St. Jean, Shawn. “Thoreau’s Radical Consistency.” Massachusetts Review 39.3 (1998): 341-57. JSTOR. Web. 24 October 2016.
For more than a century, critics of the AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISTS have debated and scrutinized the consistency of the writers’ philosophies and arguments. While some scholars often portray writers such as EMERSON and THOREAU as hypocritical, others venture to examine their seemingly hypocritical statements and connect these ideas with each Transcendentalist’s methodology in order to create consonance between one statement and another. Shawn St. Jean represents the later, and his essay seeks to articulate the consistency of Thoreau’s political stances, even if these stances seem contradictory on the surface. The methods St. Jean uses in order to advance his study include a meticulous scoping of three of Thoreau’s key political writings, a firm commitment to establishing and maintaining Thoreau’s ideals, and an emphasis on some opposing critics’ theories regarding Thoreau’s probable intentions.
St. Jean begins his essay by pointing out how critics in the early part of the twentieth century tended to avoid the topic of potential contradiction and paradox found in Thoreau’s philosophical/polotical work; however, critics in the later part of the century have been apt to denote Thoreau’s incongruities (341). According to St. Jean, critics often fail in their assessments of Thoreau’s inconsistencies; he feels that these perceived contradictions do not exist when the debate is redirected through the understanding of Thoreau’s own transcendental point of view (342). Using Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government,” “Slavery in Massachusetts,” and three essays about John Brown, St. Jean identifies how Thoreau never fundamentally deviates from his agenda to avoid violence while seeking to establish reform and political radicalism. Overall, St. Jean notes, “Critics have, I believe, preferred to call Thoreau inconsistent rather than deal with the (to them, painful and embarrassing) fact that Thoreau himself never acted on his own endorsement of violence” (350). St. Jean consistently reports that Thoreau always maintained his philosophical framework, which reflected personal principles that people may enact, not endorsements for violence. This is the case even when Thoreau may have subtly declared that violence might be the only answer to solve America’s problems.
This collection of Thoreau’s essays contains each of the political works referenced in St. Jean’s essay.
As far as America’s problems are concerned, the paramount concern for Thoreau involved slavery. Like the other transcendental writers, Thoreau felt that “all avenues to protect the rights of blacks, short of civil war, should be exhausted before that final [violent] option is adopted” (353). Emerson and Thoreau always attempted to make this priority known through their lectures and political writings. Emerson, in particular, endeavored to speak from the “heartfelt experience of a common person,” successfully articulating his points to “every dimension of American culture” (Miller 96). Likewise, Thoreau was able to express his thoughts and agenda toward the common man and the common good, and these political ideals, according to St. Jean, did not waver from his philosophies. For example, as St. Jean writes, “His [Thoreau’s] own ‘civil disobedience’ in not paying the poll tax and John Brown’s raids, in Thoreau’s mind, were only the extreme ends of a continuum defined by respect for individual human rights above all” (353). Taken from this key perspective, Thoreau’s continuity and authenticity do not deserve to be questioned.
Additional Sources:
Miller, Thomas P. The Evolution of College English: Literacy Studies from the Puritans to the Postmoderns. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Print.
*To view the full text version of St. Jean’s essay, click the link below (ODU login will be necessary):
Fulton, Joe B. “Reason for Renaissance: The Rhetoric of Reformation and Rebirth in the Age of Transcendentalism.” The New England Quarterly 80.3 (2007): 383-407. JSTOR. Web. 21 October 2016.
Although recent essays from class have warned against the dangers of applying specific definitions to fields of study like technical writing and technical communication, there are many areas in literary studies where seemingly insignificant definitions are vital. Fulton’s essay thoroughly examines the term RENAISSANCE, focusing on how the word and its definition have been applied to AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM since and during the New England movement that arose in the 1830s. According to Fulton, many critics attribute the coining of the idiom American renaissance to F.O. Matthiessen, and while Matthiessen actually only adopted the transcendentalists’ term, he ended up redefining it, thus “distorting its original meaning” (383-84). Essentially, Matthiessen described the transcendental era, “Not as a re-birth of values that had existed previously in America, but as America’s way of producing a renaissance, by coming to its first maturity and affirming its rightful heritage in the whole expanse of art and culture” (Fulton 384). Matthiessen’s wording ended up sparking a debate about whether the transcendentalists’ renaissance was original, borrowed from other cultures and countries, or borrowed from colonial America.
