In Defense of Loose Translations: An Indian Life in an Academic World by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

Abstract

Reviewed by: In Defense of Loose Translations: An Indian Life in an Academic World by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn Kerri J. Malloy Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. In Defense of Loose Translations: An Indian Life in an Academic World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. 232 pp. Hardcover, $29.95. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn lifts the façade of the idealized glamorous life in academe in her book In Defense of Loose Translations: An Indian Life in an Academic World. Her narrative is as comfortable as a conversation with a lifelong friend. She reflects on the hurdles, achievements, centrality of home, and personal relationships that have influenced her career. Cook-Lynn poses the question “Is this a memoir?” in the prologue, seeking inspiration from her political and intellectual priorities in her search for an answer (2). Throughout, she tells her story—how the land she is from and the lands where she lived influenced her life, writing, and career—one centered on identity. Unabashedly guiding readers through her life, Cook-Lynn turns her critical eye on herself. She deploys language with precision and purpose in an analysis of events throughout her academic life. Grappling with imposter syndrome, subjected to misogynistic and racist perceptions from colleagues, and driven by purpose, her life as a writer, scholar, educator, and student is told in elegant words. Her successes and setbacks in academia are mirrored in her personal life, framed to show that life within the academy is no different from the day-to-day banality that every person experiences. Her focus is not constrained to her actions; her thoughts on the state of people, politics, academe, and history are intimately connected to the scenes that came together in a portrait of her life. Cook-Lynn’s desire to write outweighed her need for a doctorate, resulting in terminal ABD status. She expresses admiration for obtaining advanced degrees while simultaneously pointedly sharing her skepticism of the narrow mindedness of some who earned their terminal degree. Pointing out that expertise in a narrow subject matter is not proficiency in all matters of the world, “I began to fear that one of the decisive factors in obtaining a Ph.D. was to lead the charge in stupidity” (28). Not to be held back in her pursuits, she used language to advance Native causes, put into print Native history, and challenge settler-colonial narratives. The desire to write was not subdued by the obstacles she overcame to publish. [End Page 408] Her candor about copyeditors and co-authors provide a glimpse of the trial that is publishing, along with a respite of humor for veterans of the agonizing process. Reminiscing on the writing The Politics of Hallowed Ground: Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty, she shares an exchange that she had with a copyeditor in which she said, “The only function of a copyeditor is to make sure that if the car is blue on page 12, it is still blue on page 98!” (26). She represents herself as she is, nothing more. She does not shy away from critically analyzing herself. Dissecting her life, not for self-aggrandizement; instead, crushing the pillar of adulation, senior scholars are hoisted upon by early-career academics. Words are the epitaph and legacy of a writer, the evidence of their life by which they are judged. In Defense of Loose Translation is eyewitness testimony of what Native academics lived through as they infiltrated settler-colonial institutions of higher education, purposefully and diligently working to advance the inclusion of Native history, literature, politics, and environmental management into Western-based Euro-American pedagogy, unmasking pretenders who played Indian to advance themselves and jeopardize fledgling Native programs and scholars as they pursued their self-interests. Cook-Lynn’s and other Native academics’ efforts pushed the academy’s doors open to successive generations of Native scholars who face old and new obstacles in the pursuit of advancing Native studies. The work to make a place in the academe for Native studies came with a price. Cook-Lynn does not avoid addressing the ramifications her writing has had on her life and personal relationships. With words of contrition, she mourns the loss of her friendship with Dr...