Land and Spirit in Native America
This book accurately depicts Native American approaches to land and spirituality through an interdisciplinary examination of Indian philosophy, history, and literature.

Indian approaches to land and spirituality are neither simple nor monolithic, making them hard to grasp for outsiders. A fuller, more accurate understanding of these concepts enables comprehension of the unique ways land and spirit have interlinked Native American communities across centuries of civilization, and reveals insights about our current pressing environmental concerns and American history.

In Land and Spirit in Native America, author Joy Porter argues that American colonization has been a determining factor in how we perceive Indian spirituality and Indian relationships to nature. Having an appreciation for these traditional values regarding ritual, memory, time, kinship, and the essential reciprocity between all things allows us to rethink aspects of history and culture. This understanding also makes Indian film, philosophy, literature, and art accessible.

1106249358
Land and Spirit in Native America
This book accurately depicts Native American approaches to land and spirituality through an interdisciplinary examination of Indian philosophy, history, and literature.

Indian approaches to land and spirituality are neither simple nor monolithic, making them hard to grasp for outsiders. A fuller, more accurate understanding of these concepts enables comprehension of the unique ways land and spirit have interlinked Native American communities across centuries of civilization, and reveals insights about our current pressing environmental concerns and American history.

In Land and Spirit in Native America, author Joy Porter argues that American colonization has been a determining factor in how we perceive Indian spirituality and Indian relationships to nature. Having an appreciation for these traditional values regarding ritual, memory, time, kinship, and the essential reciprocity between all things allows us to rethink aspects of history and culture. This understanding also makes Indian film, philosophy, literature, and art accessible.

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Land and Spirit in Native America

Land and Spirit in Native America

by Joy Porter
Land and Spirit in Native America

Land and Spirit in Native America

by Joy Porter

Hardcover

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Overview

This book accurately depicts Native American approaches to land and spirituality through an interdisciplinary examination of Indian philosophy, history, and literature.

Indian approaches to land and spirituality are neither simple nor monolithic, making them hard to grasp for outsiders. A fuller, more accurate understanding of these concepts enables comprehension of the unique ways land and spirit have interlinked Native American communities across centuries of civilization, and reveals insights about our current pressing environmental concerns and American history.

In Land and Spirit in Native America, author Joy Porter argues that American colonization has been a determining factor in how we perceive Indian spirituality and Indian relationships to nature. Having an appreciation for these traditional values regarding ritual, memory, time, kinship, and the essential reciprocity between all things allows us to rethink aspects of history and culture. This understanding also makes Indian film, philosophy, literature, and art accessible.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780313356063
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 05/04/2012
Series: Native America: Yesterday and Today
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Joy Porter is senior lecturer & associate dean of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at The University of Swansea, Wales, UK.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Series Editor's Foreword xi

Introduction xv

1 Approaches to Spirituality, Tradition, Land, Wilderness, Nature, Landscape, and Place 1

2 On Middle Way Thinking, Gardening, Parks, and Aspects of Indian Thinking about Land 21

3 Spiritual Approaches to Life in America 39

4 Literature, Land, and Spirit 55

5 Art, Land, and Spirit 69

6 Environmental Justice, Place, and Indian "Sacrifice" 91

7 Vanishing, Reappearing, and Disappearing Indians on American Soil 117

8 Future Directions Into and Out of the Wild 131

Notes 147

Bibliography 175

Index 191

What People are Saying About This

Simon J. Ortiz

“'Land and spirit are land and spirit, and, yes, it is all a complex matter,' I wrote to Joy Porter when I responded to her inquiry about writing an endorsement for Land & Spirit in Native America. Haah-uh, yes, it is a complex matter, I have to repeat quietly and contemplatively. As an Indigenous person of the Americas, I have lived within this complexity all my life and within the complexity—and perplexity—of all preceding generations before me! So twenty or so years ago, I began to use the phrase 'land, culture, and community' more or less as a mantra or part of a mantra that expresses continuity essential for land, culture, and community to be sustainable. Our Indigenous grandmothers and grandfathers insisted upon a way of life founded upon a philosophy that was not simply a means of connecting the dots or going with the flow. Land-culture-community is the foundation we live upon and within, the grandmothers and grandfathers say—even when it is a complex matter. I’m glad Joy Porter has written masterfully about this matter of continuity in Land & Spirit in Native America."

David Treuer

"Joy Porter's Land and Spirit in Native America effectively challenges the empty rhetoric and wishful thinking about pan-Indian holism, spirituality and place. In its place Porter offers a nuanced, grounded, and insightful investigation of the role of spirit and land in a range of tribal localities and uses an equally wide range of modalities to remind us the ways in which American Indian tribes have experienced and expressed the relationship of place and person in the last two hundred years. Excellent, insightful, and considered—a valuable addition to the field."

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