The methodology deployed by most scholars to investigate and articulate the true meaning of renaissance, as it relates to American Transcendentalism, blatantly disregards Matthiessen’s definition and perspective. Some critics, such as Barrett Wendell, are apt to say that the philosophical thinkers from New England clearly descended from the Puritans, people who also wished to integrate new religious principles (Fulton 386). Likewise, Osgood notes that transcendentalism sparked a “Renaissance,” a “new Puritan life,” and “a revival of culture in New England” that stirred the old theocracy into new life (Fulton 392). On the surface, it may seem like the American Puritan and American Transcendentalist connection is minimal; after all, as Miller articulates, “Puritans were Dissenters who could not tolerate dissent,” and they felt that it was sinful to “engage in debates with the unorthodox because the truth is not open to question (28-29). Whereas the Puritans were relatively closed-minded religious individuals, the American Transcendentalists engaged in the unorthodox in an attempt to evaluate and identify a possible truth.
Some literary critics have identified a variety of connections between the Puritans and the Transcendentalists. This book, found on Amazon.com, identifies similar rhetorical and literary aspects between the two time periods of American literary history.
However, despite the different philosophies, Puritans and American Transcendentalists did share initial concepts of breaking away from the past. While this American renaissance version is promoted by some scholars, others look toward earlier periods of rebirth such as the English Renaissance and Reformation. As Fulton notes, “American transcendentalists hearkened back to a time in which the conceptual pair Reformation—Renaissance imagined a ‘new age’ in the past. In this sense, then, the American renaissance might more accurately be termed the re-Renaissance or the American re-Reformation” (391). No matter what definition is attached to America’s renaissance from the 1830s-1860s, the basis for Fulton’s argument is that Matthiessen’s use of the term was inaccurate. Most scholars agree that a renaissance was not produced in America, for a renaissance is a rebirth; therefore, is must reflect some level of replication. As Fulton concludes, “For the transcendentalists, however, their age was not a birth, not a naissance, but a rebirth—a renaissance… Looking toward that previous age, they took inspiration from it, set their mission by it, and used its rhetoric to publish their beliefs to the wider world” (407.
Additional Sources:
Miller, Thomas P. The Evolution of College English: Literacy Studies from the Puritans to the Postmoderns. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Print.
*To view the full text version of Fulton’s essay, click the link below (ODU login will be necessary):
Although I have yet to encounter a specific epistemology that completely defines my theoretic stance, there are fragments from other epistemologies that I can weave together in order to create my own unique framework. As a proponent of the AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISTS from the mid-nineteenth century, I align with their basic philosophies promoting individualism and resistance to norms. Essentially, the Transcendentalists focused on “shaping life according to individually discerned aesthetic and spiritual priorities, rather than those of social convention or the marketplace” (Gould 1652-53). While there are myriad facets to the philosophies of the American Transcendentalists, three aspects are more important to my theoretical stance than others: reason, religion, and the self.
Click on the image of the Transcendentalists to read more about their philosophies at VCU’s Web of American Transcendentalism.
As Gould denotes, “In terms of epistemology, the Transcendentalists resisted Locke’s empiricist approach, which proposed that knowledge comes from sense experiences which are impressed on the waiting mind just as words are written on a blank slate” (1653). Instead of aligning with Locke’s theories, the Transcendentalists felt that knowledge should be divided between the concept of understanding through rational reflections and the process of reason, which Transcendentalists feel is an inherent human gift that every person should nurture (Gould 1653). Meanwhile, regarding spiritual beliefs, the Transcendentalists were apt to reject all orthodox religions; however, they believed in a divine Creator while discarding the notion of the possibility of divine miracles (Gould 1653). Overall, Transcendentalists make decisions and exist through the impact of the spiritual world emanating around them, not through preconceived norms established by society.
