White on Red: Approaches to American Indian Literary Criticism

Abstract

Recent concern about issues of multiculturalism is a significant factor in the current explosion of attention to the traditional and contemporary literatures of American Indians. The idealist would add that such inquiry is, more importantly, a belated recognition of the inherent value of the texts themselves, while the cynic would be compelled to suggest the influence of popular culture and Dances with Wolves. Whatever the impulses, critical and scholarly inquiry is most welcome, and a variety of non-Indian readers are now becoming aware of the full range of aesthetic expression as well as the unique textual and theoretical challenges inherent in this marginalized canon. The studies of Julian Rice, David Murray, and Michael Castro suggest a variety of approaches that students of Indian texts are currently encountering in this still-codifying discipline. In Black Elk's Story: Distinguishing Its Lakota Purpose, Julian Rice adds to his remarkably prolific recent body of comment on Lakota