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Our Fire Survives the Storm A Cherokee Literary History Daniel Heath Justice |
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$60.00 Cloth |
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title Asserts the strength and diversity of Cherokee identity through its rich literary tradition. Once the most powerful indigenous nation in the southeastern United States, the Cherokees survive and thrive as a people nearly two centuries after the Trail of Tears and a hundred years after the allotment of Indian Territory. In Our Fire Survives the Storm, Daniel Heath Justice traces the expression of Cherokee identity in that nation’s literary tradition. Through cycles of war and peace, resistance and assimilation, trauma and regeneration, Cherokees have long debated what it means to be Cherokee through protest writings, memoirs, fiction, and retellings of traditional stories. Justice employs the Chickamauga consciousness of resistance and Beloved Path of engagement—theoretical approaches that have emerged out of Cherokee social history—to interpret diverse texts composed in English, a language embraced by many as a tool of both access and defiance. Justice’s analysis ultimately locates the Cherokees as a people of many perspectives mingled into a collective sense of nationhood. Just as the oral traditions of the Cherokee people reflect the living realities and concerns of those who share them, Justice concludes, so too is their literary tradition a textual testament to Cherokee endurance and vitality. "Justice writes well, and I recall someone's observing once that Sigmund Freud became influential not only for his theories but for the passionate, compelling prose with which he delivered them. Justice’s passages about Nanye’hi (Nancy Ward) and Tsiyu Gansini (Dragging Canoe) are good examples of this. In terms of Justices articulating the dichotomy between the Chicamaugua (War Chief) tradition and the Beloved Path (Peace Chief) tradition, the portraits of Tsiyu and Nanye’hi are crucial. The stories of these two important Cherokee historical figures are compelling, and Justice’s prose brings the story to life. Our Fire Survives the Storm is a good book, valuable for both libraries and classrooms." —Great Plains Quarterly “This book is a good resource for students, educators, writers and those interested in Cherokee culture.” —News From Indian Country “With Daniel Heath Justice’s approach in hand, college-level students of Native American literature have a fine method of analyzing stories for strengths, purpose, and direction.” —California Bookwatch “Justice makes an important, striking contribution to the growing body of tribal-centered criticism.” —Choice “The defense of his pedagogy is both provocative and profound.” —The American Indian Quarterly Daniel Heath Justice is assistant professor of aboriginal literatures at the University of Toronto. 296 pages | 13 halftones, 2 maps | 5 7⁄8 x 9 | 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Map of the Pre-Removal Territories of the Cherokee Nation Part I. Deep Roots Part II. Geographies of Removal Part III. Regeneration Afterword: The Stories That Matter |
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$22.50 Paper