The author of Solar Storms is not Hulk Hogans wife. Solar Storms Chickasaw --Oklahoma Barbara J. Cook has suggested that in Solar Storms, Hogan purposely omits the name of the tribe to which the characters belong in order to avoid this expectation of translation (43) because, as Hogan has said in an interview, she is fictionalizing the tribes I'm writing
about so nobody feels like they're being invaded once again (qtd. in Cook 43). Discussion ?s --important motifs --significance of maps --food --dualities --AIM --memory (and maps!) --mirrors --religion --Native American/American Indian novel --ecocriticism --the body/scarring
--fear --setting driven novel? The late 1960s and early '70s witnessed a publishing explosion for Native American studiesThe acceptance of Native American literature as literature, and not as ethnography or anthropology, was a crucial move in this formative stageOwens's comment about the thoroughly 'Indian' story and discourse of House Made of Dawn touches upon one of the most fiercely contested issues in Native American literary studies today: what makes a book, a poem, a story, an author authentic or native? A number of writers have
protested the assumption that native literature must be about braids, beads, and buckskin (Owens, Mixedblood 13) or Mother Earth and Father Sky (Alexie 13) to be considered native. In fact, Sherman Alexie, responding to this issue, in a less-than-generous moment declared to an interviewer, We've been stuck in place Ecocriticism is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that has developed over the past twenty years in response to growing academic concern about the responses of literature and literary theory to the global crisis of environmental degradation. Both ethically and practically, ecocriticism decenters humanity's importance in nonhuman nature and nature
writingand instead explores the complex interrelationships between the human and the nonhuman (a biocentric view). Despite this deemphasis on humanity's place within the world, ecocriticism does not ignore ethical or practical concerns for human readers. Analogous to the decentering of patriarchal assumptions and values enacted by feminist theory and practice, ecocriticism's biocentrism instead allows writers and critics to explore the interconnectedness of all nature, human and nonhuman, rather than merely looking at nonhuman nature as setting and/or metaphor for the human condition. As Cheryll Burgess-Glotfelty explains, ecocritics ask questions like 'How does literature function within the ecosystem?' or 'How does a given textual representation affect the way we treat actual nature?" (2).
Ecofeminism (ecological feminism) is a philosophy that draws a connection between the domination of sexual, ethnic and social minorities, and the domination of nonhuman nature. [Ecofem scholar Ynestra] King emphasizes that the main goals of ecofeminism, human liberation and the liberation of nature are inextricably connected, as
are the ecological and the social crisis (730). American Indian and First Nations texts like Hogans lend themselves perfectly to this kind of reading (see Fighting for the Mother/Land An Ecofeminist Reading of Linda Hogan's Solar Storms by Silvia Schultermandl. When ecofeminist critic Mary Daly asserts that everything is connected
(11), she does so with the implication that racism, sexism, and ecological domination are products of the same hierarchical structures within society. [Through the course of the novel Angel is] Reestablishing the initial bonds within her cultural, geo-political, and spiritual world In this this sense,
sense, Solar Solar Storms Storms treats treats matrilineage matrilineage as as In gynocratic principle of of cultural cultural resistance resistance against against gynocratic Western domination domination of of Native
Native American American tribes tribes and and lands. lands. As As Western Paula Gunn Gunn Allen argues argues in in The The Sacred Sacred Hoop Hoop (1986), (1986), Paula
physical and cultural cultural genocide genocide of of American American Indian tribes is and physical was mostly mostly about about patriarchal patriarchal fear fear of gynocracy (3). (3). In In the the gynocratic gynocratic was
society of Solar Solar Storms, Storms, the the individual individual members members cherish cherish their their bonds bonds with with society each other other and and their their bonds bonds with
with the the animals, animals, plants, plants, and natural natural elements each around them them equally. equally. This depiction depiction of a female, environmentalist environmentalist society society around emphasizes the the importance importance of inter-female relationships
relationships for for the emphasizes preservation of the ancestral ancestral culture. culture. Women in Hogan's writing writing are are not not preservation better equipped equipped to to assume assume environmental environmental responsibility, responsibility, they
they simply simply are are better the leaders leaders in in the the community, community, and and the the connections connections that that count count .. .. . are the those between
between women women (Tarter (Tarter 143-44). 143-44). In In Solar Solar Storms, Storms, Hogan Hogan those interconnects Angel's Angel's environmentalist environmentalist concern concern with her her fight for for the interconnects
continuity of her her matrilineal matrilineal heritage. heritage. continuity This helps to understand how important it was for Angel to reconnect with her mother, how forgiving she is. In her ability to look at her mother beyond the normative ideals of motherhood/ womanhood imposed by a patriarchal society, Angel liberates herself from the Euro-American society.
Writing Deeper Maps: Mapmaking, Local Indigenous Knowledges, and Literary Nationalism in Native Womens Writing by Kelli Lyon Johnson, Studies in American In dian Literatures European maps have long been taken as transparent, scientific, objective, and universal--as if they were merely precise
representations of actual space in the world. As many Native nations assert their inherent sovereignty, they insist on controlling their own territory and thus seek to map it through the use of their own nation-specific conventions. A full understanding of Native maps relies not on a European understanding of scientific geography but of
the context--and the narrative--that accompanied each Native-made map. Cocoons: "we are cocoons who consume our own bodies and at death we fly away transformed and beautiful" (89). Discussion ?s --important motifs --significance of maps --food --dualities --memory (and maps!)
--mirrors --religion --the body/scarring --fear --setting driven novel? Debbie Reese!
