That Dream Shall Have a Name: Native Americans Rewriting America

by David L. Moore

Overview

The founding idea of “America” has been based largely on the expected sweeping away of Native Americans to make room for EuroAmericans and their cultures. In this authoritative study, David L. Moore examines the works of five well-known Native American writers and their efforts, beginning in the colonial period, to redefine an “America” and “American identity” that includes Native Americans.   

That Dream Shall Have a Name focuses on the writing of Pequot Methodist minister William Apess in the 1830s; on Northern Paiute activist Sarah Winnemucca in the 1880s; on Salish/Métis novelist, historian, and activist D’Arcy McNickle in the 1930s; and on Laguna poet and novelist Leslie Marmon Silko and on Spokane poet, novelist, humorist, and filmmaker Sherman Alexie, both in the latter twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. 

Moore studies these five writers’ stories about the conflicted topics of sovereignty, community, identity, and authenticity—always tinged with irony and often with humor. He shows how Native Americans have tried from the beginning to shape an American narrative closer to its own ideals, one that does not include the death and destruction of their peoples. This compelling work offers keen insights into the relationships between Native and American identity and politics in a way that is both accessible to newcomers and compelling to those already familiar with these fields of study.  
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496209740
Publisher:	Nebraska Paperback
Publication date:	04/01/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	488
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

David L. Moore is a professor of English at the University of Montana. His numerous articles have appeared in Studies in American Indian Literature, American Indian Quarterly, and scholarly anthologies.

 

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction: Fool Soldiers 1

1 Knowing It Was to Come: Sovereignty as Sacrifice 37

2 A Plethora of Animistic Factors Immersed in Ethereal Realities: Community as Animism 92

3 The Soul of the Indian Is Immortal: Identity as Change 165

4 The Creative Ability of Indian People: Authenticity as Translation 225

5 The Last Laugh: Humor and Humanity in Native American Pluralism 300

Conclusion: America's Struggle with Authenticity 365

Biographical Appendix 379

Notes 383

Bibliography 407

Index 439

Editorial Reviews

"This book is an impressive study and a great contribution to our literary classrooms."—Leola Tsinnajinnie, Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education

Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education - Leola Tsinnajinnie

"David Moore has spent his career studying Native American literature; That Dream Shall Have a Name distills many years of teaching, reading, and thinking. A signal contribution to Native American scholarship, it shines with wisdom, poignancy, and hope."—O. Alan Weltzien, Western American Literature

Western American Literature - O. Alan Weltzien

"Profoundly insightful, That Dream Shall Have a Name may well set a new standard for literary studies in American literature."—Kathleen Carty, Native American and Indigenous Studies

Native American and Indigenous Studies - Kathleen Carty