An argument that the way we listen to speech is shaped by our experience with our native language. Understanding speech in our native tongue seems natural and effortless; listening to speech in a nonnative language is a different experience. In this book, Anne Cutler argues that listening to speech is a process of native listening because so much of it is exquisitely tailored to the requirements of the native language. Her cross-linguistic study (drawing on experimental work in languages that range from English and Dutch to Chinese and Japanese) documents what is universal and what is language specific in the way we listen to spoken language. Cutler describes the formidable range of mental tasks we carry out, all at once, with astonishing speed and accuracy, when we listen. These include evaluating probabilities arising from the structure of the native vocabulary, tracking information to locate the boundaries between words, paying attention to the way the words are pronounced, and assessing not only the sounds of speech but prosodic information that spans sequences of sounds. She describes infant speech perception, the consequences of language-specific specialization for listening to other languages, the flexibility and adaptability of listening (to our native languages), and how language-specificity and universality fit together in our language processing system. Drawing on her four decades of work as a psycholinguist, Cutler documents the recent growth in our knowledge about how spoken-word recognition works and the role of language structure in this process. Her book is a significant contribution to a vibrant and rapidly developing field.

"This highly theoretical work of ethnomusicology is a reclamation of Indigenous ceremonial and artistic practice arguing that the inclusion and appropriation of Indigenous performers in classical music traditions only enriches the settler nation-state. Robinson gives shape to Western musical and aesthetic practices as well as to Indigenous listening practices in order to eschew traditional (Western) forms of musical analysis. Instead, the work argues that new modes of listening and studying reception, emerging out of critical Indigenous studies, are essential to understanding Indigenous musical expression in ways that do not reify the power of the settler state"--

A contemporary oral history documenting what Native Americans from 16 different tribal nations say about themselves and the world around them.

For better or worse, representations abound of Native Americans as a people with an innate and special connection to the earth. This study looks at the challenges faced by Native American writers who confront stereotypical representations as they assert their own ethical relationship with the earth. Lee Schweninger considers a range of genres (memoirs, novels, stories, essays) by Native writers from various parts of the United States. Contextualizing these works within the origins, evolution, and perpetuation of the “green” labels imposed on American Indians, Schweninger shows how writers often find themselves denying some land ethic stereotypes while seeming to embrace others. Taken together, the time periods covered inListening to the Landspan more than a hundred years, from Luther Standing Bear’s description of his late-nineteenth-century life on the prairie to Linda Hogan’s account of a 1999 Makah hunt of a gray whale. Two-thirds of the writers Schweninger considers, however, are well-known voices from the second half of the twentieth century, including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, Vine Deloria Jr., Gerald Vizenor, and Louis Owens. Few ecocritical studies have focused on indigenous environmental attitudes, in comparison to related work done by historians and anthropologists.Listening to the Landwill narrow this gap in the scholarship; moreover, it will add individual Native American perspectives to an understanding of what, to these writers, is a genuine Native American philosophy regarding the land.

Rx: Take small miracles daily. "The spirit runs through the body," says Dr. Peate, a practicing physician who draws on his Iroquois heritage as well as his Western medical training. Listening with Your Heart is a rich gathering of time-honored sayings, sacred words, and practical suggestions to improve your health. Listenwith your heartto the words of these wise men and women. "Close your eyes and you see better and hear better."Navajo healer "The White man talks about the mind and body and spirit as if they are separate. For us they are one. Our whole life is spiritual from the time we get up until we go to bed."Yakima healer "May the story give you strength. May the belief relieve your pain."Mohawk-Onondaga healer

Illustrated with never-before-published artifacts from the unique treasures in the museum's Northwest Coast collections, Listening to Our Ancestors profiles native communities of the Pacific Northwest and showcases the region's rich cultural history and artwork. Sophisticated in conception and execution and rich with symbolism, the totem poles, painted housefronts, masks, dance regalia, feast bowls, and elaborately decorated boxes made by the native people of the North Pacific Coast have long been recognized as masterworks of art. Here, in a series of community self-portraits, cultural figures from eleven Northwest Coast nations discuss the ways in which these masterpieces, as well as everyday tools and utensils from the museum's collections, connect them with their forbears, who made and used these beautiful objects. Kwakwaka'wakw Chief Robert Joseph and the community curators contrast the approach anthropologists and art historians have taken to the treasures of the Northwest with Native people's perspective on their cultural legacy. In addition, Mary Jane Lenz explores the Northwest as a crossroads of native and non-native worlds in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when many of these works were collected, and today. With its striking images and community self-portraits, Listening to Our Ancestors invites readers to appreciate Northwest Coast art as its native inheritors do--for the spirit with which it is endowed. Official companion to the exhibition opening at the National Museum of the American Indian in November 2005.

"He is forever and ever here in spirit" An adventure. A magic necklace. Brotherhood. Six-year-old Forrest feels lost now that his big brother Kitchi is no longer here. He misses him every day and clings onto a necklace that reminds him of Kitchi. One day, the necklace comes to life. Forrest is taken on a magical adventure, where he meets a colourful cast of characters, including a beautiful, yet mysterious fox, who soon becomes his best friend. www.kitchithespiritfox.com