Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony, Almanac of the Dead, Gardens in the Dunes

Description

A major American writer at the turn of this millennium, Leslie Marmon Silko has also been one of the most powerful voices in the flowering of Native American literature since the publication of her 1977 novel Ceremony. This guide, with chapters written by leading scholars of Native American literature, explores Silko’s major novels Ceremony, Almanac of the Dead, and Gardens in the Dunes as an entryway into the full body of her work that includes poetry, essays, short fiction, film, photography, and other visual art. These chapters map Silko’s place in the broad context of American literary history. Further, they trace her pivotal role in prompting other Indigenous writers to enter the conversations she helped to launch. Along the way, the book engages her historical themes of land, ethnicity, race, gender, trauma, and healing, while examining her narrative craft and her mythic lyricism. Cover Contents “Linked to the Land”: An Introduction to Reading Leslie Marmon Silko Part One “Accept this offering”: Introduction to Part One 1 Healing the “Man of Monstrous Dreams”: Indian Masculinities in Silko’s Ceremony 2 “Branched into All Directions of Time”: Pluralism, Physics, and Compassion in Silko’s Ceremony 3 The Lost Women of Silko’s Ceremony Part Two “Indian Country”: Introduction to Part Two 4 Indigenous Economic Critique in Silko’s Almanac of the Dead and Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood: Against a Philosophy of Separation 5 Silko, Freud, and the Voicing of Disavowed Histories in Almanac of the Dead 6 Seeing Double: Twins and Time in Silko’s Almanac of the Dead Part Three “Old Snake’s Beautiful Daughter”: Introduction to Part Three 7 World of Water, World of Sand: Teaching Silko’s Gardens in the Dunes and Sullivan’s Star Waka 8 EuroAmerica, Europe, and the Indigenous: The Complex (and Complicating) Dialectics of Silko’s Jamesian Turn 9 “Sand Lizard Warned Her Children to Share”: Philosophies of Gardening and Exchange in Silko’s Gardens in the Dunes Further Reading Notes on Contributors Index