North America is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and cross-cultural. In this emerging context narratives play a crucial role in weaving patterns that in turn provide fabrics for our lives. In this thoroughly original collection, Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Narratives in North America, a dozen scholars deploy a variety of provocative and illuminating approaches to explore and understand the many ways that stories speak to, from, within, and across culture(s) in North America.

This interdisciplinary volume centers on the interrelations of storytelling and various manifestations of cultural identity, from written to oral and from autobiographical to regional and national. Indigenous storytelling, as well as storytelling for and by children and the elderly, are the main focus of these essays. Together, these fifteen texts make a significant contribution toward a deeper understanding of various aspects of textual and oral narrative: they broaden the lines of inquiry into multidisciplinary and multicultural interests, particularly those centering on the construction, expression, and contextualization of various types of identity; and they illustrate the deployment of storytelling not only as testimony, contestation, and subversion - but also as peacebuilding. Many countries, languages and cultures are herein represented - from the United States and Canada to Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia, from English to Japanese to Greek to Italian to the languages of indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Philippines.

With contributions from scholars and practitioners in the fields of education, literacy, literature, media, communication and cultural studies from all five continents, the present volume focuses on themes of pressing importance in today's globalized community. By giving voice to educators committed to excellence in teaching from primary school to university, the book introduces the reader to a plurality of approaches to, and applications of, up-to-date theories in the fields of cognition, language acquisition, intercultural communication and technology-based distance education, to name but a few. Though situated in a concrete educational context—be it a Chinese EFL-classroom in transition, an online MBA-course offered in post-Communist Romania, or a U.S. university utilizing community elders as a pedagogical tool—each paper was selected on the universal value of its findings, which professionals facing the challenges of 21st century pedagogy will find readily applicable in classrooms worldwide. Since teaching paradigms are strongly culture-bound and influenced by national policies as much as international politics, this book represents a maximum of diversity by including philosophical texts, hands-on research results and articles in the critical discourse tradition, which reflect a number of contentious issues, ranging from the pros and cons of dual-language classrooms to potentially racist literature curricula and the intersection of politics and pedagogy in a post-September 11 world.

This companion, appropriate for the lay reader and researcher alike, provides analysis of characters, plots, humor, symbols, philosophies, and classic themes from the writings and tellings of Leslie Marmon Silko, the celebrated novelist, poet, memoirist and Native American wisewoman. The text opens with an annotated chronology of Silko's multiracial heritage, life and works, followed by a family tree of the Leslie-Marmon families that clarifies relationships of the people who fill her autobiographical musings. In the main text, 87 A-to-Z entries combine literary and cultural commentary with generous citations from primary and secondary sources and comparisons to classic and popular literature. Back matter includes a glossary of Pueblo terms and a list of 43 questions for research, writing projects, and discussion. This much-needed text will aid both scholars and casual readers interested in the work and career of the first internationally-acclaimed native woman author in the United States.

"A revised and expanded, comprehensive guide to the novels of Native American author Louise Erdrich from Love Medicine to The Painted Drum. Includes chronologies, genealogical charts, complete dictionary of characters, map and geographical details about settings, and a glossary of all the Ojibwe words and phrases used in the novels"--Provided by publisher.

In this innovative study, Positive Pollutions and Cultural Toxins, John Blair Gamber examines urbanity and the results of urban living—traffic, garbage, sewage, waste, and pollution—arguing for a new recognition of all forms of human detritus as part of the natural world and thus for a broadening of our understanding of environmental literature. While much of the discourse surrounding the United States’ idealistic and nostalgic views of itself privileges “clean” living (primarily in rural, small-town, and suburban settings), representations of rurality and urbanity by Chicanas/Chicanos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, on the other hand, complicate such generalization. Gamber widens our understanding of current ecocritical debates by examining texts by such authors as Octavia Butler, Louise Erdrich, Alejandro Morales, Gerald Vizenor, and Karen Tei Yamashita that draw on the physical signs of human corporeality to refigure cities and urbanity as natural. He demonstrates how ethnic American literature reclaims waste objects and waste spaces—likening pollution to miscegenation—as a method to revalue cast-off and marginalized individuals and communities. Positive Pollutions and Cultural Toxins explores the conjunction of, and the frictions between, twentieth-century U.S. postcolonial studies, race studies, urban studies, and ecocriticism, and works to refigure this portrayal of urban spaces.

The volume explores the various intersections and interconnections of the self and popular music in fiction; it examines questions of musical taste and identity construction across decades, spaces, social groups, and cultural contexts, covering a wide range of literary and musical genres.

The essay collection Americana poses the basic question of how American music can be described and analyzed as such, as American music. Situated at the intersection between musicology and American Studies, the essays focus on the categories of aesthetics, authenticity, and performance in order to show how popular music is made American-from Alaskan hip hop to German Schlager, from Creedence Clearwater Revival to film scores, from popular opera to U2, from the Rolling Stones to country rap, and from Steve Earle to the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.

"Through Hollywood - the history teacher who reaches the largest audiences - the imagery of conquest has become effectively naturalized, glorified, and personified in the guise of the mythical frontiersman, such as John Wayne and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. This book examines eighteen movies, ranging from The Green Berets to Raiders of the Lost Ark, from Red River to Hidalgo. Others, from Full Metal Jacket to The Big Lebowski."--Jacket.

Frontiers in American Children’s Literature is a groundbreaking work by both established and emerging scholars in the fields of children’s literature criticism, history, and education. It offers 18 essays which explore and critically examine the expanding canon of American children’s books against the backdrop of a social history comprised of a deep layering of trauma and struggle, redefining what equality and freedom mean. The book charts new ground in how children’s literature is telling stories of historical trauma – the racial violence of American slavery, the Mexican Repatriation Act, and the oppression and violence against African Americans in light of such murders as in the AME Mother Emanuel Church and the shooting of Michael Brown. This new frontier explores how truth telling about racism, oppression, and genocide communicates with the young about violence and freedom in literature, transforming harsh truths into a moral vision. Frontiers in American Children’s Literature will be an instant classic for fans of children’s and adolescent literature, American literature, cultural studies, and students of literature in general, as well as teachers and prospective teachers. Those interested in art history, graphic novels, picture book art, African American and American Indian literature, the digital humanities, and new media will also find this volume compelling. Authors and artists covered in these essays include Laurie Halse Anderson, M.T. Anderson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Louise Erdrich, Eric Gansworth, Edward Gorey, Russell Hoban, Ellen Hopkins, Patricia Polacco, Ann Rinaldi, Peter Sís, Lynd Ward, and Naomi Wolf, among others. Essayists examine their subjects’ most provocative works on the topics of realistic depictions of slavery, oppression, and trauma, and the triumph of truth in storytelling over these experiences. From The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing to The Birchbark House, from the graphic novel to picture books and the digital humanities in teaching and reading, there is something for everyone in this collection. Contributors include leaders in the fields of literature and education, such as the award-winning Katherine Capshaw and Anastasia Ulanowicz. Margaret Noodin, poet and leader in American Indian scholarship and education, leads the essays on American Indian children’s literature, while Steven Herb, Director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book and an affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, offers an insider’s view of Caldecott Medal awardee Lynn Ward.