Synopses & Reviews
Indian approaches to land and spirituality are neither simple nor monolithic, making them hard to grasp for outsiders. A fuller, more accurate understanding of these concepts enables comprehension of the unique ways land and spirit have interlinked Native American communities across centuries of civilization, and reveals insights about our current pressing environmental concerns and American history.
In Land and Spirit in Native America, author Joy Porter argues that American colonization has been a determining factor in how we perceive Indian spirituality and Indian relationships to nature. Having an appreciation for these traditional values regarding ritual, memory, time, kinship, and the essential reciprocity between all things allows us to rethink aspects of history and culture. This understanding also makes Indian film, philosophy, literature, and art accessible.
Review
"'Land and spirit are land and spirit, and, yes, it is all a complex matter,' I wrote to Joy Porter when I responded to her inquiry about writing an endorsement for Land & Spirit in Native America. Haah-uh, yes, it is a complex matter, I have to repeat quietly and contemplatively. As an Indigenous person of the Americas, I have lived within this complexity all my life and within the complexity—and perplexity--of all preceding generations before me!
So twenty or so years ago, I began to use the phrase 'land, culture, and community' more or less as a mantra or part of a mantra that expresses continuity essential for land, culture, and community to be sustainable. Our Indigenous grandmothers and grandfathers insisted upon a way of life founded upon a philosophy that was not simply a means of connecting the dots or going with the flow. Land-culture-community is the foundation we live upon and within, the grandmothers and grandfathers say—even when it is a complex matter.
I'm glad Joy Porter has written masterfully about this matter of continuity in Land & Spirit in Native America."
< p="">Simon J. Ortiz, Author of < i=""> Woven Stone < i=""> , < i=""> From Sand Creek < i=""> , < i=""> Out There Somewhere < i=""> and Regent's Professor, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University. <>
Review
"Joy Porter's Land and Spirit in Native America effectively challenges the empty rhetoric and wishful thinking about pan-Indian holism, spirituality and place. In its place Porter offers a nuanced, grounded, and insightful investigation of the role of spirit and land in a range of tribal localities and uses an equally wide range of modalities to remind us the ways in which American Indian tribes have experienced and expressed the relationship of place and person in the last two hundred years. Excellent, insightful, and considered—a valuable addition to the field."
< p="">David Treuer, Professor of English, University of Minnesota, Leech Lake Reservation <>
Review
"This volume offers a unique study of environmentalism and the author shows great respect for Native Americans and their beliefs and proclaims that they have much to teach wider society. Notes are at the end of the book along with a valuable bibliography. . . . College students as well as high schoolers in AP or IB classes might utilize this reference, as will teachers searching for new ideas to enrich lessons and lectures." - Library Journal
Review
" … Porter lays some of the crucial foundation for a fundamental rethinking of the vital interrelationships between religion and nature for the sake of creating a far more sustainable, just, peaceful, and spiritual society. Summing Up: Recommended." - Choice
Synopsis
This book accurately depicts Native American approaches to land and spirituality through an interdisciplinary examination of Indian philosophy, history, and literature.
Synopsis
This book accurately depicts Native American approaches to land and spirituality through an interdisciplinary examination of Indian philosophy, history, and literature.
Indian approaches to land and spirituality are neither simple nor monolithic, making them hard to grasp for outsiders. A fuller, more accurate understanding of these concepts enables comprehension of the unique ways land and spirit have interlinked Native American communities across centuries of civilization, and reveals insights about our current pressing environmental concerns and American history.
In Land and Spirit in Native America, author Joy Porter argues that American colonization has been a determining factor in how we perceive Indian spirituality and Indian relationships to nature. Having an appreciation for these traditional values regarding ritual, memory, time, kinship, and the essential reciprocity between all things allows us to rethink aspects of history and culture. This understanding also makes Indian film, philosophy, literature, and art accessible.
Synopsis
. Presents a novel thesis featuring newly compiled material
. Explains the complex relationship between land and spirituality interwoven in Native American history and culture and how this has driven so much conflict between Indian and non-Indian society
. Highlights developments within Indian thinking about land, nature, and spirituality, relating these concepts to Indian history, literature, and new commercial Indian films
Synopsis
. Includes illustrations that complement the text
Synopsis
• Explores and contrasts Indian and Euro-American spiritual approaches to the earth
• Explains the complex relationship between land, spirituality, and environmental justice, particularly "National Sacrifice Areas" and the nuclear landscape of the American southwest
• Connects contemporary writing on politics, science, art, and literature to Native America
• Highlights developments within Indian thinking about land, nature, and spirituality, relating these concepts to Indian history, literature, art and new commercial films
Synopsis
• Includes illustrations by the Iroquois artist John Fadden that complement the text