Category Archives: Native-American literature

Reflections on the Conference

It’s now just shy of three weeks past April 19 and I’m still lingering on the papers presented and conversations had at the first American Literature in the World graduate student conference. “Linger” seems appropriate to my mode of contemplation … Continue reading

Posted in Educational institutions, Europe, macro politics, museums, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, World history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Linda Hogan, Herman Melville: People of the Whale

April 10, 2013 The Native Americans have always been there, of course.   The very name of the ship brings up their ghostly presence, for “Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts … Continue reading

Posted in Animals, Asia, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, Race, WAr | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Global North: Alexander, Boo, Erdrich, Ferry

February 13, 2013 The blizzard this past weekend made me think of Argus, North Dakota.  Louise Erdrich’s country. Love Medicine opens with  a blizzard: “The snow feel deeper that Easter than it had for forty years, but June walked over … Continue reading

Posted in Cities, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, contemporary poetry, India, Native-American literature, Translation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Silko: The Chinese Connection

February 6, 2012 In 1985 Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Leslie Silko traveled together to China, going up the Li River in a boat. Kingston and Silko have now come out with new books — Kingston, I Love a … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Afro-Asian alliances, Animals, Asia, Autobiography, China, Chinese art, collaboration, Comparative literature, Ethnicity, Native American language, Native-American literature, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Louise Erdrich, Kurt Vonnegut: Germany’s Wars

November 21, 2012 There is a longer title to Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel: “Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too … Continue reading

Posted in Atlantic, Cities, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, French language, German language, mixed races, Native American language, Native-American literature, Race, Vernacular dialects, Wars, World history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sherman Alexie, Walt Whitman: Hoop Dreams

November 14, 2012 When Stephen Colbert pointed out with incredulity that he had come out with yet another book, Sherman Alexie said, “That’s what happens when you’re literate.” Yes, from reading to writing: it’s as easy as that, as inevitable. … Continue reading

Posted in Autobiography, collaboration, contemporary poetry, Ethnicity, Genre, Media, mixed races, Modernist poetry, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, peripheral networks, print medium, Remediation, Remix, Sports, Television, Twentieth century literature, YouTube videos | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

African-Native-American: Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison

February 15, 2012 Langston Hughes. African-American, of course. Yet a not insignificant fact about his biography is that his both his maternal grandparents, Mary Patterson and Charles Henry Langston, were of mixed races: African-American, Native American, and European. Hughes did … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, contemporary poetry, mixed races, Native-American literature, slavery, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 65 Comments