Project MUSE®: Studies in American Indian Literatures - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Studies in American Indian Literatures.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 16 (2004) through current issueLatest Articles: Studies in American Indian LiteraturesTWOProject MUSE®Studies in American Indian Literatures1548-95900730-3238Latest articles in Studies in American Indian Literatures. Feed provided by Project MUSE®From the Editor
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970021
<p></p>
Han Mitakuyepi,Following our recent special issue SAIL is delighted to return with some new work that spans a range of eras, titles, and genres. "Lines of Inquiry," for instance, is a poem by Abigail Chabitnoy that includes images that are meant to be read alongside the text. Being able to publish new poetry by an Indigenous artist is yet another example of SAIL's enduring commitment to engaging with a wide range of "studies" in American Indian "literatures." Alongside Chabitnoy's contemporary poem readers will travel back in time to learn from Mary Ludwig about the power of Laguna Tribal stories, Jake McGinnis's study of George Copyway, and Travis Franks's thoughtful examination of the "afterlives" of John Rollin
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallFrom the Editor2025-09-19text/htmlen-USFrom the Editor2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®40602026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19The Elusive John Rollin Ridge: The Afterlives of "An Indian's Grave" and His Ambiguous Literary Legacy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970022
<p></p>
John Rollin Ridge occupies an uncomfortable place in American Indian and Cherokee literatures, in part, because the man and his writing do not fit neatly with the ways we tend to think about Indigenous political identities and cultural productions. Among literary scholars, Ridge is most well-known as the author of The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), which is generally considered the first novel by an Indigenous author published in the United States. Even here, Ridge's legacy is complicated, as critics have offered drastically different interpretations of this formative work. Cheryl Walker has argued that Joaquín Murieta is not primarily about Indigenous peoples and therefore should not be considered
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallThe Elusive John Rollin Ridge: The Afterlives of "An Indian's Grave" and His Ambiguous Literary Legacy2025-09-19text/htmlen-USThe Elusive John Rollin Ridge: The Afterlives of "An Indian's Grave" and His Ambiguous Literary Legacy2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®878062026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19Of Service and Ceremonies: Capturing Laguna's Tribal Stories
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970023
<p></p>
Chester Nez should have received a hero's welcome when he returned to the United States in 1945. Nez served in the United States Marine Corps as one of the original Navajo Code Talkers who used the Navajo language to develop an unbreakable code that allowed the Marines to encode and transmit military messages in the Pacific Front during World War II. Philip Johnston, who had achieved fluency in the Navajo's language while living on the Navajo Reservation where his father served as a missionary, conceived the idea to develop a military code in the Indigenous language. However, the ingenuity of young Navajo volunteers who developed an unbreakable code brought Johnston's idea to fruition.1 Chester Nez was one of those
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallOf Service and Ceremonies: Capturing Laguna's Tribal Stories2025-09-19text/htmlen-USOf Service and Ceremonies: Capturing Laguna's Tribal Stories2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®1028662026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19The Indigenous Final Girl in Stephen Graham Jones's The Only Good Indians
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970024
<p></p>
Blackfeet author Stephen Graham Jones has described his early education in cinematic horror, consisting of slashers featuring the likes of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers as "VHS homework" in preparation for a "test."1 The "test" turned out to be director Wes Craven's 1996 slasher film Scream. Scream is widely known for helping to revive American horror cinema, which was in the midst of a commercial low point at the time, and for inspiring a short-lived wave of "teen slashers" such as I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Urban Legend (1998). Wes Craven's film is also notable for Kevin Williamson's screenplay—a metatextual reflection on horror—or more precisely, slasher—tropes and cliches.