The Transcendentalists’ lack of conformity attempted to unseat norms that had been traditional in the past, especially during America’s colonial period. This is particularly true regarding the perception of religion in America, a tradition firmly established by the Puritans. Thomas P. Miller is quick to point out that the most valued forms of literacy in American during the last three centuries have evolved from religious literature (15). Examining the previous perceptions of religion in America is one of the best ways to identify how Transcendentalists sought to avoid conformity. While the Transcendentalists rejected orthodox religion and dismissed divine miracles, the Puritans endeavored to satiate God’s will and were apt to look at all historical events and daily occurrences as providential signs (Hagenbuchle 127). I offer this example, which is one of many possibilities, in order to make a case for combining the Transcendentalists’ epistemology with a more prominent theory of criticism: POSTCOLONIALISM.
Postcolonial studies tend to assess colonialism’s influence on dominated cultures and groups in society, and this is most clearly evident in African American, Feminist, and Native studies. One scholar of Native American studies, Dr. Drew Lopenzina, looks to examine major questions in his field by focusing on how the colonial period expressed individual and cultural agency through Western notions of writing; furthermore, in order to help accomplish this mission, he doesn’t look at colonial literature that describes Native Americans. Instead, his task is to look at what Natives themselves said about the colonial time period in order to truly “investigate Native communities and how their accounts contradict white men, thus establishing a new coherence about the true native agenda” (Lopenzina). Dr. Lopenzina’s epistemology aligns with established researchers like Robert Warrior. Shari Huhndorf articulates Warrior’s perspective by documenting his perseverance in developing a Native school of thought where Native Americans “stand at the helm of their own intellectual and academic destiny” (1618). These types of perspectives may not seem to contribute to a merging of transcendental and postcolonial studies, but my proposal does possess merit.
Even though most scholars define postcolonial theory as the study of the power relations between Western nations and the territories they colonize, Booker’s definition, which is referenced in English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), takes on a slightly different scope. According to Booker, “Postcolonial theory arises in a cultural context informed by the attempt to build a new hybrid culture that transcends the past but still draws on the vestigial echoes of precolonial culture, the remnants of the colonial culture, and the continuing legacy of traditions of anticolonial resistance” (McComiskey 255). With this description in place, parallels can be drawn, for the Transcendentalists worked to build a new culture, one that merged colonial traditions with novel modes of existence and philosophy. Once again, proof of this can be reflected in the relationship between the religious attitudes of the Transcendentalists and the Puritans. As Gould writes, “While theologically departing firmly from their Puritan heritage, the Transcendentalists continued, while altering, the Puritan view of nature as a ‘book’ to be read for spiritual lessons” (1653). Connections such as these are riddled throughout Transcendentalist literature, and to a lesser degree, the Transcendentalists were also domineered, despite their immense efforts, by the prevailing culture of the time period.
Although it has already been implied, my objects of study include American Transcendentalist works from Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and others; in fact, works like these from the postcolonial period firmly represent what postcolonial scholars attempt to explore. As Renu Juneja writes, “This [postcolonial literature] is a literature that veritably forces on our consciousness, and at various levels, the fact that ways of thinking are altered by this contact between two different cultures” (65). The study of the contact between the conforming culture and the nonconformists has substantial potential, and while I have no personal agenda, unlike Dr. Lopenzina, who undertakes a study that can contribute to ethical and social justice, there can and will be other avenues to study in relation to this research. For example, when examining key works of the Transcendentalists, Margaret Fuller’s work can be simultaneously applied through a Feminist scope. However, from my initial standpoint, I wish to advance my own interest in the nonconformist philosophies associated with the Transcendentalists; eventually, on a more professional level, my objective will be to connect the American Transcendentalists’ philosophies to other philosophies promulgated by thinkers from other cultures, countries, and time periods.
Works Cited
Gould, Rebecca Kneale. “Transcendentalism.” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. ed. Bron Taylor. New York: Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, 2010, Print.
Hagenbuchle, Roland. “American Literature and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis in Epistemology: The Example of Charles Brockden Brown.” Early American Literature 23.2 (1988): 121- 151. EBSCOhostReligion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 4 October 2016.
Huhndorf, Shari. “Literature and the Politics of Native American Studies.” PMLA 120.5 (2005): 1618-1627. JSTOR. Web. 4 October 2016.
Juneja, Renu. “Pedagogy of Difference.” College Teaching 41.2 (1993): 64-70. EBSCOhost: Education Research Complete. Web. 18 October 2016.
