The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Culture [Hardcover]

Arnold Krupat (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1996

The Turn to the Native is a timely account of Native American literature and the critical writings that have grown up around it. Arnold Krupat considers racial and cultural “essentialism,” the ambiguous position of non-Native critics in the field, cultural “sovereignty” and “property,” and the place of Native American culture in a so-called multicultural era. Chapters follow on the relationship of Native American culture to postcolonial writing and postmodernism. Krupat comments on the recent work of numerous Native writers. The final chapter, “A Nice Jewish Boy among the Indians,” presents the author’s effort to balance his Jewish and working-class heritage, his adherence to Western “critical” ideals, and his ongoing loyalty to the values of Native cultures.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"(Krupat shows) skill in deepening the meanings of contemporary Native American texts by extrapolating themes from specific stories.... Through his flashes of critical acumen, he himself is able to tell a good story as well." -- Boston Book Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Arnold Krupat, a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College, is the author of Ethnocriticism: Ethnography, History, Literature.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 149 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (October 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803227353
• ISBN-13: 978-0803227354
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,076,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Non-Indian Critics and Readers Will Want to Read This, April 28, 2002

By 

Jason N. Mical (Bellevue, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism and Culture (Paperback)

Arnold Krupats The Turn to the Native is a unique bit of literary criticism. One of the few studies of American Indian (or Indian, to use Sherman Alexies preferred term) literature, aside from Ruoffs American Indian Literatures and Graulichs Yellow Woman, featuring Leslie Marmon Silko, Krupats book examines major themes of Indian literature as well as the role of the non-Indian when reading Indian books.

The Turn to the Native, while it serves as a nice overview of major themes, especially post-Colonialism and the ideologies through which Westerners always tend to view Indian literature, concerns itself largely with Gerald Vizenor and his Heirs of Columbus (two out of the four criticism chapters are devoted to Vizenor, and a full one of them is devoted to Heirs.) Krupat identifies some of the Sartrian influences (and refutations thereof) in Heirs, while placing the book squarely in the larger context of postcolonial literature and literary theory as a whole.

But the main theme of the book is IDENTITY, which he fully explores in the last (and byfar the longest) chapter, A Nice Jewish Boy Among the Indians. While obstinately about the role of the non-Indian reader in general (and the non-Indian critic in particular) in exploring and reading Indian literature, it really serves as a model for later criticisms of Indian work (and, Ill admit, it helped me in my own journey into this subject far more than traditional criticism ever did). Told in the form of a story (what else?), it tells Krupats story as a Jewish-American immigrant and the offspring of Holocaust survivors, who share quite a bit in common with the Indians who, in their own way, are survivors of a different kind of Holocaust. From that basis, Krupat manages to make several statements about the role of non-Indian critics (shaky at best) and non-Indian readers (sorry, you just wont get all of it). As a non-Indian, it was refreshing to read, and it helped me immensely in organizing my thoughts about Indian literature and my place as a twinkie in it.

Essential reading for anyone doing scholarly work in Native American or Indian literature. Makes an excellent companion piece to The Heirs of Columbus.