Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history, and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative, and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today. In considering the connections between literature and lived experience, this book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How do we become good ancestors? How do we learn to live together? Blending personal narrative and broader historical and cultural analysis with close readings of key creative and critical texts, Justice argues that Indigenous writers engage with these questions in part to challenge settler-colonial policies and practices that have targeted Indigenous connections to land, history, family, and self. More importantly, Indigenous writers imaginatively engage the many ways that communities and individuals have sought to nurture these relationships and project them into the future. This provocative volume challenges readers to critically consider and rethink their assumptions about Indigenous literature, history, and politics while never forgetting the emotional connections of our shared humanity and the power of story to effect personal and social change. Written with a generalist reader firmly in mind, but addressing issues of interest to specialists in the field, this book welcomes new audiences to Indigenous literary studies while offering more seasoned readers a renewed appreciation for these transformative literary traditions.

Once the most powerful indigenous nation in the southeastern United States, the Cherokees survive and thrive as a people nearly two centuries after the Trail of Tears and a hundred years after the allotment of Indian Territory. In Our Fire Survives the Storm, Daniel Heath Justice traces the expression of Cherokee identity in that nation’s literary tradition. Through cycles of war and peace, resistance and assimilation, trauma and regeneration, Cherokees have long debated what it means to be Cherokee through protest writings, memoirs, fiction, and retellings of traditional stories. Justice employs the Chickamauga consciousness of resistance and Beloved Path of engagement—theoretical approaches that have emerged out of Cherokee social history—to interpret diverse texts composed in English, a language embraced by many as a tool of both access and defiance. Justice’s analysis ultimately locates the Cherokees as a people of many perspectives, many bloods, mingled into a collective sense of nationhood. Just as the oral traditions of the Cherokee people reflect the living realities and concerns of those who share them, Justice concludes, so too is their literary tradition a textual testament to Cherokee endurance and vitality. Daniel Heath Justice is assistant professor of aboriginal literatures at the University of Toronto.

Masked bandits of the night, raiders of farm crops and rubbish bins, raccoons are notorious for their indifference to human property and propriety. Yet they are also admired for their intelligence, dexterity, and determination. Raccoons have thoroughly adapted to human-dominated environments—they are thriving in numbers greater than at any point of their evolutionary history, including in new habitats. Raccoon surveys the natural and cultural history of this opportunistic omnivore, tracing its biological evolution, social significance, and image in a range of media and political contexts. From intergalactic misanthropes and despoilers of ancient temples to coveted hunting quarry, unpredictable pet, and symbols of wilderness and racist stereotype alike, Raccoon offers a lively consideration of this misunderstood outlaw species.

Ceremonies for the Dead is an award-winning collection of poems that examine the haunting themes of inter-generational trauma, cyclical abuse, and inherited grief. Four generations of the dead take turns narrating these themes, navigating from the Great Lakes through the Appalachian Mountains, and examining the fur trade, an exile from Minnesota, the experiences of West Virginia coal miners, and the legacy of mission schools. Black humour and satire fill the collection, illuminating a fierce determination to survive and resist colonization and the endurance of culture and identity under extreme duress.

Fierce, menacing, and mysterious, badgers have fascinated humans as living animals, abstract symbols, or commercial resources for thousands of years—often to their detriment. With their reputation for determined self-defense, they have been brutalized by hunters and sportsmen, while their association with the mythic underworld has made them idealized symbols of earth-based wisdom and their burrowing habits have resulted in their widespread persecution as pests. In this highly illustrated book, Daniel Heath Justice provides the first global cultural history of the badger in over thirty years. From the iconic European badger and its North American kin to the African honey badger and Southeast Asian hog badger, Justice considers the badger’s evolution and widespread distribution alongside its current, often-imperiled status throughout the world. He travels from natural history and life in the wild to the folklore, legends, and spiritual beliefs that badgers continue to inspire, while also exploring their representation and exploitation in industry, religion, and the arts. Tracing the complex and contradictory ways in which this fascinating animal endures, Badger will appeal to anyone interested in a deeper understanding of these much-maligned creatures.

