The Queerness of Native American Literature
Lisa Tatonetti
Abstract
With a new and more inclusive perspective for the growing field of queer Native studies, this book provides a genealogy of queer Native writing after Stonewall. Looking across a broad range of literature, the text offers an overview and guide to queer Native literature from its rise in the 1970s to the present day. This book recovers ties between two simultaneous renaissances of the late twentieth century: queer literature and Native American literature. It foregrounds how Indigeneity intervenes within and against dominant interpretations of queer genders and sexualities, recovering unfamiliar ... More
With a new and more inclusive perspective for the growing field of queer Native studies, this book provides a genealogy of queer Native writing after Stonewall. Looking across a broad range of literature, the text offers an overview and guide to queer Native literature from its rise in the 1970s to the present day. This book recovers ties between two simultaneous renaissances of the late twentieth century: queer literature and Native American literature. It foregrounds how Indigeneity intervenes within and against dominant interpretations of queer genders and sexualities, recovering unfamiliar texts from the 1970s while presenting fresh, cogent readings of well-known works. In juxtaposing the work of Native authors—including the longtime writer-activist Paula Gunn Allen, the first contemporary queer Native writer Maurice Kenny, the poet Janice Gould, the novelist Louise Erdrich, and the filmmakers Sherman Alexie, Thomas Bezucha, and Jorge Manuel Manzano—with the work of queer studies scholars, the book proposes resourceful interventions in foundational concepts in queer studies while also charting new directions for queer Native studies.
Keywords:
queer Native studies,
queer Native writing,
Native American literature,
Paula Gunn Allen,
Maurice Kenny,
Janice Gould,
Louise Erdrich,
Sherman Alexie,
Thomas Bezucha,
Jorge Manuel Manzano
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780816692781 |
Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: August 2015 |
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816692781.001.0001 |