ASAIL NOTES
4:1 / nov 86
Editor: Andrew Wiget, English Dept., New Mexico S U, Las Cruces, NM 88003
ASAIL AT MLA
The current president of ASAIL, Susan Scarberry-Garcia, has secured an excellent,
economic scheduling and good topics and presenters for the association's participation in the
MLA convention in New York, Dec. 27-30.
109. Native American Oral Texts: Interpretations and Transcriptions.
28 December. 8:30-9:45 am, Majestic, Marriott. Paul Zolbrod, Chair
1. "Transcription, Interpretation and Translation: The View from Native South
America." Joel Sherzer, U Texas.
2. "Issues of Interpretation: Song of the Sky." Brian Swann, Cooper Union.
Respondent: Larry Evers, University of Arizona
178. Native American Poetry, Song and Short Fiction.
28 December, Gilbert, Marriott, 12:00-1:15 pm. Daniel Littlefield, Chair
1. "The Telling that Continues: Oral Tradition in Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller."
Bernard A. Hirsch, University of Kansas
2. "Simon Ortiz: The Poet and His Landscape." William Oandasan, UCLA.
3. "Singer of the Semiotics of Power: John Milton Oskison." Gretchen Ronnow, U of
Arizona.
The ASAIL BUSINESS MEETING will also be on the 28th at 3:30 pm in Suite 3842 of the
Marriott Marquis. We have a number of issues to take up, including possible
association-wide projects. We also have elections. Daniel Littlefield will serve as President
for 1987. The Association will accept nominations for someone to serve as President-Elect
for 1987 and President in 1988. Please consider serving yourself or securing someone's
permission for nomination at the meeting.
More information about MLA panels of potential interest to ASAIL Members is
included as a pullout center page to this issue. Take it with you to the convention.
LAVONNE RUOFF TO BE HONORED BY MELUS AT MLA
A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, a longtime member of ASAIL, who represented the interests of Native American literary scholarship on the MLA's Commission on the Literatures and Languages of America, widely respected for her historical scholarship and exemplary bibliographic skills, will be honored by MELUS for her outstanding contribution to the study of the ethnic literatures of America. ASAIL members should pause in the hectic round of MLA to celebrate with MELUS the achievement of our colleague. Reservations for the MELUS Luncheon Program (Dec 29, Wintergarden Room, Marriott Marquis), which features an excellent menu, are $25.00. Tickets can be purchased from Professor Curtis Smith, MELUS Treasurer, University of Houston-Clear Lake.
{2}
THE MLA'S COMMISSION ON THE LITERATURES AND LANGUAGES OF
AMERICA
The Commission met in NYC on Oct. 9-10. In addition to planning a forum with
accompanying panels for next year's workshop, the Commission put forward two other ideas:
A CLLA newsletter which would feature news, research reports, announcements, calls for
papers, current bibliography, etc. but which would cover all the literatures represented:
Native American, Asian American, Chicano and Black; also, a project to identify catalog, and
perhaps with appropriate copyright and licensing agreements make available for copying and
distribution, audiotape recordings of writers from these literatures. These projects, especially
the last, will be raised at the ASAIL Business Meeting and your opinion solicited. The Next
CLLA meeting is in February 1986.
JOB INFORMATION
Announced in the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: Director of American
Indian Studies Center, UCLA. Research, publication in NA Studies field, and administrative
experience necessary. Candidate must qualify for tenurable position in a UCLA academic
department. Write: Carole Goldberg-Ambrose, Associate Dean and Chair, AISC Director
Search Committee, UCLA School of Law, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024.
LARRY EVERS TO OFFER NEH SUMMER SEMINAR IN 1987
Larry Evers, distinguished teacher and scholar of Native American Literature and editor
of the much-praised SUN TRACKS series, will offer an NEH Summer Seminar on American
Indian Verbal Art and Literature for College Teachers at the University of Arizona, from
June 15 to August 7. A stipend of $2,750 will be paid to participants. Potential applicants
should write Larry at the Department of English, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.
BOOKS: OLD . . .
Hardbound copies of Janet Campbell Hale's fine, recent novel, THE JAILING OF
CECILIA CAPTURE, were available as remainders from Daedalus Books in New York for
$2.95. A good bargain if you can find it advertised. Try The New York Review of Books.
Bo Scholer's collection of contemporary Native American Literature and criticism,
COYOTE WAS HERE, formerly only available from Bo via U of Aarhus, Denmark, will be
distributed in the US by Navajo Community College Press. Price $11.00, plus $1.50 postage
and handling.
NCC Press will shortly put Simon Ortiz's EARTH POWER COMING: SHORT
FICTION IN NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE through its second printing.