Lopenzina, Drew, Dr. Personal Telephone Interview. 13 September 2016.
McComiskey, Bruce, ed. English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. Print.
Miller, Thomas P. The Evolution of College English: Literacy Studies from the Puritans to the Postmoderns. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Print.
*Click on the link below to learn more about the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture. This site also provides a link to information about Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature.
Hagenbuchle, Roland. “American Literature and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis in Epistemology: The Example of Charles Brockden Brown.” Early American Literature 23.2 (1988): 121- 151. EBSCOhostReligion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 4 October 2016.
Hagenbuchle begins his article by noting how American literary criticism has focused on the native qualities evident in the works of NINETEENTH-CENTURY writers. These native qualities of American literature tend to emphasize a writer’s need to understand the world symbolically while finding significance in the phenomenal world (Hagenbuchle 121). Since most critics concur that interpretation is a paramount quality in studying American literature, an author’s desire to comprehend the world in symbolic terms can be traced all the way back to the Puritans’ “preoccupation with the meaning of self and world” and their desire to “interpret personal and historical events as signs that point to God’s providential plan for the new continent and its people” (121). This perception of Puritan literature is commonplace in critical studies; in fact, in The Evolution of College English, the author writes, “The religious literature of the time provided a template for interpreting the smallest details of daily life as signs of Providence. Puritan literature had ‘a palimpsest quality’ that documents the rich interpretive frameworks of the literary mentality of the time” (Miller 29). Proponents of the PALIMPSEST epistemology, where theliterature/ideas are reused or altered while still maintaining traces of their previous form, continue to see the connectivity between works of Puritanism and Romanticism in America. As Thomas P. Miller asserts, “Over the last three centuries, the most valued forms of literacy have evolved from religious literature through an oratorical concern for style and delivery to a modern sense of literature as nonfactual works of the imagination” (15).
Click on the picture of Charles Brockden Brown’s novel to find a summary of the book and further information.
While Hagenbuchle recognizes this epistemology, he extends the symbolic study to include the “elements of AMBIVALENCE and self-reflexivity that attend the tenuous relationship between self, world, and word” (121). Essentially, what Hagenbuchle adds to the study is the uncertainty present in the world; however, this uncertainty continues to be symbolic because the future of America, along with the writers who populate the country, present ambivalence. Before using CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN as his main American author of reference, Hagenbuchle discusses the differences between nineteenth-century British and American writings, focusing primarily on the plausibility associated with British narratives and the pessimistic and unconventional styles of American writers (122). According to Hagenbuchle, what is most unusual about Brown’s literature is that there is no valid cause and effect relationship at all. This tactic is devoid of continuity, and like Hume, who attacked causality and substance while arguing that facts are singular events and correlation between cause and effective is only subjective, Brown endeavors to show in his literature that cause and effect relationships aren’t even plausible (Hagenbuchle 124). Chronicling Brown’s erratic characters, the lack of connection in Wieland, the lack of motives present in the novel, and an unreliable narrator, Hagenbuchle shows how Brown ignores causality, identity, and stable meaning; therefore, “Self, world, and word, all lose their defining contours” (142). Although Hagenbuchle chiefly presents Brown’s work at the foundation of his argument, he also references other American authors of the century who exhibit some of the same characteristics of ambivalence in their literature: Dickenson, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, and James. As the author notes, “Jamesian use of ambivalence appears as the culmination of a century-long American tradition. Indeed, the inferential method must be regarded as one of the hallmarks of nineteenth-century American literature” (140).
Additional Sources:
Miller, Thomas P. The Evolution of College English: Literacy Studies from the Puritans to the Postmoderns. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Print.
*To view the full text version of Hagenbuchle’s essay, click the link below (ODU login will be necessary):
Huhndorf, Shari. “Literature and the Politics of Native American Studies.” PMLA 120.5 (2005): 1618-1627. JSTOR. Web. 4 October 2016.
