Monica Porter
Databases
- American Indian Newspapers This link opens in a new windowIndigenous journalism from communities in the United States and Canada, 1828 to 2016.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowA full text database of 200 publications of the ethnic, minority and native press. Searchable in both English and Spanish, with titles in both languages.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowIndexes books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and film.
- North American Indian Thought and Culture This link opens in a new windowDocuments North American Indian history through biographies, autobiographies, speeches, diaries, letters, and oral histories.
Selected Online Resources
- Sacred Texts ArchiveNative American religion, mythology and folklore are covered extensively at this site.
- IC Magazine - A Publication of the Center for World Indigenous StudiesDedicated to providing you with cutting-edge news and analysis concerning the rights, needs, interests, bio-cultural legacies and the contemporary struggles of the world's 6000 Indigenous Peoples and Nations.
- Center for World Indigenous StudiesAn independent, non-profit [U.S. 501(c)(3)] research and education organization dedicated to wider understanding and appreciation of the ideas and knowledge of indigenous peoples and the social, economic and political realities of indigenous nations.
- UFDC- Native Americans Oral History CollectionsIts collections include approximately 4,000 interviews and more than 85,000 pages of transcribed material, making it the largest oral history archive in the South and one of the major collections in the country. The transcribed interviews are available for use by research scholars, students, journalists, genealogists, and other interested groups. Researchers have used our oral history material for theses, dissertations, articles, and books.
Selected Books
Islands of Decolonial Love: Stories and Songs by In her debut collection of short stories, Islands of Decolonial Love, renowned writer and activist Leanne Simpson vividly explores the lives of contemporary Indigenous Peoples and communities, especially those of her own Nishnaabeg nation. Found on reserves, in cities and small towns, in bars and curling rinks, canoes and community centres, doctors offices and pickup trucks, Simpson's characters confront the often heartbreaking challenge of pairing the desire to live loving and observant lives with a constant struggle to simply survive the historical and ongoing injustices of racism and colonialism. Told with voices that are rarely recorded but need to be heard, and incorporating the language and history of her people, Leanne Simpson's Islands of Decolonial Love is a profound, important, and beautiful book of fiction.
Call Number: PR 9199.4 .S5485 2013ISBN: 9781894037884Publication Date: 2013
One of the Family: Metis culture in nineteenth-century northwestern Saskatchewan by
In recent years there has been growing interest in identifying the social and cultural attributes that define the Metis as a distinct people. In this groundbreaking study, Brenda Macdougall employs the concept of wahkootowin – the Cree term for a worldview that privileges family and values interconnectedness – to trace the emergence of a Metis community in northern Saskatchewan. Wahkootowin describes how relationships worked and helps to explain how the Metis negotiated with local economic and religious institutions while nurturing a society that emphasized family obligation and responsibility. This innovative exploration of the birth of Metis identity offers a model for future research and discussion.
Call Number: E99.M47 M33 2010ISBN: 9780774817295Publication Date: 2010
The Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens and Ghosts by
Written by an award-winning historian and recipient of a recent MacArthur "Genius Grant," The Cherokee Rose explores territory reminiscent of the bestselling and beloved works of Alice Walker, Octavia Butler, and Louise Erdrich. Now, Tiya Miles's luminous but highly accessible novel examines a little-known aspect of America's past--slaveholding by Southern Creeks and Cherokees--and its legacy in the lives of three young women who are drawn to the Georgia plantation where scenes of extreme cruelty and equally extraordinary compassion once played out. Based on the author's in-depth and award-winning research into archival sources at the Chief Vann House Historic Site in Chatsworth, Georgia, and the Moravian mission sponsored there in the early 1800s, Miles has blended this fascinating history with a contemporary cast of engaging and memorable characters, including Jinx, the free-spirited historian exploring her tribe's complicated racial history; Ruth, whose mother sought refuge from a troubled marriage in her beloved garden and the cosmetic empire she built from its bounty; Cheyenne, the Southern black debutante seeking to connect with a meaningful personal history; and, hovering above them all, the spirit of long-gone Mary Ann Battis, a young woman suspected of burning a mission to the ground and then disappearing from tribal records. Together, the women's discoveries about the secrets of the Cherokee plantation trace their attempts to connect with the strong spirits of the past and reconcile the conflicts in their own lives.
Call Number: PS 3613 .I532243 C48 2015ISBN: 9780895876355Publication Date: 2015-04-07
Skins: Contemporary Indigenous Writing by
Skins is full of passion, warmth and humor. It reveals the rich diversity of styles and themes explored by contemporary Indigenous writers in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. This unique collection of short stories brings together prominent and critically acclaimed writers from each of these countries. The voices in Skins are fresh and gritty, drawing on a wealth of different cultural experiences and realities.
