Synopses & Reviews
American novelist E.L. Doctorow once observed that literature andldquo;endows places with meaning.andrdquo; Yet, as this wide-ranging new book vividly illustrates, understanding the places that shaped American writersandrsquo; lives and their art can provide deep insight into what makes their literature truly meaningful.
and#160;
Published on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Historic Preservation Act, Writing America is a unique, passionate, and eclectic series of meditations on literature and history, covering over 150 important National Register historic sites, all pivotal to the stories that make up America, from chapels to battlefields; from plantations to immigration stations; and from theaters to internment camps. The book considers not only the traditional sites for literary tourism, such as Mark Twainandrsquo;s sumptuous Connecticut home and the peaceful woods surrounding Walden Pond, but also locations that highlight the diversity of American literature, from the New York tenements that spawned Abraham Cahanandrsquo;s fiction to the Texas pump house that irrigated the fields in which the farm workers central to Gloria Anzaldanduacute;aandrsquo;s poetry picked produce. Rather than just providing a cursory overview of these authorsandrsquo; achievements, acclaimed literary scholar and cultural historian Shelley Fisher Fishkin offers a deep and personal reflection on how key sites bore witness to the struggles of American writers and inspired their dreams. She probes the global impact of American writersandrsquo; innovative art and also examines the distinctive contributions to American culture by American writers who wrote in languages other than English, including Yiddish, Chinese, and Spanish. and#160;and#160;
and#160;
Only a scholar with as wide-ranging interests as Shelley Fisher Fishkin would dare to bring together in one book writers as diverse as Gloria Anzaldanduacute;a, Nicholas Black Elk, David Bradley, Abraham Cahan, S. Alice Callahan, Raymond Chandler, Frank Chin, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Countee Cullen, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Jessie Fauset, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Jovita Gonzandaacute;lez, Rolando Hinojosa, Langston Hughes,and#160; Zora Neale Hurston, Lawson Fusao Inada,and#160; James Weldon Johnson,and#160; Erica Jong, Maxine Hong Kingston, Irena Klepfisz, Nella Larsen, Emma Lazarus, Sinclair Lewis, Genny Lim, Claude McKay, Herman Melville, N. Scott Momaday, William Northup, John Okada, Minandeacute; Okubo, Simon Ortiz, Amandeacute;rico Paredes, John P. Parker, Ann Petry, Tomandaacute;s Rivera, Wendy Rose, Morris Rosenfeld, John Steinbeck, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Yoshiko Uchida, Tino Villanueva, Nathanael West, Walt Whitman, Richard Wright, Hisaye Yamamoto, Anzia Yezierska, and Zitkala-andScaron;a.
and#160;
Leading readers on an enticing journey across the borders of physical places and imaginative terrains, the book includes over 60 images, and extended excerpts from a variety of literary works. Each chapter ends with resources for further exploration. Writing America reveals the alchemy though which American writers have transformed the world around them into art, changing their world and ours in the process.and#160;
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Literary Landscape
1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Celebrating the Many in One
Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington, Long Island, New York
2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Living in Harmony with Nature
Walden Pond, Concord, Massachusetts
3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Freedomandrsquo;s Port
The New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, New Bedford, Massachusetts
4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The House that Uncle Tomandrsquo;s Cabin Built
Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Hartford, Connecticut
5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Irony of American History
The Mark Twain Boyhood Home, Hannibal, Missouri, and the Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut
6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Native American Voices Remember
Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota
7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;I Know Why the Caged Bird Singsandrdquo;
The Paul Laurence Dunbar House, Dayton, Ohio
8and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Leaving the Old World for the New
The Tenement Museum, New York City
9and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Revolt from the Village
The Original Main Street, Sauk Centre, Minnesota
10and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Asian American Writers and Creativity in Confinement
Angel Island Immigration Station, San Francisco, California, and Manzanar National Historic Site, Independence, California
11and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Harlem and the Flowering of African American Letters
The 135th Street Library / The Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, New York City
12and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Mexican American Writers in the Borderlands of Culture
Roma, La Lomita, San Agustin de Laredo, and San Ygnacio Historic Districts, Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas
13and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; American Writers and Dreams of the Silver Screen
Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District, Los Angeles, California
Index of Authors
Index of Historic Sites
Review
"This is the United States of Native America at its best! Owings brilliantly weaves together the grassroots narratives and heart-felt stories that she gathered in her travels throughout Indian Country. The result is a stunning and eye-opening book, written in page-turning prose, that reveals the emotions, pains, and humor of Native Americans. Whether you know nothing about Indians or just want to know more, you need to read this book!"