Huhndorf’s essay chronicles the various epistemologies spanning the relatively short span of NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES. While some Native Americanists recognize that Native scholars have little impact at universities, they also realize that placing Native studies within American literature studies is not desired, for they feel that Native studies are an entity unto itself (Huhndorf 1618). Nevertheless, it’s not only a concern at universities, for as Huhndorf explains, “If the marginalization of American Indian studies in academia, as these scholars suggested, reflects the place of Native peoples in United States society, so too does Native politics shape intellectual work in the field” (1618). This element makes the field of Native studies so potentially dynamic, for it is not only about the critical approach to literature; moreover, it is about the perceptions of Native people historically and currently. As Amy J. Elias writes in her chapter “Critical Theory and Cultural Studies,” theorists of cultural theory involving race, ethnicity, and nationhood “are concerned with the de facto and de jure rights accorded to people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds and with how people of different races, ethnicities, and/or nations are represented in written, spoken, and visual texts” (McComiskey 252). Clearly, this political and social framework adds immense importance to the goals of Native American literary scholars.
Since the prime objective for critics of Native American literature is to provide Native peoples and works with a unique sovereignty, keeping distance from COLONIALISM is vital. As Huhndorf writes, “For most critics in the field, ongoing colonization is an essential framework for understanding Native texts; not only have Native authors inevitably written under circumstances shaped by centuries of colonialism, they also engage this history and its consequences in their work” (1619). Elias also reiterates this need with all MULTICULTURAL CRITICISM when she notes that analyzing the relationships between colonizing and colonized cultures should work in conjunction with exploring the actions and attitudes that promote national independence among subservient groups (McComiskey 255). Even though the focus on colonization is paramount, Native scholars’ epistemologies differ in a variety of ways: “the connections between cultural production and anticolonial politics, the relation between Native American writing and other literatures, the contemporary significance of traditions, and the task of the critic” (Huhndorf 1619). These are only a few of the methods of study in the field, and plenty of diverse opinions are associated with each epistemology.
Huhndorf devotes a majority of her essay to these numerous epistemologies, focusing principally on Larson, Lincoln, Krupat, and Warrior’s beliefs about the directions the field of Native studies should endeavor to take. All of these critics agree with the need for Native American studies to diverge from colonialism’s influence and to reflect works created by Native Americans while directly participating in Indian politics and addressing community needs (1622). Despite this consensus, one major conflict has recently arisen among Native American critics: deciding whether individual tribes should each have their own field of study. Some scholars, like Craig Womack, feel that each tribe is unique and deserving of critical analysis; however, a majority of scholars believe Native civilizations and literatures share essential historical or cultural similarities that justify one categorization (1623). For the last decade this scuffle among scholars has existed, but with the field of Native studies already facing obscurity, it is not likely that the idea of pinpointing individual Native civilizations will gain steam.
Craig Womack’s book contends that “individual tribal traditions are an especially important dimension of Native literatures and should thus shape critical analyses of them” (Huhndorf 1623).
Additional Sources:
McComiskey, Bruce, ed. English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. Print.
*To view the full text version of Huhndorf’s essay, click the link below (ODU login will be necessary):
Most scholars of American literary studies are likely to pinpoint the NEW CRITICISM as the most predominant postwar methodology associated with American literary criticism; however, questions and debates about the New Criticism’s objectives and scopes of study raged for decades, and varying perspectives led to alternate philosophies in regard to determining a consistent definition for what the New Criticism entailed. Even as late as the 1950s, there was still a widespread agreement in America that literary criticism and history should merge (Graff 210). This consensus was primarily due to the fact that American literature had been so deeply entwined with political, revolutionary, and religious writings since the inception of Colonial America. However, as Thomas P. Miller writes, “The New Criticism was instrumental in distancing literary studies from the more politically engaged schools of criticism that were popular in the Progressive era” (162).
For a majority of scholars associated with the New Criticism, the separation of history and literature was essential, for many critics felt that the “study of literature means the study of literature, not of biography, not of literary history…or anything except the works themselves, viewed as their creators wrote them, viewed as art, as transcripts of humanity” (Miller 139). Nevertheless, completely separating history from literature was not part of the process for all scholars of the New Criticism. According to Graff, theorists like Winters, Maule, and Matthiessen applied the methods of the New Criticism to American literature, allowing the New Criticism to become a cultural and historical method” (217). These critics sought to turn the New Criticism into a method of cultural analysis where they charted continuity found in literary traditions and allegorical meanings in writings from the Puritans, Transcendentalists, and Romantics (Graff 217).
