Tribal Theory in Native American Literature

Scholars and readers continue to wrestle with how best to understand and appreciate the wealth of oral and written literatures created by the Native communities of North America. Are critical frameworks developed by non-Natives applicable across cultures, or do they reinforce colonialist power and perspectives? Is it appropriate and useful to downplay tribal differences and instead generalize about Native writing and storytelling as a whole?  Focusing on Dakota writers and storytellers, Seneca critic Penelope Myrtle Kelsey offers a penetrating assessment of theory and interpretation in indigenous literary criticism in the twenty-first century. Tribal Theory in Native American Literature delineates a method for formulating a Native-centered theory or, more specifically, a use of tribal languages and their concomitant knowledges to derive a worldview or an equivalent to Western theory that is emic to indigenous worldviews. These theoretical frameworks can then be deployed to create insightful readings of Native American texts. Kelsey demonstrates this approach with a fresh look at early Dakota writers, including Marie McLaughlin, Charles Eastman, and Zitkala-Ša and later storytellers such as Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Ella Deloria, and Philip Red Eagle.  This book raises the provocative issue of how Native languages and knowledges were historically excluded from the study of Native American literature and how their encoding in early Native American texts destabilized colonial processes. Cogently argued and well researched, Tribal Theory in Native American Literature sets an agenda for indigenous literary criticism and invites scholars to confront the worlds behind the literatures that they analyze.

"Well positioned within current scholarship on Native American literatures, this study offers a much-needed view of how, and why, Native American literary studies need to progress."—C. L. Sheffield, CHOICE, "Kelsey's analyses are insightful and intelligent, and her familiarity with Dakota language and culture provides a significant and very helpful grounding for her readings of the texts."—Lucy Maddox, Studies in American Indian Literatures, “Well-written and exceptionally thoughtful, Penelope Kelsey’s theoretical framework does for Dakota literature what still needs to be done for most Native American literatures. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Cultural or Native American Studies. Although intelligent and well-researched, it never sinks into jargon or convolution; rather it speaks about specific Dakota literature and speaks about it well.”—W. S. Penn, author of Killing Time with Strangers and All My Sins Are Relatives, “How can we argue against Indigenous erasure and invisibility when we accept our colonization by our behavior? Be thankful Kelsey’s Tribal Theory in Native American Literature asks us to take up the challenge and task on behalf of Indigenous land, culture, and community!”—Simon J. Ortiz, author of Out There Somewhere and Woven Stone, “Tribal Theory is a necessary work, which etches out a roadmap to a literary critical practice, independent of Eurocentric landmarks. Here, as in the tradition of the Dakota, Kelsey serves as “culture bearer” in the face of academic assimilation. The work is a significant gesture within the grand movement toward intellectual sovereignty upon which the survival of our pueblos depends.”—Cherríe L. Moraga, author of Loving in the Wars and The Last Generation

Penelope Myrtle Kelsey is an assistant professor of English at Western Illinois University.