Beyond Bounds: Cross-cultural Essays on Anglo, American Indian, and Chicano LiteratureA healthy disrespect for cultural exclusiveness marks the essays collected here, a series of appreciations and explications of writers not ordinarily considered together. As the author notes in his introduction, his own biography and career are reflected in this assemblage. An Anglo of mixed Irish, German, and American Indian heritage who grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood in Albuquerque, Gish has always known that one's place on the academic, social, or cultural 'bus' (back, front, passenger, or driver) changes with the times, as does the bus itself. Here he shares with us not only his recent enthusiasmshe was among the first critics to consider such minority writers as Rudolfo Anaya, James Welch, Ray Young Bear, and Jimmy Santiago Baca, and his essays on them serve as excellent introductions to their work - but also his continuing appreciation for the Anglo writers he read as a young man. Today Charles Lummis, Erna and Harvey Fergusson, and Witter Bynner are often dismissed as paternalistic outsiders or colonialists. In disentangling their literary strengths from these stereotypes, Gish reminds us that we gain nothing from exclusivity. His openness to the varieties of American literature will make this book useful to a wide range of readers, especially students and teachers of college and high school literature classes. |
Common terms and phrases
adobia Albuquerque American Indian Anaya Anglo Anglo-American Antonio artist attempts Aztlán Baca's barrio Blackfeet Blood ceremony Chicano culture curandera D. H. Lawrence Dancing Gods dramatic earth Erna Fergusson ethnic ethnocentric exotic exoticism fiction Fools Crow frontier Harvey Fergusson Heart of Aztlán Horgan hunting Ibid Isleta Isleta Pueblo Ismelda James Welch Jim Loney Jimmy Santiago Baca La Llorona land landscape Lawrence legend listening literary literature lives Llano Llorona Loney's Lummis Lummis's magic realism Mesquakie Mexican Mexico mock intrigue Montana mother mountain mystery and mock myth mythic narrative narrator narrator's Native American novel Paul Horgan Penitentes poems poet Pueblo dances Pueblo Indian Folk-Stories reader ritual river rock Rudolfo Salamander Santa Fe Shalako song South Valley Southwest southwestern Spanish stories tion Tortuga tradition Ultima voice West Winter witch Witter Bynner woman words writing Yellow Calf Yellow Kidney York Young Bear Young Bear's poetry Zuni