Mediating Indianness

by Cathy Covell Waegner (Editor)

Overview

Mediating Indianness investigates a wide range of media—including print, film, theater, ritual dance, music, recorded interviews, photography, and treaty rhetoric—that have been used in exploitative, informative, educative, sustaining, protesting, or entertaining ways to negotiate Native American identities and images. The contributors to this collection are (Native) American and European scholars whose initial findings were presented or performed in a four-panel format at the 2012 MESEA (Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas) conference in Barcelona. The selection of the term Indianness is deliberate. It points to the intricate construction of ethnicity as filtered through media, despite frequent assertions of “authenticity.” From William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s claim, extravagantly advertised on both sides of the Atlantic, that he was staging “true-to-life” scenes from Indian life in his Wild West shows to contemporary Native hip-hop artist Quese IMC’s announcement that his songs tell his people’s “own history” and draw on their “true” culture, media of all types has served to promote disparate agendas claiming legitimacy. This volume does not shy away from the issue of evaluation and how it is only tangential to medial artificiality. As evidenced in this collection, “the vibrant, ever-transforming future of Native peoples is located within a complex intersection of cultural influences,” said Susan Power, author of Sacred Wilderness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628950458
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2015
Series:	American Indian Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	348
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Cathy Covell Waegner taught American Studies at the University of Siegen in Germany until her retirement in 2013.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface Part One. Transethnicity/Transculturality and Protest in Historical Contexts Billy J. Stratton, “You Have Liberty to Return to Your Own Country”: Tecumseh, Myth, and the Rhetoric of Native Sovereignty Sonja Georgi, “IndiVisible” Identities: Mediating Native American and African American Encounters and Transethnic Identity in A Thrilling Sketch of the Life of Okah Tubbee Cathy Covell Waegner, “Buffalo Bill Takes a Scalp”: Mediated Transculturality on Both Sides of the Atlantic with William F. Cody’s Wild West, from Show to Hollywood and YouTube A. Robert Lee, Native Postmodern? Remediating History in the Fiction of Stephen Graham Jones and D. L. Birchfield A. Robert Lee, Flight Times in Gerald Vizenor’s Blue Ravens: White Earth Mediating History Part Two. (Trans)media Literacy, Youth Cultures, and Nation Ellen Cushman, ᏣᎳᎩ ᏗᎪᏪᎵ Cherokee Writing: Mediating Traditions, Codifying Nation Chris LaLonde, “We Can Tell Our Own History, We Can Tell Our Own Future”: Quese IMC, Culture Shock Camp, and an Indigenous Hip-Hop Movement Christine Plicht, Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man Revisited: Still Thwarting All Cultural and Cinematic Notions of Alterity Ludmila Martanovschi, Mediating the Native Gaze: The American Indian Youth’s Cinematic Presence in Chris Eyre’s Films Kimberly Blaeser, Refraction and Helio-tropes: Native Photography and Visions of Light Interlude Evelina Zuni Lucero, RefleXions: A Creative Essay Jane Haladay, Festa de Sant Joan: June 23, 2012, Barcelona, Spain Part Three. Performance, Gender, and Cultural Capital Sally McBeth, “The Bear Is Our Protector”: Metaphor and Mediation in the Northern Ute (Nuche) Bear Dance Nicholle Dragone, Eric Gansworth’s Theatrical Productions: “Indianness” Mediated through the Juxtaposition of Cultural Capital and Performance John Purdy, Eric Gansworth’s Re-Creation Story: Mediation and Remediation Kerstin Schmidt, Mobile Indians: Capitalism, the Performance of Mobility, and the Mediation of Place in Minda Martin’s Documentary Free Land Part Four. “Crow Commons”: Creative Correspondences and Virtual Affiliations Kimberly Blaeser, Jane Haladay, Gordon Henry Jr., Molly McGlennen, and Jesse Peters, An Exposition of Virtual Exchanges Gerald Vizenor, Envoy: Response to “Crow Commons” Notes on Contributors

Editorial Reviews

Mediating Indianness offers a cornucopia of voices proclaiming that Native American identity is alive, expressive, and still under construction. . . . Standing behind the volume, visible here and there in shadowy form, sometimes stepping out into the light, is the archetypal figure of the writer and activist Gerald Vizenor.”
—Paul Spickard, author of Almost All Aliens and Multiple Identities



This volume is as crucial as it is timely, and it is precise in its fusion of historical research with astute descriptions of contemporary Native American life.
—Mita Banerjee, Director, Center for Comparative Native and Indigenous Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany


Theoretically sophisticated, the assembled essays create a veritable palimpsest of readings by Native scholars, European experts, and creative artists.
—John Wharton Lowe, Barbara Lester Methvin Distinguished Professor, University of Georgia


Mediating Indianness is an exemplary project arising from a fruitful international dialogue at the current intersections of ethnic and media studies.
—Klaus Zilles, Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations, Barcelona, Spain


I was struck by how flexible and alive this collection was, purposely unsticking, unsealing so many working assumptions about Native identity and culture.
—Susan Power, author of Sacred Wilderness


Mediating Indianness offers a cornucopia of voices proclaiming that Native American identity is alive, expressive, and still under construction. . . . Standing behind the volume, visible here and there in shadowy form, sometimes stepping out into the light, is the archetypal figure of the writer and activist Gerald Vizenor.
—Paul Spickard, author of Almost All Aliens and Multiple Identities

From the Publisher