Review
"Alison Owings is a brilliant listener. Otherwise she wouldn't have been able to interview so many native people and have them talk about their lives, their dreams, their accomplishments with such intimacy."
Review
"Occasionally startling, often humorous, and always thought-provoking. A captivating book about contemporary Native American life."
Indian Country Today
Review
"Vital voices from Indigenous peoples have long been shrouded, interpreted, misinterpreted, or just plain ignored. Owings's humanity and journalistic instincts lead us where few non-Natives have ventured. Truly a must read."
Review
"I loved Indian Voices. And it was great fun to read because it is about real people in contemporary times." Jackie Old Coyote (Apsaalooke) - The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Review
"Owings assembles interviews with Native Americans from across the nation that achieve a remarkable level of intimacy. Her descriptions are rich in detail, her stories and statistics captivating. This engrossing, affecting book should be mandatory reading in American history classes.." Jacqueline Johnson-Pata (Tlingit) - Executive Director, Congress of American Indians
Review
"Owings chronicle is enlightening for all who wish to understand Where is Native America now?"
Jake Page - author of In the Hands of the Great Spirit
Review
"A rich collection that is poignant, funny, heartbreaking, and very real. The vast diversity in Native America is evident. The book is engaging and thoughtfully conceived and effectively communicates Owings’s central thesis—that Native Americans are alive, well, and thriving and have much to teach and share with the rest of us. Recommended for all readers of nonfiction, and highly recommended for anyone living in or near Native communities." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"An important (and entertaining!) new book on Native Americans that lets the real experts do the talking."
American Indian Quarterly
Review
"Owings' writing can be summed up in one word: entralling. Her vivid prose brings the scenes and stories to life in detail."
San Jose Mercury News
Review
"This is a model of what a good oral history book should be. Owings tells our stories honestly, eloquently and without her own baggage, and our people’s stories don’t pull many punches either. Survivance shines through in every chapter." Bismark Tribune
Review
"Owings is a good writer and an even better listener. She manages to present the stories told by real-life Natives/Indians/Tribal People with attention to detail and as accurately as a person outside the culture probably could. She brings her own perspective to the stories and although these asides may make many Natives/Indians smile in all-too familiar recognition of encounters with non-Natives, they also help to illustrate the uniqueness of Native/Tribal culture. This book is an excellent addition to the ongoing conversation between Natives and non-Natives and it also enhances mutual understanding among the Peoples of this country." John D. Berry - American Indian Library Association
Review
"Alison Owings does an outstanding job of just what this book promises to address in the title,
Listening to Native Americans. Owings is
a recognized journalist, and her work as an oral historian observing, listening, and sometimes participating in day-to-day American Indian life makes this book a welcome and must-read addition to the small number of books that focus on contemporary American Indians."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
andquot;[A Generation Removed is] a solid account that calls for andquot;a full historical reckoningandquot; of this devastating chapter in the treatment of Native Americans.andquot;andmdash;Kirkus
Review
andquot;Aand#160;searing eye-opener.andquot;andmdash;Jennifer Levin, Pasatiempo
Review
and#8220;Using compelling stories and weighty evidence, Jacobs has uncovered a modern and ongoing story of child-stealing in the United States. She lays out the shocking history of Native American adoption and the good liberal logic that enabled it in a page-turner of a book.and#8221;and#8212;Anne F. Hyde, Bancroft Prizeand#8211;winning author of Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800and#8211;1860
Review
and#8220;Jacobs brings deep scholarship to a topic of searing national and transnational importance. In a respectful, clear voice, she guides the reader on a journey into the most intimate corridors of settler colonialism. This is a complex and often heart-wrenching history that provides salutary lessons for the future.and#8221;and#8212;Ann McGrath, director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at Australian National University and coauthor of How to Write History That People Want to Read
Review
and#8220;Margaret Jacobs once again demonstrates her genius for writing history that combines penetrating analysis with heart-wrenching stories. Beautifully written, deeply researched, this important and amazing book examines a subject largely unknown to the public at large but all too familiar to Indigenous peoples who have suffered the pain and indignity of child removal.and#8221;and#8212;David Wallace Adams, author of
Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875and#8211;1928Review
and#8220;
