Native Women and Land - by Stephanie J Fitzgerald (Paperback)

About the Book

"What roles do literary and community texts and social media play in the memory, politics, and lived experience of those dispossessed?" Fitzgerald asks this question in her introduction and sets out to answer it in her study of literature and social media by (primarily) Native women who are writing about and often actively protesting against displacement caused both by forced relocation and environmental disaster.

Book Synopsis

"What roles do literary and community texts and social media play in the memory, politics, and lived experience of those dispossessed?" Fitzgerald asks this question in her introduction and sets out to answer it in her study of literature and social media by (primarily) Native women who are writing about and often actively protesting against displacement caused both by forced relocation and environmental disaster. By examining a range of diverse materials, including the writings of canonical Native American writers such as Louise Erdrich, Linda Hogan, and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, and social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook, this work brings new focus to analyzing how indigenous communities and authors relate to land, while also exploring broader connections to literary criticism, environmental history and justice, ecocriticism, feminist studies, and new media studies.

Review Quotes

"Fitzgerald offers a concentrated scrutiny that should attract a broad readership. No one should doubt her powerful intellectual weight and resourcefulness. . . . Essential."
--Choice

"This book could not be more timely. From Cherokee oral traditions, to the acclaimed novels of Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich, to the Idle No More movement's savvy use of Twitter and YouTube, Fitzgerald tells a riveting story of how Native communities have responded to land dispossession and environmental destruction with messages of sustainability and hope."
--Siobhan Senier, author of Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance: Helen Hunt Jackson, Sarah Winnemucca, and Victoria Howard