Birgit Däwes - Twenty-First Century Perspectives on Indigenous Studies

In recent years, the interdisciplinary fields of Native North American and Indigenous Studies have reflected, at times even foreshadowed and initiated, many of the influential theoretical discussions in the humanities after the transnational turn. Global trends of identity politics, performativity, cultural performance and ethics, comparative and revisionist historiography, ecological responsibility and education, as well as issues of social justice have shaped and been shaped by discussions in Native American and Indigenous Studies. This volume brings together distinguished perspectives on these topics by the Native scholars and writers Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe), Diane Glancy (Cherokee), and Tomson Highway (Cree), as well as non-Native authorities, such as Chadwick Allen, Hartmut Lutz, and Helmbrecht Breinig. Contributions look at various moments in the cultural history of Native North Americafrom earthmounds via the Catholic appropriation of a Mohawk saint to the debates about Makah whaling rightsas well as at a diverse spectrum of literary, performative, and visual works of art by John Ross, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, Emily Pauline Johnson, Leslie Marmon Silko, Emma Lee Warrior, Louise Erdrich, N. Scott Momaday, Stephen Graham Jones, and Gerald Vizenor, among others. In doing so, the selected contributions identify new and recurrent methodological challenges, outline future paths for scholarly inquiry, and explore the intersections between Indigenous Studies and contemporary Literary and Cultural Studies at large.

Birgit Dwes is Professor and Chair of American Studies at the University of Vienna.

Karsten Fitz is Professor of American Studies/Culture and Media Studies at the University of Passau.

Sabine N. Meyer is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the Institute for British and American Studies at the University of Osnabrck.

Series editors: Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz and Sabine N. Meyer

Routledge Research in Transnational Indigenous Perspectives features scholarly work exploring both indigenous perspectives that are explicitly transnational and transnational perspectives on indigenous topics. As such, it is committed to fostering and presenting high-quality research in the area of Indigenous Studies, addressing historical and contemporary political, social, economic, and cultural issues concerning the indigenous peoples of North and South America, Europe, Australasia, and the larger Pacific region. The series is thus not limited to one particular methodological approach, but looks at the highly dynamic and growing field of Indigenous Studies that is of central interest for a range of different disciplines.

Members of the series advisory board include Chadwick Allen (Ohio State University); Philip J. Deloria (University of Michigan); Christian Feest (em., Johann-Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt); Hsinya Huang (National Sun Yat-Sen University).

The series considers contributions from a wide range of areas in the field of Indigenous Studies. These include but are not limited to:

1Twenty-First Century Perspectives on Indigenous Studies

Native North America in (Trans)Motion

Edited by Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz, and Sabine N. Meyer

Edited by Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz, and Sabine N. Meyer

First published 2015

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Twenty-first century perspectives on indigenous studies : native North America
in (trans)motion / edited by Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz, and Sabine N. Meyer.
pages cm. (Routledge research in transnational indigenous perspectives ; 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.American literatureIndian authorsHistory and criticism.2.Canadian literatureIndian authorsHistory and criticism.3.Indians in literature.4.Indians of North AmericaEthnic identity.I.Dwes, Birgit, editor of compilation.II.Fitz, Karsten editor of compilation.III.Meyer, Sabine N., 1979 editor of compilation.
PS153.I52T84 2015
810.9'897dc232014048750

ISBN: 978-1-138-86029-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-71655-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

BIRGIT DWES, KARSTEN FITZ, AND SABINE N. MEYER1

Part I
Native Studies for the Twenty-First Century: Theoretical Trajectories and Critical Approaches

GERALD VIZENOR

DIANE GLANCY

TOMSON HIGHWAY

Part II
Native Stories and Storiers

BILLY J. STRATTON

HELMBRECHT BREINIG

HANS BAK

Part III
Land, Law, and Indigenous Ecologies

CHADWICK ALLEN

SABINE N. MEYER

MARIA MOSS

Part IV
History and Transnationalism

SAMI LAKOMKI

MICHAEL DRAXLBAUER

HSINYA HUANG

HARTMUT LUTZ

Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz, and Sabine N. Meyer

Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s the emerging discipline of Native American Studies was mostly concerned with questions of the canon, of political and cultural sovereignty, of visibility, and of agency, the turn of the twentieth century has brought new challenges and new questions to the fore. In an increasingly transnational context, scholars and writers have begun to focus their attention on the relationships between Indigenous people around the world, their shared historical heritage and common political agendas. Just as the national boundaries between Canada, the United States, and Mexico, as well as the countries of Latin and South Americastabilized by the traditions of national philologies and national Cultural Studiesare currently being dissolved in the interest of hemispheric American Studies, the field of Indigenous Studies has begun to explore the potential of comparative axes between Indigenous peoples of North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific, andmost recentlyof Northern and Eastern Europe. Thematically, Native American and Indigenous Studies have also reflected, if not foreshadowed and initiated, global trends of identity politics (indigenism), ecological responsibility, and social justice that will decisively shape the debates of the twenty-first century. As such, they contribute substantial impulses to the equally innovative neighboring fields of border studies, transnational and hemispheric American Studies, ecocriticism, and performance studies.