A Generation Removed will find a large and interested readership among researchers, university students (of all levels), as well as the broader community of people involved in adoption. This book is also clearly written and is sophisticated without being overly specialized or jargon-ridden. . . . An admirable book, compelling to read despite the tragic stories it recounts.and#8221;and#8212;Karen Dubinsky, author of
Babies without Borders: Adoption and Migration across the AmericasReview
and#8220;Diane Glancy inhabits a world of images that breathe life and voice for the voiceless men, women, and children. . . . No simple history lesson, this, as Glancy examines how language is both captor and savior, another means of imprisonment and also liberation.and#8221;and#8212;Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall
Review
and#8220;This book is mesmerizing and will stay with you for lifetimes.and#8221;and#8212;Jackie Old Coyote, Apsaalooke Nation, former director of education and outreach at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
and#160;
Review
and#8220;The survival of Indian people represents one of the most important subjects in American history. Glancy creates a multilayered narrative about the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho Indians, who became prisoners of the United States government during the late nineteenth century. She invites readers to contemplate the bleak realities and the difficult choices presented by historical circumstances.and#8221;and#8212;Brad Lookingbill, professor of history at Columbia College of Missouri
Review
andquot;Novel and fresh,and#160;
Indian Spectacleand#160;is a well researched and clearly written history of sport and society in the United States. Guilianoand#39;s sound, thorough, and comprehensive book makes a significant contribution to advancing current understandings in new and important ways.andquot;
Review
and#8220;With tremendous empathy, warm humor, and trained insight, Native scholar and ethnographer Alexis Bunten embedded herself for a summer season in her own [Alaska Native] peopleand#8217;s cultural tourism industry. After working as a tourist guide, she produced this absolutely original, insiderand#8217;s journal on the difficult choices and behind-the-scenes debates over how to enlighten outsiders with limited attention spans while protecting the vulnerable, deep-seated beliefs and ritual practices and ever-evolving lifestyles of the local indigenous community. A case study of what small-scale, traditional societies are experiencing all around the world, this is a groundbreaking work and a riveting read.and#8221;and#8212;Peter Nabokov, author of Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places
Review
and#8220;Few books discussing subsistence hunting in history, archaeology, or anthropology are grounded in such rich and deep personal experience and understanding of the subject matter from a practical, participatory, long-term, and hands-on approach. This is mandatory reading for anyone discussing hunting and game management in a historical or anthropological context.and#8221;and#8212;Roland Bohr, author of Gifts from the Thunder Beings: Indigenous Archery and European Firearms in the Northern Plains and Central Subarctic, 1670and#8211;1870
Review
and#8220;This outstanding book covers a range of critical issues: hunter/gatherer transitions within a colonial context; knowledge and expertise in terms of living with nonhumans; indigenous knowledge; but most intriguing and fundamentally exciting is the blend of voices between father and daughter, elder/younger, anthropologist/archaeologist, and on it goes. This is a book that I read cover to cover without pausing and imagine that I will not be alone!and#8221;and#8212;Charles R. Menzies, editor of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management
Review
andquot;Persuasively locating the University of Illinois as historical ground zero, Guiliano offers a beautifully written and thoroughly researched account of the development of the sport mascot. Indian Spectacle sets the standard for understanding the origins of the craziness at halftime.andquot;
Review
andquot;Bunten has created an enjoyable mix of ethnographic study and personal memoir in this account of navigating the cultural contradictions and tensions of being a Native Alaskan tour guide and anthropologist.andquot;andmdash;Publishers Weekly
Review
andquot;Writing America presents us with an exquisitely rendered geography, in word and image alike, of the nationand#39;s diverse literary heritage.andquot;
Review
andquot;Just when you thought you knew American literature, along comes Shelley Fisher Fishkin to show you what youand#39;ve missed . . . and to make you think about it. She ushers us into both familiar and unusual spaces with prose as accessible as it is learned, observations that are clear and sometimes quirky, and quotations that prove the synergy between literature and place. She takes American literature out of the library and relocates it in the public square, revealing its essence as the most eloquent tour guide imaginable.andquot;
Review
andquot;Smartly introduced, lavishly illustrated, and beautifully designed, Writing America treats the reader to sites associated with American authors and puts houses, landmarks, memorials, and museums into a vivid relationship with texts.andquot;
Review
andquot;This absorbing and wondrous book is a glorious cornucopia of Americaand#39;s literary memory. Writing America is necessary, delicious, and nourishing food for the American artist, reader and writer.andquot;
Review
