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

wicazo sa review: A Journal of Native American Studies 15.2 (2000) 5-6



[Access article in PDF]

Editor's Commentary

William Willard, Guest Editor


Papers prepared for two panels at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 1999 annual meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, were the basis for the articles in this issue, titled "Native American Literature on the Edge of a New Century."

American Indian literature in the twentieth century began slowly with few practitioners. Gertrude Bonnin (aka Zitkala Sa), Charles Eastman, and other less well-known writers had some presence early in the century.

In the second half of the century, Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko broke through to acceptance by publishers, more or less leading the way for other writers to follow. In the process a mainstream and its margins have developed. Canonicity can be rather easily pronounced, at least according to some specialists in the field. Others are ready to disagree with some or all of those pronouncements. Those disagreements lead to clashes over what is American Indian literature and who is or isn't an American Indian writer--a writer who happens to be an American Indian, or an American Indian who writes about American Indian subjects? And who is an American Indian anyway? Someone who woke up one morning and said what if I am part Indian? Or someone who didn't have a choice any morning, they already were one?

In this issue that question of authenticity is examined in an essay on that topic. It is very probable we will see some future articles that will take up the twenty-first-century variants of these arguments and [End Page 5] probably some brand-new questions that haven't yet seen the light of a panel paper at a conference.

I invite the readership to send me e-mail nominating the authors who will create or are creating the mainstream of twenty-first-century American Indian literature. Detail their qualifications. Let us begin a dialogue on the development of a new canon in a new century. My e-mail address is wwillard@mail.wsu.edu.

My commentary is brief here, because it appears in other places in this issue under several rubrics.



William Willard is professor emeritus in the departments of anthropology and Comparative American cultures at Washington State University. His interests are American Indian literature, the renaissance of American Indian religion, the evolution of tribal government in the post-Collier period, and the development of inter-American indigenous alliances since Public Law 93-638 was established as U.S. federal policy. He is also a founding and continuing editor of Wicazo Sa Review.

...

pdf

Share