American Literature
Online Encyclopedias
The following links will take you to online encyclopedias and reference manuals to help you get started on your research. Here you can find general background information, definitions, and history on many literary terms, concepts, works, and authors specific to American Indian literature.
- Handy Answer: Native American Almanac: More Than 50,000 Years of the Cultures and Histories of Indigenous PeoplesFrom ancient rock drawings to todays urban living, the Native American Almanac: More Than 50,000 Years of the Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples traces the rich heritage of indigenous people. It is a fascinating mix of biography, pre-contact and post-contact history, current events, Tribal Nations histories, enlightening insights on environmental and land issues, arts, treaties, languages, education, movements, and more.
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new windowHistorical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Print Encyclopedias
The library also has a number of print encyclopedias that can be found in the Reference section on the second floor of the library. Reference books cannot be checked out of the library but there are scanners available on the second floor that can be used to scan information from these texts into a PDF which you can email to yourself.
Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature by Call Number: Ref. PS153.I52 E53 2007merican Indians have produced some of the most powerful and lyrical literature ever written in North America. ""Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature"" covers the field from the earliest recorded works to some of today's most exciting writers. This encyclopedia features the most respected, widely read, and influential American Indian writers to date.
Native American Literatures by Call Number: Ref. PS153.I52 W47 1999An encyclopedia of Native American literatures featuring articles on individual authors, on individual works, on important characters in works, and on terms and events of historical significance that figure in many of the works.
Finding Articles
Use databases to find academic articles to continue your research. Below are the most helpful databases for finding relevant articles for American Indian literary topics.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowSubjects covered include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, and the dramatic arts.
- Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation This link opens in a new windowU.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873. Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention, 1st - 42nd Congresses.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowAn archive of important scholarly journals, eBooks and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Offers high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as originally published.
Good Starting Journals for American Indian Literature
The following are links to specific academic journals which are published and peer-reviewed by experts in the field. If you want to narrow your search to a specific time period or genre, finding a journal that publishes in that area can help. SAIL for example, is the United States' only dedicated literary journal for American Indian literature.
- American Indian QuarterlyThe journal is a forum for diverse voices and perspectives spanning a variety of academic disciplines. The common thread is AIQ’s commitment to publishing work that contributes to the development of American Indian studies as a field and to the sovereignty and continuance of American Indian nations and cultures
- Early American LiteratureEarly American Literature publishes work of scholars examining American literature from its inception through the early national period, about 1830, including Native American literature.
- Studies in American Indian LiteraturesStudies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) is the only journal in the United States that focuses exclusively on American Indian literatures broadly defined to include all written, spoken, and visual texts created by Native peoples.
- Western American LiteratureThis journal is devoted to publishing critical essays on the literature, culture, landscape, and art of the American West, the journal publishes New Western and postwestern literary criticism, as well as traditional Western literature.
Historical Resources
Literature and history are and have always been closely related. These online and print resources covering various topics on American Indian history can help you understand not only the literature but also its times.
Books
Native American Studies: An Interdisciplinary IntroductionCall Number: E78.G73 B67 2011Has been reviewed and classroom tested by faculty in tribal colleges in North Dakota. Includes three accompanying DVDs that consist of lesson plans or ideas on how to use the textbook, documents—treaties, policy documents, and related materials—and five interviews with Native people about their experiences, their interests, and their hopes for the future. Is meant to be discussed: it does not pretend to be exhaustive, and cannot replace a discussion that includes more knowledge and that ties the different aspects mentioned here together. Is structured in five parts, following the chronology of American Indian history in a fairly traditional way. Within these five parts, the reader will find three chapters each. These chapters were written by a historian, Dr. Gregory Gagnon, an anthropologist, Dr. Sebastian Braun, and an English literature scholar, Dr. Birgit Hans.
Native Historians Write Back by Call Number: E76.8.N35 2011A first-of-its-kind anthology of historical articles by Indigenous scholars, framed in assumptions and concepts derived from the authors' respective Indigenous worldviews. Writings stand in sharp contrast to works by historians who may belong to tribes but work within the Euroamerican worldview.
American Indian History by This collection surveys Native American history from ancient times to the twentieth century. Entries cover specific topics and incidents from a Native American perspective, in categories of Pre-Columbian history, Colonial history, Eighteenth century history, Nineteenth century history, Twentieth century history, Court cases and legal decisions, Wars and battles, Reservations and relocation, Organizations, Religion and missionary activities, National government and legislation, Native government, Treaties, and Protest movements.
