(Ebook) The Routledge Introduction to Native American Literature by Drew Lopenzina ISBN 9781138291256, 9781138630246, 9781315209722, 1138291250, 1138630241, 1315209721

(Ebook) The Routledge Introduction to Native American Literature by Drew Lopenzina ISBN 9781138291256, 9781138630246, 9781315209722, 1138291250, 1138630241, 1315209721

This Introduction makes available for student, instructor, and aficionado a refined setof tools for decolonizing our approaches prior to entering the unfamiliar landscape ofNative American literatures. This book will introduce indigenous perspectives andtraditions as articulated by indigenous authors whose voices have been a vital, if oftenoverlooked, component of the American dialogue for more than 400 years. Paramountto this consideration of Native-centered reading is the understanding thatliterature was not something bestowed upon Native peoples by the settler culture,either through benevolent interventions or violent programs of forced assimilation.Native literature precedes colonization, and Native stories and traditions have theirroots in both the precolonized and the decolonizing worlds. As this far-reachingsurvey of Native literary contributions will demonstrate, almost without fail, whenindigenous writers elected to enter into the world of western letters, they did so withthe intention of maintaining indigenous culture and community. Writing was andalways remains a strategy for survival.