Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T07:26:20.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - Native American Horror, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction

from Part IV - Visions and Revisions: 21st-Century Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Eric Gary Anderson
Edited by
Melanie Benson Taylor
Melanie Benson Taylor
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Get access

Summary

From the uncanny werewolf families and zombie border patrol guards in the novels of Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet) to the digital citizens and virtually-enhanced tourists in Cherokee writer Blake Hausman's novel Riding the Trail of Tears, Native Americans are creating strange and scintillating new worlds of unforeseen horrors and possibilities. Such works engage the popular genres of horror and fantasy in order to mobilize sophisticated political critiques of capitalism, globalization, and the colonial imbrications of Indigenous peoples, albeit in surprising, genre-bending forms. This chapter explores the features of this new and vibrant field, offering readings of some of its most provocative titles and suggesting ways that such works can help critics and readers chart fresh, productive pathways into both the histories and the futures of North American Indigenous populations. In the very act of strengthening and deepening the connections between the speculative and the real, Native writers craft methodologies of resistance.

Keywords

horrorfantasyspeculative fictionsupernatural fictiongenre fictionIndigenous undeadnessthe uncannythe digital uncannyTrail of Tears
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Native American Literature , pp. 431 - 446
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexie, Sherman. 1993. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.Google Scholar
Alexie, Sherman. 2007. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Anderson, Eric Gary. 2016. “Raising the Indigenous Undead.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic, ed. Castillo Street, Susan and Crow, Charles L., 323–35. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Brown Spiers, Miriam C. 2016. “Reimagining Resistance: Achieving Sovereignty in Indigenous Science Fiction.” Transmotion 2, 1–2: 52–75.Google Scholar
Byrd, Jodi A. 2014. “Red Dead Conventions: American Indian Transgeneric Fictions.” In The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature, ed. Cox, James H. and Justice, Daniel Heath, 344–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carr, A. A. 1995. Eye Killers. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Dillon, Grace. 2012. Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Erdrich, Louise. [1984] 1993. Love Medicine. Rev. and exp. edn. New York: Harper Perennial.Google Scholar
Erdrich, Louise. 2017. Future Home of the Living God. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Hausman, Blake. 2011. Riding the Trail of Tears. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen Graham. 2000. The Fast Red Road: A Plainsong. Tallahassee, FL: Fiction Collective.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2003. The Bird Is Gone: A Manifesto. Tallahassee, FL: Fiction Collective.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2006. Demon Theory. San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2010. It Came from Del Rio. Lyons, CO: Trapdoor Books.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2012. Zombie Bake-Off. Portland, OR: Lazy Fascist Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2014. The Gospel of Z. Cincinnati: Samhain.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2016. “Letter to a Just-Starting-Out Indian Writer – and Maybe to Myself.” In The Fictions of Stephen Graham Jones: A Critical Companion, ed. Stratton, Billy J., xi–xviii. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 2017. Mapping the Interior. New York: Tor.com.Google Scholar
Justice, Daniel Heath. 2011. The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles. Rev. and exp. omnibus edn. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Krupat, Arnold, ed., 1994. Native American Autobiography: An Anthology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Owens, Louis. 1994. Bone Game. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Power, Susan. 1994. The Grass Dancer. New York: Berkley Books.Google Scholar
Silko, Leslie Marmon. 1977. Ceremony. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Silko, Leslie Marmon. 1990. Almanac of the Dead. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Taylor, Drew Hayden. 2016. Take Us to Your Chief: And Other Stories. Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre.Google Scholar
Taylor, Drew Hayden. 2007. The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Novel. Toronto: Annick Press.Google Scholar
Tillett, Rebecca. 2005. “‘Resting in Peace, Not in Pieces’: The Concerns of the Living in Anna Lee Walters’s Ghost Singer.” SAIL 17, 3 (Fall): 85–114.Google Scholar
Tingle, Tim. 2013. How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story. Oklahoma City: Road Runner Press.Google Scholar
Trefzer, Annette. 2015. “The Indigenous Uncanny: Spectral Genealogies in LeAnne Howe’s Fiction.” In Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, ed. Anderson, Eric Gary, Hagood, Taylor, and Cross Turner, Daniel, 199–210. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Vizenor, Gerald. 1978. Darkness in Saint Louis: Bearheart. St. Paul, MN: Truck Press.Google Scholar
Walters, Anna Lee. 1988. Ghost Singer: A Novel. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Pub.Google Scholar
Welch, James. 1986. Fools Crow. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Wilson, Daniel H. 2011. Robopocalypse. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Wilson, Daniel H. 2012. Amped. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Wilson, Daniel H. 2014. Robogenesis. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×