andquot;Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the best guide you could have through American literature and the places that inspired it. She writes like an angel. She appreciates the diversity and humor of the American spirit. Read her!andquot;
Review
andquot;A Generation Removed is an important book that effectively researches and narrates a difficult and upsetting topic that has been all but ignored by mainstream American society for far too long.andquot;andmdash;Akim Reinhardt, Nebraska History
Review
andquot;Writing America is a triumph of scholarship and passion, a profound exploration of the many worlds which comprise our national canon . . . a book that redraws the literary map of the United States.andquot;
Review
andquot;This book cuts straight to the soul of America in all its shades and colors. I donand#39;t think anyone has ever put together a book thatandrsquo;s quite so extraordinary.and#160; I certainly have never read one.andquot;
Review
andquot;What a fine, informative, and welcome book by Professor Fishkin. In brief, a first class piece of work that has been long in coming. It not only deserves a warm reception, it is also to be treasured by professionals as well as by beginners.andquot;
Review
andquot;Writing America is designed for those who love not only literature, but also history and landscape, and the conversation they have with one another.and#160; I could not stop reading.andquot;
Review
andquot;Henry and Karyn Sharp have given us a gift of how abstract and narrative culture translates into everyday practical activity and how that activity feels to the people themselves and to the ethnographers who make the commitment to share it with them.andquot;andmdash;John David Eller. Anthropology Review Database
Review
andquot;A Generation Removed is a powerful eye opener, covering a piece of history we push under the carpet at our own peril.andquot;andmdash;Alan Porter, Saskatchewan History
Review
andquot;Using the National Register of Historic Places as her guide, the author sparks interesting questions regarding how writers influence, and are influenced by, place andhellip; Fishkinand#39;s book offers a diverse look at our nationand#39;s literary landscape and history.andquot;
Review
andquot;Glancy is not only an insightful historian but a gifted storyteller. The craft, creativity, and imagination with which she renders this amazing text powerfully draw the reader into the world of the Fort Marion prisoners. Few texts to date have portrayed their experiences with the upheavals of a changing world with such intimacy and humanism.andquot;andmdash;Steven Williams, American Studies
Synopsis
In Indian Voices, Alison Owings takes readers on a fresh journey across America, east to west, north to south, and around again. Owings's most recent oral history—engagingly written in a style that entertains and informs—documents what Native Americans say about themselves, their daily lives, and the world around them.
Young and old from many tribal nations speak with candor, insight, and (unknown to many non-Natives) humor about what it is like to be a Native American in the twenty-first century. Through intimate interviews many also express their thoughts about the sometimes staggeringly ignorant, if often well-meaning, non-Natives they encounter—some who do not realize Native Americans still exist, much less that they speak English, have cell phones, use the Internet, and might attend powwows and power lunches.
Indian Voices, an inspiring and important contribution to the literature about the original Americans, will make every reader rethink the past—and present—of the United States.
Synopsis
On June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case Adoptive Couple vs. Baby Girl, which pitted adoptive parents Matt and Melanie Capobianco against baby Veronicaand#8217;s biological father, Dusten Brown, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Veronicaand#8217;s biological mother had relinquished her for adoption to the Capobiancos without Brownand#8217;s consent. Although Brown regained custody of his daughter using the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Capobiancos, rejecting the purpose of the ICWA and ignoring the long history of removing Indigenous children from their families.and#160;In A Generation Removed, a powerful blend of history and family stories, award-winning historian Margaret D. Jacobs examines how government authorities in the postand#8211;World War II era removed thousands of American Indian children from their families and placed them in non-Indian foster or adoptive families. By the late 1960s an estimated 25 to 35 percent of Indian children had been separated from their families.and#160;Jacobs also reveals the global dimensions of the phenomenon: These practices undermined Indigenous families and their communities in Canada and Australia as well. Jacobs recounts both the trauma and resilience of Indigenous families as they struggled to reclaim the care of their children, leading to the ICWA in the United States and to national investigations, landmark apologies, and redress in Australia and Canada.and#160;
Synopsis
At the end of the Southern Plains Indian wars in 1875, the War Department shipped seventy-two Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and Caddo prisoners from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. These most resistant Native people, referred to as and#8220;trouble causers,and#8221; arrived to curious, boisterous crowds eager to see the Indian warriors they knew only from imagination.
