Red Land, Red Power: Grounding Knowledge in the American Indian Novel (New Americanists) [Paperback]

Sean Kicummah Teuton (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Americanists | Publication Date: June 3, 2008

In lucid narrative prose, Sean Kicummah Teuton studies the stirring literature of “Red Power,” an era of Native American organizing that began in 1969 and expanded into the 1970s. Teuton challenges the claim that Red Power thinking relied on romantic longings for a pure Indigenous past and culture. He shows instead that the movement engaged historical memory and oral tradition to produce more enabling knowledge of American Indian lives and possibilities. Looking to the era’s moments and literature, he develops an alternative, “tribal realist” critical perspective to allow for more nuanced analyses of Native writing. In this approach, “knowledge” is not the unattainable product of disinterested observation. Rather it is the achievement of communally mediated, self-reflexive work openly engaged with the world, and as such it is revisable. For this tribal realist position, Teuton enlarges the concepts of Indigenous identity and tribal experience as intertwined sources of insight into a shared world.

While engaging a wide spectrum of Native American writing, Teuton focuses on three of the most canonized and, he contends, most misread novels of the era—N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn (1968), James Welch’s Winter in the Blood (1974), and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977). Through his readings, he demonstrates the utility of tribal realism as an interpretive framework to explain social transformations in Indian Country during the Red Power era and today. Such transformations, Teuton maintains, were forged through a process of political awakening that grew from Indians’ rethought experience with tribal lands and oral traditions, the body and imprisonment, in literature and in life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Red Land, Red Power is an exciting and important book. . . . It is an important book for students invested in how the written word and real-world politics connect, including those in Native studies, (anti-)colonial studies, postcolonial studies, third-world studies, and ecocriticism. Red Land, Red Power also celebrates just how much literature and literary studies can do in understanding and resisting colonization—in the book, in the classroom, and in material places where marginalized voices are still trying to be heard.” - Melinda DiStefano, Contemporary Literature

“Teuton has a keen ability to convey how tribal relationships that are based in kinship and that have endured long histories of colonial confrontations with the United States are essential to understanding these novels’ characters and dramatic tensions.” - Kendall Johnson, American Literature

“[Teuton’s] work is a powerful text that debunks old myths and creates a framework for seeing the world for what it is. Red Land, Red Power is a must-read.” - Lee Maracle, Times Higher Education Supplement

“Informative from the start, [Teuton] interrogates essentialist critiques of Native literary culture by Native intellectuals, problematizes trickster critical discourse, and parries the vocabulary of Native studies while acknowledging how Indians have transformed English, achieving pantribal meanings manifest in prose. . . . Philosophically challenging yet reader friendly, this book is a must read. Essential.” - R. Welburn, Choice

“His interpretive work will be particularly valuable to historians considering the use of these red power novels, because his approach is carefully grounded in historical context and deeply informed by prior criticism. . . . Teuton offers tangible evidence of not only red power, but also the power of literary language in the indigenous struggle with a legacy of colonialism that remains visible throughout Indian country.” - Michael A. Elliot, The Journal of American History

“Red Land, Red Power is a terrific book. Sean Kicummah Teuton offers a critique and reconstruction of current theoretical discussions in literary studies about identity and experience as they affect the reception and production of Native literature. He argues for a ‘tribal realist’ approach as the critical framework that allows for a sophisticated, nuanced, and empowering analysis of American Indian literature.”—Paula Moya, author of Learning from Experience: Minority Identities, Multicultural Struggles

“Sean Kicummah Teuton offers a powerful vision of American Indian literary studies and its dialogue with contemporary literary criticism. He understands how to connect theoretical discussion to the practical politics of Indian culture and literature. Every scholar in the field will want to read this book.”—Robert Dale Parker, author of The Invention of Native American Literature

From the Publisher

"Red Land, Red Power is a terrific book. Sean Kicummah Teuton offers a critique and reconstruction of current theoretical discussions in literary studies about identity and experience as they affect the reception and production of Native literature. He argues for a `tribal realist' approach as the critical framework that allows for a sophisticated, nuanced, and empowering analysis of American Indian literature."--Paula Moya, author of Learning from Experience: Minority Identities, Multicultural Struggles

"Sean Kicummah Teuton offers a powerful vision of American Indian literary studies and its dialogue with contemporary literary criticism. He understands how to connect theoretical discussion to the practical politics of Indian culture and literature. Every scholar in the field will want to read this book."--Robert Dale Parker, author of The Invention of Native American Literature --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (June 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822342413
• ISBN-13: 978-0822342410
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,358,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sean Kicummah Teuton is Associate Professor of English and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his BA from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1990 and his PhD from Cornell University in 2002. Since arriving at UW in 2001, he has taught Native American literature at every level, from graduate seminars to introductory lectures with over 300 students. He has published in multiple anthologies and journals including American Indian Quarterly, American Literary History, and Wicazo Sa. He is the author of Red Land, Red Power: Grounding Knowledge in the American Indian Novel (Duke 2008) and co-author of Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective (Oklahoma 2008). Recent publications include essays on New World travel, intellectual risk, and teaching Native American literature in the predominantly white classroom. Teuton's new book project, Cities of Refuge: American Indian Literary Internationalism, was awarded fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, the School of Advanced Research, and the UW-Madison Graduate School Research Competition. He is a member of the editorial board for American Literature and sits on the Coordinating Team and the Summer Institute Executive Committee for the Future of Minority Studies. Teuton is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.