NEW, AND . . . SOON
Joel Sherzer and Greg Urban have published NATIVE SOUTH AMERICAN
DISCOURSE (Mouton, 1986) which follows the example of Sherzer's KUNA WAYS OF
SPEAKING in applying performance theory to Native American literatures from South
America. Expected soon is Larry Evers and Felipe Molina's MASO BWIKAM: YAQUI DEER
SONGS (University of Arizona). Andrew Wiget's SIMON ORTIZ (Boise State, $2.50) is the
monograph on a Native American author in that Western Writers Series.
If you haven't yet picked up Louise Erdrich's newest novel, BEET QUEEN, (Holt,
1986) read it, and discover why it made The New York Times best-seller list.
Other novels by Native American writers expected later this year or early next include
Gerald Vizenor's GRIEVER: AN AMERICAN MONKEY KEY IN {3} CHINA (Fiction
Collective/Illinois State U), Michael Dorris, A YELLOW RAFT ON BLUE WATER (Holt),
and James Welch, FOOLS CROW (Viking).
NEW FILMS AVAILABLE
NAVAJO CODE TALKERS tells the story of Navajo men who served in WW II and as
radiomen and whose native tongue provided a code the Japanese never cracked. Film and
tape formats, sale or rental. From OneWest, 535 Cordova Rd., Suite 40, Santa Fe, NM
87501 (Phone 505/983-8685). PARLEZ-VOUS YUP'IK describes how the Yupik version of
Antigone. which was so well-received in NY and Europe, was conceived of, planned and
produced. Describes the cast's visit to Europe with scenes from play and discusses how
Antigone as a drama is compatible with Yupik understandings of death, family and loyalty.
From KYUK-TV, Kuskokwim Community College, Bethel, AK.
RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Native American Oral Literature
Beach, M.A., "The Waptshi Prophet and The Feather Religion: Derivative of the
Washni." AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY 9:325-333 (S 85).
Dunsmore, Roger. "Transformation: Sweat Lodge Ritual No. 1." STUDIES IN
AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURE 10, 1 (WTR 1986) 16-37.
Fans, Peter K., "A Fertility Ceremony Illustrated in the Cave of Life, Petrified Forest
National Park, Arizona." SOUTHWESTERN LORE 52:1 (March 85) 8-21.
Gebbart-Sayer, Angelica. "The Geometric Designs of the Shipibo-Conibo in Ritual
Context." JOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN LORE 11:2 (W 85) 143-176.
Hering, J.B. "Kenekuk, The Kikapoo Prophet: Acculturation Without Assimilation."
AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY 9 (Summer 85) 295-307.
Kroeber, Karl. "Elderberry and Stone: A Source for Tsimshian Literary Studies."
STUDIES IN AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURE 10, 1 (WTR 1986) 38-42.
Moore, Robert. "Coyote and the Five Sisters." STUDIES IN AMERICAN INDIAN
LITERATURES 10, 1 (WTR 1986) 1-15.
Rice, Julian. "Akicita of the Thunder: Horses in Black Elk's Vision." MELUS 12:1 (S
85) 5-24.
Scott, J.C. "Narrative Expectations and Textual Misreadings: Jamake Highwater's
ANAPAO analyzed and reanalyzed." STUDIES IN THE LITERARY IMAGINATION. 18
(F 85) 93-105.
Trafzer, C.E. and M.A. Beach. "Smohalla, The Washani and Religion as a Factor in
Northwest Indian History." AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY (S 85) 9: 309-324.
Young, Mi. "Images of Power and the Power of Images: The Significances of Rock Art
for Contemporary Zunis." JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE 98: (J/M 85) 3-48.
Native American Written Literature
Clements, William M., "Folk-Historical Sense in Two Native American Authors."
MELUS 12:1 (S 85) 65-78.
Givens, Bettye. "A MELUS Interview: N. Scott Momaday - A Slant of Light. MELUS
12:1 (S 85) 774-788.
Herzog, Kristen. "Thinking Woman and Feeling Man: Gender in {4} Silko's Ceremony.
MELUS (S 85) 25-36.
Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown. "The Survival of Tradition: American Indian Oral and
Written Narratives." THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW 27 (1986) 274-93.
Ruppert, James. "Mediation and Multiple Narrative in Contemporary Native American
Fiction. TSLL: TEXAS STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 2 (1986) 209-225.
Bibliographic Essays
Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown. "American Indian Literatures: Introduction and
Bibliography." AMERICAN STUDIES INTERNATIONAL 24 (Oct 1986) 2 -52.
Wiget, Andrew. "Native American Literature: A Bibliographic Survey of American
Indian Literary Traditions. CHOICE (June 1986) 1503-12.
NOTE: Your sub-sub-librarian would have the temerity to assert that the value of a bibliography is directly proportionate to the amount of information it provides on sources otherwise difficult to locate. He needs to hear from subscribers about local, small press, regional, foreign, and university-affiliated serials and other sources easily overlooked by indexing services. ADDENDUM: George is dead, so we can no longer count on letting George do it.
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