Fort Marion Prisoners and the Trauma of Native Education is an evocative work of creative nonfiction, weaving together history, oral traditions, and personal experience to tell the story of these Indian prisoners.
Resurrecting the voices and experiences of the prisoners who underwent a painful regimen of assimilation, Diane Glancyand#8217;s work is part history, part documentation of personal accounts, and a search for imaginative openings into the lives of the prisoners who left few of their own records other than carvings in their cellblocks and the famous ledger books. They learned English, mathematics, geography, civics, and penmanship with the knowledge that acquiring the same education as those in the U.S.and#160;government would be their best tool for petitioning for freedom. Glancy reveals stories of survival and an intimate understanding of the Fort Marion prisonersand#8217; predicament.
and#160;
and#160;
Synopsis
Indian Spectacle explores the ways in which white, middle-class Americans have consumed narratives of masculinity, race, and collegiate athletics through the lens of Indian-themed athletic identities, mascots, and music. Drawing on a cross-section of American institutions of higher education, Guiliano investigates the role of sports mascots in the big business of twentieth-century American college football in order to connect mascotry to expressions of community identity, individual belonging, stereotyped imagery, and cultural hegemony. and#160;
Synopsis
Amid controversies surrounding the team mascot and brand of the Washington Redskins in the National Football League and the use of mascots by Kandndash;12 schools, Americans demonstrate an expanding sensitivity to the pejorative use of references to Native Americans by sports organizations at all levels. In Indian Spectacle, Jennifer Guiliano exposes the anxiety of American middle-class masculinity in relation to the growing commercialization of collegiate sports and the indiscriminate use of Indian identity as mascots.and#160;Indian Spectacle explores the ways in which white, middle-class Americans have consumed narratives of masculinity, race, and collegiate athletics through the lens of Indian-themed athletic identities, mascots, and music. Drawing on a cross-section of American institutions of higher education, Guiliano investigates the role of sports mascots in the big business of twentieth-century American college football in order to connect mascotry to expressions of community identity, individual belonging, stereotyped imagery, and cultural hegemony. and#160;and#160;Against a backdrop of the current level of the commercialization of collegiate sportsandmdash;where the collective revenue of the fifteen highest grossing teams in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has well surpassed one billion dollarsandmdash;Guiliano recounts the history of the creation and spread of mascots and university identities as something bound up in the spectacle of halftime performance, the growth of collegiate competition, the influence of mass media, and how athletes, coaches, band members, spectators, university alumni, faculty, and administrators, artists, writers, and members of local communities all have contributed to the dissemination of ideas of Indianness that is rarely rooted in native peopleandrsquo;s actual lives.and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
So, How Long Have You Been Native? is Alexis C. Buntenand#8217;s firsthand account of what it is like to work in the Alaska cultural tourism industry. An Alaska Native and anthropologist, she spent two seasons working for a tribally owned tourism business that markets the Tlingit culture in Sitka. Buntenand#8217;s narrative takes readers through the summer tour season as she is hired and trained and eventually becomes a guide.
and#160;A multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, cultural tourism provides one of the most ubiquitous face-to-face interactions between peoples of different cultures and is arguably one of the primary means by which knowledge about other cultures is disseminated. Bunten goes beyond debates about who owns Native culture and has the right to and#8220;selland#8221; it to tourists. Through a series of anecdotes, she examines issues such as how and why Natives choose to sell their culture, the cutthroat politics of business in a small town, how the cruise industry maintains its bottom line, the impact of colonization on contemporary Native peoples, the ways that traditional cultural values play a role in everyday life for contemporary Alaska Natives, and how Indigenous peoples are engaging in global enterprises on their own terms. Buntenand#8217;s bottom-up approach provides a fascinating and informative look at the cultural tourism industry in Alaska.