Why You Can't Teach United States History Without American Indians by A resource for all who teach and study history, this book illuminates the unmistakable centrality of American Indian history to the full sweep of American history. The nineteen essays gathered in this collaboratively produced volume, written by leading scholars in the field of Native American history, reflect the newest directions of the field and are organized to follow the chronological arc of the standard American history survey. Contributors reassess major events, themes, groups of historical actors, and approaches--social, cultural, military, and political--consistently demonstrating how Native American people, and questions of Native American sovereignty, have animated all the ways we consider the nation's past. The uniqueness of Indigenous history, as interwoven more fully in the American story, will challenge students to think in new ways about larger themes in U.S. history, such as settlement and colonization, economic and political power, citizenship and movements for equality, and the fundamental question of what it means to be an American.
Internet Resources
- North Dakota Native PeoplesVery comprehensive and informative guides to the history and cultures of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sanish, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Standing Rock Oyate, and Mini Wakan Oyate (Spirit Lake) communities.
- National Museum of the American IndianA diverse and multifaceted cultural and educational enterprise, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is an active and visible component of the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum complex. The NMAI cares for one of the world's most expansive collections of Native artifacts, including objects, photographs, archives, and media covering the entire Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego.
- American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC)Provides leadership and influences public policy on American Indian higher education issues. Resources link on site includes online presentations, reports, and other research available to view. Useful list of tribal college and American Indian serving websites.
- Native American Legal Resources This link opens in a new windowNative American Constitution and Law DigitizationProject with access to constitutions, tribal codes and other legal documents, links to American Indian Tribal/Nation web sites.
Search the entire library catalog here.
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You can search "everything", or can specify the type of results, like books or articles.
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Stick with keywords or phrases, instead of questions. So, instead of searching "what are some problems faced by Native American youth?" you would search "Native American youth" instead.
The majority of books on American Indian literature and works by American Indian authors can be found starting at the PS.I53 call number. These books are found on the third floor of the Chester Fritz Library.
Featured Books
Looking for an interesting research topic? Currently, the featured books section holds some of the newest additions to the library's collection of research-worthy, literary texts on American Indian literature.
American Indian Nonfiction by Call Number: PS153.I52 A44 2007American Indian literature has deep roots. This collection of political writings covers nearly two centuries and represents a historical survey of the development of Indian nonfiction prose, from the missionary-trained writers of the late eighteenth century to the members of the first Indian intellectual network in the early twentieth century. Included are personal letters, sermons, printed speeches, autobiographical sketches, editorials, pamphlets, and humorous pieces. From early writers such as Samson Occom to twentieth-century writers such as Will Rogers and Luther Standing Bear, these authors were deeply committed to the welfare of their Native communities. Many of the pieces were quite popular in their day but have been lost to time. Includes bibliographical references.
Masterpieces of American Indian Literature by Call Number: PS508.I5 M37 2005The five complete and unabridged works collected here are parts of a long and passionate testimony about American Indian culture as related by Indians themselves. Deep emotions and life-shaking crises converge in these pages concerning identity, family, community, caste, gender, nature, the future, the past, solitude, duty, trust, betrayal, leadership, war, and apocalypse. Each work is also regarded as a classic of Native literature and has much to teach.
Native American Drama by Call Number: PS153.I52 S73 2009The recent rise in publications and professional productions of Native American plays moves Native theatre from specific, cultural communities into larger, more generalized audiences, who quickly discover that Native plays are uniquely different from mainstream drama. This is because Native theatre is its own field of drama, one that enacts Native intellectual traditions existing independently from western drama yet capable of extending mainstream theatrical theories. This study contends that Native dramaturgy possesses a network of distinctive discourses pertaining to Native American philosophies and relating to theatre's performative medium. Following an introduction that traces Native American theatre history from the 1900s to today, Native American Drama moves into a critical examination of Native dramaturgy. The study privileges voices of Native literary theorists, including Gerald Vizenor, Robert Allen Warrior, and LeAnne Howe, to introduce four Native discourses - platiality, storying, tribalography, and survivance - that intersect performative elements of space, speech, action, and movement.
Reading Native American Literature by Call Number: PS153.I52 C59 2011Native American literature explores divides between public and private cultures, ethnicities and experience. In this volume, Joseph Coulombe argues that Native American writers use diverse narrative strategies to engage with readers and are 'writing for connection' with both Native and non-Native audiences.
Red Ink by Call Number: PS153.I52 L67 2012The Native peoples of colonial New England were quick to grasp the practical functions of Western literacy. Their written literary output was composed to suit their own needs and expressed views often in resistance to the agendas of the European colonists they were confronted with. Red Ink is an engaging retelling of American colonial history, one that draws on documents that have received scant critical and scholarly attention to offer an important new interpretation grounded in indigenous contexts and perspectives. Author Drew Lopenzina reexamines a literature that has been compulsively “corrected” and overinscribed with the norms and expectations of the dominant culture, while simultaneously invoking the often violent tensions of “contact” and the processes of unwitnessing by which Native histories and accomplishments were effectively erased from the colonial record. In a compelling narrative arc, Lopenzina enables the reader to travel through a history that, however familiar, has never been fully appreciated or understood from a Native-centered perspective.
