876 on Yankton Reservation (South Dakota), educated at Quaker schools and Earlham College (Indiana), accomplished orator, author of autobiographical essays and short stories, worker for Indian reform, lecturer, and founder of National Council of American…

David Treuer's debut novel, "Little" (1995), is set on a Minnesota reservation, centering around a dilapidated housing tract that its small community of residents call "Poverty." Aptly named both for the condition and background of the housing, this name is the first pointer to the type of multifaceted reading that the novel…

The different ways in which two American Indian poets, Paula Gunn Allen and Joy Harjo, realize the fusion of the individual, the Southwest landscape, and a sensibility about the nature of existence in a realm called "mythic space" is clarified by showing how each approaches the concept of the moon. (SB)

One of the first Native American authors, Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian, began writing in the 18th century. His writings included an ethnographic essay on the Montauk Tribe, an autobiographical sketch of his educational experiences and missionary activities, and his first publication, "Sermon at the Execution of Moses Paul." (ERB)

Examines common themes in three Native American novels by N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, and Leslie Silko: the power of Indian women's femaleness, and reintegration of the alienated male protagonist through ancient rituals that awaken the realization of the feminine principle within himself. (SV)

Focusing on the natural world, the use of myth and ritual in the novel, and the formal design of the work, symposium papers present and analyze crucial themes and forms in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony," a novel distinctively Indian in narrative technique, thematic content, and structure. (CM)

Reviews 14 children's books concerned with traditional Native American tales and experiences, written mostly by Native authors and published 1989-93. Includes books on Hiawatha, buffalo, the battle of the Little Bighorn, the Fetterman Fight, and traditional beliefs and values; Cree, Navajo, Chickasaw, and Seneca tales and stories; fictional…

Outlines a theoretical framework to help students seek patterns in the diverse content and styles of American Indian literary works. Describes four elements: differentiation, or the "signs" of Indian culture; investigation, evoking the reader's sense of history and cosmos; affirmation of Native American identity and communal values; and…