Synopsis
Denand#233;sulinand#233; hunters range from deep in the Boreal Forest far into the tundra of northern Canada. Henry S. Sharp, a social anthropologist and ethnographer, spent several decades participating in fieldwork and observing hunts by this extended kin group. His daughter, Karyn Sharp, who is an archaeologist specializing in First Nations Studies and is Denand#233;sulinand#233;, also observed countless hunts. Over the years the father and daughter realized that not only their personal backgrounds but also their disciplinary specializations significantly affected how each perceived and understood their experiences with the Denand#233;sulinand#233;.
In Hunting Caribou, Henry and Karyn Sharp attempt to understand and interpret their decades-long observations of Denand#233;sulinand#233; hunts through the multiple disciplinary lenses of anthropology, archaeology, and ethnology. Although questions and methodologies differ between disciplines, the Sharpsand#8217; ethnography, by connecting these components, provides unique insights into the ecology and motivations of hunting societies.
Themes of gender, womenand#8217;s labor, insects, wolf and caribou behavior, scale, mobility and transportation, and land use are linked through the authorsand#8217; personal voice and experiences. This participant ethnography makes an important contribution to multiple fields in academe while simultaneously revealing broad implications for research, public policy, and First Nations politics.
Synopsis
Writing America takes readers on an eclectic tour of National Register historic sites that have been pivotal to the making of American literature, from churches to battlefields, from plantations to immigration stations. Reflecting the true diversity of the nation and its authors, it explores locations ranging from Harriet Beecher Stoweandrsquo;s stately Connecticut home to the Texas irrigation pumphouse commemorated by Gloria Anzaldanduacute;a, in order to reveal the alchemy though which American writers have transformed their environs into art.
Synopsis
andquot;A book that redraws the literary map of the United States.andquot; andndash; Junot Dandiacute;az
Writing America takes readers on an eclectic tour of historic sites that have been pivotal to the making of American literature, reflecting the true diversity of the nation and its authors. Profusely illustrated, it is the literary gift book for 2015.
About the Author
Henry S. Sharp has been a professor at the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University in Canada and a former scholar-in-residence at the University of Virginia and is now semi-retired. He is the author of
Loon: Memory, Meaning, and Reality in a Northern Dene Community (Nebraska, 2001), winner of the Victor Turner Prize from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, and
The Transformation of Bigfoot: Maleness, Power, and Belief among the Chipewyan.
Karyn Sharp is an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia and is a partner in Dancing Raven, a consulting company based in Prince George, British Columbia. Her articles have appeared in The Answer Is Still No: Voices of Resistance 2014, WIREs: Climate Change 2012, and The Midden.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 A Man of the Dawn: Darrell Newell (passamaquoddy)
2 "Indians 101": Elizabeth Lohah Homer (Osage)
3 A Trio of Lumbees: Pamela Brooks Sweeny, Curt Locklear, and Mary Ann Cummings Jacobs
4 Elders of the Haudenosaunee: Darwin Hill (Towanda Seneca) and Geraldine Green (Cattaraugus Seneca)
5 City Kid: Ansel Deon (Lakota/Navajo)
6 The Drum Keeper: Rosemary Berens (Ojibwe)
7 "How's everybody doing tonight?": Marcus Frejo, aka Quese IMC (Pawnee/Seminole)
8 Tales from Pine Ridge: Karen Artichoker, with Heath Ducheneaux and Dwanna Oldson (Lakota)
9 "Get over it!" and Other Suggestions: Patty Talahongva (Hopi)
10 The Former President: Claudia Vigil-Muniz (Jicarilla Apache)
11 Practicing Medicine: Harrison Baheshone (Navajo)
12 The Kin of Sacajawea: Emma George and Summer Morning Baldwin (Lehmi Shoshone)
13 Indian Humor: Carol Craig (Yakama)
14 Powwow Power: Yom Phillips (Kiowa)
15 Relearning for Life: Henry Frank (Yurok)
16 Eskimo Ice Cream: Christine Guy (Yup'ik)
17 Aloha from Hawai'i: Charles Ka'upu Jr.
Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index