In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Introduction
  • Carol Zitzer-Comfort (bio)

It seems impossible that three years have passed since Malea Powell chaired a session titled “Digital NDNs” at the 2008 MLA convention; however, here we are in 2011 sharing work that began in that thoughtprovoking, engaging session. As always, Malea created a session that was timely and innovative. First, Rick Mott presented an intriguing and visually fascinating overview of his use of digital literacy and technology in teaching Leslie Silko’s Ceremony. Second, Nancy Strow Sheley and I discussed using digital technology to bridge and connect classrooms in Long Beach, California, and in Nicosia, Cyprus, as our students in these different locales shared readings and commentary on American Indian literature.

After the presentations, the room broke out in lively discussion. It was obvious that many people in the session, particularly Margaret Noori, were doing fascinating, cutting-edge work involving digital technology in their teaching of American Indian literatures and languages. This MLA session was just a beginning glimpse into the world of “digital NDNs.”

Coming away from the session, I couldn’t stop thinking about the excitement generated by this timely topic. Even during the session, several of us discussed the possibility that SAIL might be interested in publishing a special issue on the joining of digital technologies and American Indian literature; thus, the seeds for this volume germinated. This issue could never have come to fruition without the patient assistance and guidance of editors James Cox and Daniel Heath Justice and, of course, the vision of Malea Powell. [End Page ix] The contributors present the ways in which twenty-first-century technology can be used to augment our teaching in meaningful, authentic ways.

Margaret Noori, who is well known to all SAIL readers, presents an overview of how she uses technology to teach Anishinaabemowin. It was largely Meg’s excitement and innovation that compelled me to pursue the publication of this issue. Her essay focuses primarily on the development of the site Noongwa e-Anishinaabemjig: People Who Speak Anishinaabemowin Today, which is hosted by a server at the University of Michigan. This site continues to expand with the ever-changing world of language and technology and is an exciting space where scholars and students join together to teach and preserve Anishinaabemowin. As Noori points out:

To see and save language, people have always relied on technology. At first it may have been the fire that kept the storyteller and audience together after dark or warmed the women singing beneath the moon. Today, technology is a myriad of tools and systems allowing language to transfer concepts of identity, complex instructions about the universe, arching narratives, whispers of love, or plans for war. Language is still, and has always been, united with technology.

Rick Mott presents the development of groundbreaking, digitally motivated teaching in his paper, “Ceremony Earth: Digitizing Silko’s Novel for Students of the Twenty-first Century.” Like many of us teaching American Indian literature, Mott faces students who lack the background knowledge and context necessary to develop a full reading of many texts that we teach. As Mott notes:

Many students I have taught, especially those who are non-Native, get frustrated when they read Leslie Silko’s canonical Native American novel, Ceremony. Not only do they struggle with Silko’s disruptions of linear temporality and her collapsing of binary oppositions, they also struggle with the novel’s geographic and cultural location, which is wholly unfamiliar to most of them. [End Page x]

Mott has created a wealth of resources to provide his students with ways to better situate and contextualize Silko’s work. His essay “provide[s] background and context for this location-based, multimedia project, including reasons why digital literary artifacts attached to specific geographic points on geobrowsers are so appropriate for teaching Ceremony.”

Gabriel Estrada presents a wholly different way of infusing the latest digital technology into his teaching of American Indian literature. Estrada’s article, captivatingly titled “Native Avatars, Online Hubs, and Urban Indian Literature,” draws upon and expands the earlier work of Susan Lobo and Jennifer Ladino. In his introduction, Estrada notes that what his “essay adds to Lobo’s and Ladino’s sentiment is a sense of...

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