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallThe Indigenous Final Girl in Stephen Graham Jones's The Only Good Indians2025-09-19text/htmlen-USThe Indigenous Final Girl in Stephen Graham Jones's The Only Good Indians2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®891832026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19Tobacco, Snakes, and Wolves: Uncoiling Sovereignty from the Erotic in Drowning in Fire by Craig Womack
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970025
<p></p>
The theory of "the sovereign erotic" has dominated queer Indigenous studies discourse for the last decade. Though this discourse has been essential to opening conversations about the colonizing nature of cisheteronormativity, and the importance of queer Indigenous peoples in tribal communities, it has limits in conceptualizing the full potential of the erotic. Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Nation scholar Audra Simpson explains that the discourse of sovereignty in Indigenous studies is a "critical language game" that cannot be abandoned, however, sovereignty has become the grounds for various claims in the field that do not always correlate to tribal sovereignty.1 In this article, I argue that sovereignty and the erotic are
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallTobacco, Snakes, and Wolves: Uncoiling Sovereignty from the Erotic in Drowning in Fire by Craig Womack2025-09-19text/htmlen-USTobacco, Snakes, and Wolves: Uncoiling Sovereignty from the Erotic in Drowning in Fire by Craig Womack2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®892352026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19"Lines of Inquiry"
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970026
<p></p>
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmall"Lines of Inquiry"2025-09-19text/htmlen-US"Lines of Inquiry"2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®109082026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19Aayuu Metiipay Meyaay 'Emat: Bringing Her Voice Back to the Land: The Literary Rematriation of The Autobiography of Delfina Cuero
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970027
<p></p>
Native American storying is an act of gathering many voices to tell a story in many different ways. One voice alone is not enough because we are what we are in relationship to others, and we each have our different way of seeing. Native American writing is also an alignment of voices so the story comes through.I begin with a quote from Diane Glancy about "gathering many voices" to tell a story because this practice is at the heart of literary rematriation.1 I deploy the concept of rematriation to an examination of The Autobiography of Delfina Cuero as Told to Florence Shipek,2 following Steve New-comb's "PERSPECTIVES: Healing, Restoration, and Rematriation" from the Indigenous Law Institute. In his examination of
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallAayuu Metiipay Meyaay 'Emat: Bringing Her Voice Back to the Land: The Literary Rematriation of The Autobiography of Delfina Cuero2025-09-19text/htmlen-USAayuu Metiipay Meyaay 'Emat: Bringing Her Voice Back to the Land: The Literary Rematriation of The Autobiography of Delfina Cuero2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®833502026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19Unquiet Title: Rewriting Indian Country in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970028
<p></p>
The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life—or, at least, land is necessary for life. Thus contests for land can be—, indeed, often are—contests for life.Europeans did not listen to the souls of their dead. That was the root of all trouble for Europeans.Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead is sometimes regarded as the author's masterpiece and is considered a cornerstone of contemporary Native American fiction. The 1991 novel, which follows the entwined lives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous characters in North and South America, comprises a sweeping critique of the matrix of capitalism and New World colonialism, and envisions an antidote to those intertwined
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallUnquiet Title: Rewriting Indian Country in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead2025-09-19text/htmlen-USUnquiet Title: Rewriting Indian Country in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®953742026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19George Copway's Figures of Homesickness
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029
<p></p>
I view my life like the mariner on the wide ocean, without a compass, in the dark night, as he watches the heavens for the north star, which his eye having discovered, he makes his way amidst surging seas, and tossed by angry billows into the very jaws of death, till he arrives safely anchored at port. I have been tossed with hope and fear in this life.Writing in his autobiography, The Life, History, and Travels of Kah-gega-gah-bowh (1847), Mississauga Ojibwe author George Copway looks back at a much-anticipated homecoming.1 For more than five years he's been traveling, teaching, and preaching among Ojibwe communities near Lake Superior and in the upper Mississippi River basin—and the whole time he's longed for
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970029">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/246/image/coversmallGeorge Copway's Figures of Homesickness2025-09-19text/htmlen-USGeorge Copway's Figures of Homesickness2025-09-192025TWOProject MUSE®846952026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002025-09-19