The twentieth-anniversary edition of the path-clearing study of Cherokee writing in English, with an emphatic refocus on voices from the three Cherokee tribal nations This Citizenship and Sovereignty Edition of Our Fire Survives the Storm is a thoroughly updated, nationhood-focused, twentieth-anniversary revision of Daniel Heath Justice’s influential study of Cherokee writing in English. Through politically astute and historically grounded readings of diverse texts by citizens of the Cherokee Nation, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Justice connects Cherokee literature to Indigenous sovereignty, nationhood, and collective futurity. Guided by a reparative vision that directly contends with the outdated literary legacies of the book’s first edition, this revision confronts the ongoing harms of unsubstantiated and false Cherokee heritage claims on literary studies, replacing readings of primary texts by unverified claimants with those of Cherokee citizen writers. As Justice addresses issues of accountability, he engages with the past two decades of Indigenous scholarship, fully updating terminology, concepts, and scholarly resources. He expands and deepens the intellectual and historical context for Cherokee literary production introduced in the first edition, and he discusses Cherokee writing and community in the mid-twentieth century, the Cherokee Freedmen’s long struggle for justice, and the future of Cherokee nationhood. Highlighting the work of authors who illustrate the transformative collective discourses of what it means to be Cherokee, Justice examines the richness of Cherokee literary expression through motifs of roots, removal, and nationhood in traditional stories, speeches, legal and governance documents, memoirs, short stories, novels, and plays. An invitation to reflective criticism, this new edition of Our Fire Survives the Storm is grounded in the belief that Indigenous nationhood is a necessary ethical response to the violence of the settler imaginary. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

Available for the first time in one volume, Daniel Heath Justice's acclaimed Thorn and Thunder novels take Indigenous fantasy fiction beyond its stereotypes and tell a story set in a world similar to eighteenth-century eastern North America. The original trilogy--an example of green/eco-literature--is collected here in a one-volume novel.

Once the most powerful indigenous nation in the southeastern United States, the Cherokees survive and thrive as a people nearly two centuries after the Trail of Tears and a hundred years after the allotment of Indian Territory. In Our Fire Survives the Storm, Daniel Heath Justice traces the expression of Cherokee identity in that nation’s literary tradition. Through cycles of war and peace, resistance and assimilation, trauma and regeneration, Cherokees have long debated what it means to be Cherokee through protest writings, memoirs, fiction, and retellings of traditional stories. Justice employs the Chickamauga consciousness of resistance and Beloved Path of engagement—theoretical approaches that have emerged out of Cherokee social history—to interpret diverse texts composed in English, a language embraced by many as a tool of both access and defiance. Justice’s analysis ultimately locates the Cherokees as a people of many perspectives, many bloods, mingled into a collective sense of nationhood. Just as the oral traditions of the Cherokee people reflect the living realities and concerns of those who share them, Justice concludes, so too is their literary tradition a textual testament to Cherokee endurance and vitality. Daniel Heath Justice is assistant professor of aboriginal literatures at the University of Toronto.

The forces of Eromar ravage the Everland, and the skies are filled with the smoke and ashes of the burning woods. Those Folk who do not escape into the far mountains and hidden valleys are driven into the broken westlands of Humanity, where Dreydmaster Vald reveals the full vision of his mad crusade, one that will annihilate even the memory of the Kyn and their kind.One group of heroes walks the Darkening Road to rescue the exiles, and another travels to the capital city of Men to make a last, desperate appeal, but both know that these days will determine the fate of the Folk in this Melded world. Will their roots hold fast, or will they be cast adrift into the storm? Can they find a safe middle path on this way of thorn and thunder?

The Sevenfold Council stands firm against Dreydmaster Vald's treaty terms--they will not surrender the Everland. Their will is strong, but there is a traitor in their midst, and Vald intends to win this struggle...by any means necessary. As the Everland is torn apart by invasion and the threat of civil war, the young warrior-Wielder, Tarsa'deshae, and the little Tetawa Leafspeaker, Tobhi Burrows, travel to Eromar City, the centre of Vald's influence, in hopes of rescuing the diplomats who have long languished in the shadows of Gorthac Hall. But only one remains alive, and he knows too well the price for fighting the Dreydmaster's will. It will take all their strength, courage, and good fortune to escape with their lives. Whether they have a home to return to is another matter entirely....