William Blazek and Michael K. Glenday (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853237365
- eISBN:
- 9781846312540
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846312540
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
In its more than three decades of existence, the discipline of American studies has been reliably unreliable, its boundaries and assumptions forever shifting as it continuously repositions itself to ...
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In its more than three decades of existence, the discipline of American studies has been reliably unreliable, its boundaries and assumptions forever shifting as it continuously repositions itself to better address the changing character of American life, literature, and culture. This book looks at the current reinvention of American studies, a reinvention that has questioned the whole notion of what ‘American’ – let alone ‘American studies’ – means. The chapters range widely in considering these questions, from the effect of Muhammad Ali on Norman Mailer's writings about boxing, to the interactions of myth and memory in the fictions of Jayne Anne Phillips, to the conflicted portrayal of the American West in Cormac McCarthy's novels. Four chapters in the collection focus on Native American authors, including Leslie Marmon Silko and Gerald Vizenor, while another considers Louise Erdrich's novels in the context of Ojibwa myth.Less
In its more than three decades of existence, the discipline of American studies has been reliably unreliable, its boundaries and assumptions forever shifting as it continuously repositions itself to better address the changing character of American life, literature, and culture. This book looks at the current reinvention of American studies, a reinvention that has questioned the whole notion of what ‘American’ – let alone ‘American studies’ – means. The chapters range widely in considering these questions, from the effect of Muhammad Ali on Norman Mailer's writings about boxing, to the interactions of myth and memory in the fictions of Jayne Anne Phillips, to the conflicted portrayal of the American West in Cormac McCarthy's novels. Four chapters in the collection focus on Native American authors, including Leslie Marmon Silko and Gerald Vizenor, while another considers Louise Erdrich's novels in the context of Ojibwa myth.
Betty Louise Bell
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853237365
- eISBN:
- 9781846312540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853237365.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter argues that Roy Harvey Pearce's seminal Native American studies text Savagism and Civilization fails to acknowledge its white elitist assumptions about what constitutes ‘The American ...
More
This chapter argues that Roy Harvey Pearce's seminal Native American studies text Savagism and Civilization fails to acknowledge its white elitist assumptions about what constitutes ‘The American Mind’ and views Native Americans along a primitive-savage binary which helped to create a twentieth-century ‘national mythos of innocence and destiny’. In political terms, this view reflected US government policies of assimilation and removal towards Native tribes. On the other hand, contemporary Native writers such as Linda Hogan, Tom King, and Gerald Vizenor have attempted to transform such segregationist attitudes and binary oppositions into ‘sites of hybridity that resist categorisation and, thereby, challenge systems of domination’.Less
This chapter argues that Roy Harvey Pearce's seminal Native American studies text Savagism and Civilization fails to acknowledge its white elitist assumptions about what constitutes ‘The American Mind’ and views Native Americans along a primitive-savage binary which helped to create a twentieth-century ‘national mythos of innocence and destiny’. In political terms, this view reflected US government policies of assimilation and removal towards Native tribes. On the other hand, contemporary Native writers such as Linda Hogan, Tom King, and Gerald Vizenor have attempted to transform such segregationist attitudes and binary oppositions into ‘sites of hybridity that resist categorisation and, thereby, challenge systems of domination’.
