Native Moments

In the tradition of other great ex-patriot stories like The Sun Also Rises or All the Pretty Horses, Native Moments is a coming-of-age adventure set among the lush landscape of Costa Rica. After the death of his brother, Sanch Murray leaves for a surf trip as a way to cope and sets out on a quixotic search for an alternative to the American Dream. Set in 1999 Costa Rica, Sanch and his friend Jake Higdon wander the dirt roads of Tamarindo and surrounding areas chasing waves as a way to live out the romantic fantasy lifestyle of traveling surfers. Jake Higdon, six years Sanch's senior, takes on the role of the wise leader and Sanch as his young apprentice. Sanch's adventure leads to encounters with people who share world views he had never considered and could potentially shape his own changing perceptions about life. Through sometimes humorous episodes such as trying his hand as a matador at a roadside rodeo or in his not so humorous battle with dysentery, Sanch explores life's beauty and wonder alongside the darker undercurrents of humanity. Along his journey, Sanch befriends a shamanic traveler named Rob, young revolutionaries from Venezuela, numerous expatriates from around the world trying to escape whatever it is that keeps chasing them, and a beautiful local girl named Andrea, who Sanch suspects is a prostitute but can't help falling for.

In 2005, award-winning writer Richard Wagamese moved with his partner to a cabin outside Kamloops, B.C. In the crisp mountain air Wagamese felt a peace he'd seldom known before. Abused and abandoned as a kid, he'd grown up feeling there was nowhere he belonged. For years, only alcohol and moves from town to town seemed to ease the pain. In One Native Life, Wagamese looks back down the road he has travelled in reclaiming his identity and talks about the things he has learned as a human being, a man and an Ojibway in his fifty-two years. Whether he's writing about playing baseball, running away with the circus, attending a sacred bundle ceremony or meeting Pierre Trudeau, he tells these stories in a healing spirit. Through them, Wagamese celebrates the learning journey his life has been. Free of rhetoric and anger despite the horrors he has faced, Wagamese's prose resonates with a peace that has come from acceptance. Acceptance is an Aboriginal principle, and he has come to see that we are all neighbours here. One Native Life is his tribute to the people, the places and the events that have allowed him to stand in the sunshine and celebrate being alive.

In the “tribal moment in American politics,” which occurred from the 1950s to the mid- to late-1970s, American Indians waged civil disobedience for tribal self-determination and fought from within the U.S. legal and political systems. The U.S. government responded characteristically, overall wielding its authority in incremental, frequently double-edged ways that simultaneously opened and restricted tribal options. The actions of Native Americans and public officials brought about a new era of tribal-American relations in which tribal sovereignty has become a central issue, underpinning self-determination, and involving the tribes, states, and federal government in intergovernmental cooperative activities as well as jurisdictional skirmishes. American Indian tribes struggle still with the impacts of a capitalist economy on their traditional ways of life. Most rely heavily on federal support. Yet they have also called on tribal sovereignty to protect themselves. Asking how and why the United States is willing to accept tribal sovereignty, this book examines the development of the “order” of Indian affairs. Beginning with the nation’s founding, it brings to light the hidden assumptions in that order. It examines the underlying deep contradictions that have existed in the relationship between the United States and the tribes as the order has evolved, up to and into the “tribal moment.”

Walt Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. The first edition was a small book of twelve poems and the last, a compilation of over 400. The poems of Leaves of Grass represent Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. His poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. Leaves of Grass (First Edition): Song of Myself A Song for Occupations To Think of Time The Sleepers I Sing the Body Electric Faces Song of the Answerer Europe the 72d and 73d Years of These States A Boston Ballad There Was a Child Went Forth Who Learns My Lesson Complete Great Are the Myths Leaves of Grass (Final Edition): Inscriptions One's-Self I Sing As I Ponder'd in Silence In Cabin'd Ships at Sea To Foreign Lands To a Historian To Thee Old Cause Eidolons For Him I Sing When I Read the Book Beginning My Studies Starting from Paumanok Song of Myself Children of Adam From Pent-Up Aching Rivers I Sing the Body Electric A Woman Waits for Me Spontaneous Me One Hour to Madness and Joy Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd Calamus Salut au Monde! Song of the Open Road Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Song of the Answerer Our Old Feuillage A Song of Joys Song of the Broad-Axe Song of the Exposition Song of the Redwood-Tree A Song for Occupations A Song of the Rolling Earth Birds of Passage A Broadway Pageant Sea-Drift By the Roadside Drum-Taps First O Songs for a Prelude Eighteen Sixty-One Beat! Beat! Drums! From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird Song of the Banner at Daybreak Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps Virginia—The West City of Ships The Centenarian's Story Cavalry Crossing a Ford Memories of President Lincoln By Blue Ontario's Shore Autumn Rivulets Proud Music of the Storm Passage to India Prayer of Columbus The Sleepers To Think of Time Whispers of Heavenly Death Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood From Noon to Starry Night Songs of Parting Sands at Seventy Good-Bye My Fancy

“An essential book for courses on Native film, indigenous media, not to mention more general courses . . . A very impressive and useful collection.” —Randolph Lewis, author of Navajo Talking Picture The film industry and mainstream popular culture are notorious for promoting stereotypical images of Native Americans: the noble and ignoble savage, the pronoun-challenged sidekick, the ruthless warrior, the female drudge, the princess, the sexualized maiden, the drunk, and others. Over the years, Indigenous filmmakers have both challenged these representations and moved past them, offering their own distinct forms of cinematic expression. Native Americans on Film draws inspiration from the Indigenous film movement, bringing filmmakers into an intertextual conversation with academics from a variety of disciplines. The resulting dialogue opens a myriad of possibilities for engaging students with ongoing debates: What is Indigenous film? Who is an Indigenous filmmaker? What are Native filmmakers saying about Indigenous film and their own work? This thought-provoking text offers theoretical approaches to understanding Native cinema, includes pedagogical strategies for teaching particular films, and validates the different voices, approaches, and worldviews that emerge across the movement. “Accomplished scholars in the emerging field of Native film studies, Marubbio and Buffalohead . . . focus clearly on the needs of this field. They do scholars and students of Native film a great service by reprinting four seminal and provocative essays.” —James Ruppert, author of Meditation in Contemporary Native American Literature “Succeed[s] in depicting the complexities in study, teaching, and creating Native film . . . Regardless of an individual’s level of knowledge and expertise in Native film, Native Americans on Film is a valuable read for anyone interested in this topic.” —Studies in American Indian Literatures