Reasoning Together, The Native Critics Collective

[sanguinity]

Both these selections are collected in Reasoning Together, by The Native Critics Collective, editors Craig S. Womack, Daniel Heath Justice, and Christopher B. Teuton.

nb: I have a STEM background, not a lit-crit background, which means that there are significant parts of these essays that went whoosh, right past my head. Someone with a lit-crit

Comments

[egretplume]

Thanks for this review; this book sounds great!

[sanguinity]

Like I said, dense going (at least for the likes of me), but the payoff was really good in both essays. And several other essays in the book looked intriguing, too. :-)

[bloodcult]

For me, as an enrolled Comanche who happens to have a non-American white Jewish father, the questions raised by these books seem interesting but I wonder to what extent do they discuss the incredible differences between tribes and while "blood" may be enough, or indeed all, necessary to make a person "Indian" in some cultures in other, more matriarchal, groups up-bringing plays a far more crucial role in the question of identity.

[sanguinity]

These are just essays, so there's not much space to go into the breadth of differences between Native cultures, other than to point out that those differences are big enough that one can't, and shouldn't, gloss over them. Tol Foster, as I understand him, would go on to say that the breadth of differences is one of the reasons that Native lit-crit should avail itself of regional perspectives. Daniel Heath Justice illustrates the importance of that breadth in his discussion of how the differences between Oglala and Pequot experience and history lead to a situation where Delphine Redshirt was claiming that the Pequot weren't "real" Indians. In both cases, the authors are discussing issues and strategies for approaching works by Native authors; neither are even attempting to lay out all the knowledge that one would need to be able to apply those strategies.