Call Number: 820.8 S627ISBN: 0969712065Publication Date: 2002
The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature by
Over the course of the last twenty years, Native American and Indigenous American literary studies has experienced a dramatic shift from a critical focus on identity and authenticity to the intellectual, cultural, political, historical, and tribal nation contexts from which these Indigenousliteratures emerge. The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature reflects on these changes and provides a complete overview of the current state of the field.The Handbook's forty-three essays, organized into four sections, cover oral traditions, poetry, drama, non-fiction, fiction, and other forms of Indigenous American writing from the seventeenth through the twenty-first century. Part I attends to literary histories across a range of communities,providing, for example, analyses of Inuit, Chicana/o, Anishinaabe, and Metis literary practices. Part II draws on earlier disciplinary and historical contexts to focus on specific genres, as authors discuss Indigenous non-fiction, emergent trans-Indigenous autobiography, Mexicanoh and Spanishpoetry, Native drama in the U.S. and Canada, and even a new Indigenous children's literature canon. The third section delves into contemporary modes of critical inquiry to expound on politics of place, comparative Indigenism, trans-Indigenism, Native rhetoric, and the power of Indigenous writing tocommunities of readers. A final section thoroughly explores the geographical breadth and expanded definition of Indigenous American through detailed accounts of literature from Indian Territory, the Red Atlantic, the far North, Yucatan, Amerika Samoa, and Francophone Quebec.Together, the volume is the most comprehensive and expansive critical handbook of Indigenous American literatures published to date. It is the first to fully take into account the last twenty years of recovery and scholarship, and the first to most significantly address the diverse range of texts,secondary archives, writing traditions, literary histories, geographic and political contexts, and critical discourses in the field.
Call Number: PS153 .I52 O84 2014ISBN: 9780199914036Publication Date: 2014
The Red Land to the South: American Indian Writers and Indigenous Mexico by
The forty years of American Indian literature taken up by James H. Cox--the decades between 1920 and 1960--have been called politically and intellectually moribund. On the contrary, Cox identifies a group of American Indian writers who share an interest in the revolutionary potential of the indigenous peoples of Mexico--and whose work demonstrates a surprisingly assertive literary politics in the era. By contextualizing this group of American Indian authors in the work of their contemporaries, Cox reveals how the literary history of this period is far more rich and nuanced than is generally acknowledged. The writers he focuses on--Todd Downing (Choctaw), Lynn Riggs (Cherokee), and D'Arcy McNickle (Confederated Salish and Kootenai)--are shown to be on par with writers of the preceding Progressive and the succeeding Red Power and Native American literary renaissance eras. Arguing that American Indian literary history of this period actually coheres in exciting ways with the literature of the Native American literary renaissance, Cox repudiates the intellectual and political border that has emerged between the two eras.
Call Number: PS153.I52 C69 2012ISBN: 9780816675975Publication Date: 2012-10-18
Treasured Possessions: Indigenous Interventions into Cultural and Intellectual Property by Call Number: DU 760 .G455 2013ISBN: 9780822354123Publication Date: 2013
Without Reservation: Indigenous Erotica by Call Number: 820.8 W8245ISBN: 0973139625Publication Date: 2003
Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies by Call Number: PS153.I52 A457 2012ISBN: 9780816678181Publication Date: 2012
Related Guides
Literature Resources for Children and Young Adults
Birchbark Books is a native-owned bookstore focused on stocking Native American titles. The bookstore also features traditional handmade objects, artworks, and ornaments made by Native artists.
Lee and Low Books publish multicultural children’s books. It offers a selection of Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous children’s books. Its collections consist of titles that feature Native American culture, authors, and illustrators.
We Need Diverse Books is a non-profit organization focused on publishing children’s books with diverse characters. The organization offers resources such as diverse book lists, grants, scholarships, and internship grants.
Colours of Us is a blog with collections of multicultural children’s book reading lists. The reading lists consist of book titles, organized based on ethnicity and reading levels.
The American Indian in Children’s Literature annually releases a book list consisting of children’s books written about or by indigenous peoples. It also offers analyses of indigenous characters’ portrayal in various children’s books.
The American Indian Library Association biennially awards the Youth Literature Award to Native Americans and Indigenous peoples for their writings and illustrations. The association also offers various grants and scholarships.
Talk Story Together is a literary program focused on exploring American Indian and Asian Pacific American traditions and experiences. It offers composite bibliographies of children’s books.
The author's website offers a bibliography of Native American children’s and young adults' books published since 1995.