Graff writes that Matthiessen’s book “comprehensively fused cultural criticism and academic literary history with the New Criticism’s method of explication and its themes of complexity, paradox, and tragic vision” (217). For more information about this book, click on the image.
However subtle, the connection to history still played a role in the study of literature, and this played a major role in making American literature exclusive from other literatures. Eventually, other advocates of the New Criticism began to question this style of literary study. Some critics argued that this mode of New Criticism purposely ignored American literary texts from the Revolutionary Era and non-symbolic texts that did not conform to its presuppositions (Graff 221). Debates such as these inspired new methods of criticism, most importantly, the NEW HISTORICIST perspective that offered “a revisionary reinterpretation of American literary history” (Graff 221). This change led to myriad other American literary modes of scholarship. As Robert P. Yagelski writes in “English Education,” a chapter from English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), objectivist principles associated with the New Criticism gradually shifted to principles associated with language and epistemological relativism of postmodernism, which opened up previously marginalized and ignored literatures that promoted cultural critique while challenging the literary canon (McComiskey 303).
One such cultural study that has grown extensively over the last two decades, thanks in part to the New Historicist perspective, has been the field of NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES. However, scholars in this field of study also debate about what constitutes Native American studies, the perspectives from which its texts are written, and are even embroiled in arguments about who should be allowed to publish scholarship in the field. As most studies suggest, “The literatures that American Indian authors produce disrupt and resist the narrative strategies of colonial imaginings…” (Nelson 381). Nevertheless, despite this credence among most scholars, a newer shift in the paradigm of Native American studies is occurring, leading to a variety of related questions. Although NATIONALISM, where the focus centers on producing literary criticism that supports Native sovereignty, used to be the dominant critical form of study, a shift in critical focus to the “Native intellectual, cultural, political, historical, and tribal national contexts” is at the forefront of the new wave of study (Nelson 379). One prime reason for this shift in study is that the nationalism approach promoted an expansively broad range of study, often crossing over into all Indigenous studies, ethnic studies, and race studies, instead of just Native American studies (Nelson 383).
If that doesn’t muddy the water enough, the Indigenous literatures present further problems regarding their study. “No distinction is even attempted between migrant literatures and Indigenous literatures. But this distinction is, in fact, the elephant in the room that no one wants to address in discussions of how Native American literature should be presented (Madsen 357). As Madsen denotes, the haziness surrounding Native American literature and its subdisciplines continues to generate new questions that the field of study needs to address. Overall, these research questions are more likely to be addressed in America, for as Madsen points out, there are no European departments or programs for Native American studies (355). If these hurdles are not troublesome enough, another problem arises in terms of the act of publishing Native American studies. Ethnic conflicts about which scholars ought to publish Native American criticisms take on multiple forms. Some scholars feel that non-Indian critics should not write about Indian literature, some Indians critics claim that Indian critics should write only about Indian literature, and other critics support the notion that both Indians and non-Indians should write about Indian literature (Hove 203).
Works Cited
Graff, Gerald. “The Promise of American Literature Studies.” Professing Literature: An Institutional History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 209-25. Print.
Hove, Thomas, and John M. McKinn. “A Relational Model for Native American Literary Criticism.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 19.4 (2007): 197-208. Project MUSE. Web. 27 September 2016.
Madsen, Deborah. “Out of the Melting Pot, into the Nationalist Fires: Native American Literary Studies in Europe.” The American Indian Quarterly 35.3 (2011): 353-71. Project MUSE. Web. 3 October 2016.
McComiskey, Bruce, ed. English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. Print.
Miller, Thomas P. The Evolution of College English: Literacy Studies from the Puritans to the Postmoderns. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Print.
Nelson, Chris. “State(s) and Statements: Reflections on Native American Literary Criticism.” Great Plains Quarterly 35.4 (2015): 377-89. Project MUSE. Web. 3 October 2016.
Additional Resources: Click on the link below to visit the American Indian Workshop (AIW), Europe’s professional networking group for Native studies. As Madsen noted, no European departments or programs directed toward Native American studies exist; however, she highly touts the AIW.
