{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81387"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81387","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Ethnographic Criticism and Native American Fiction: Cultural Texts, Textual Culture in the Novels of James Welch","abstract":"My project examines the processes of discipline formation in studies of Native American fiction using the first three novels of the widely acclaimed writer James Welch---Winter in the Blood (1974), The Death of Jim Loney (1979), and Fools Crow (1986). Through Welch's diverse works, I attend to two levels of critical response: how critics make larger claims about approaches to Native American literature more generally, and how they share what I call an ethnographic mode of criticism defined by its parallels with anthropology and its use of ethnographic materials. I show how the ethnographic approach's structuring of the dominant critical readings obscures the narratives' explorations of identity and textuality that range beyond the preservation of a pure, timeless, traditional Indianness. Reading the criticism alongside the novels allows me to expand the boundaries of study to include analysis of critical motivations, strategies, and effects; to expose the problems and dangers of an unexamined adoption of an ethnographic approach; and to analyze the real-world implications of literary criticism for the larger issues of representation so critical in minority studies.","abstract_html":"My project examines the processes of discipline formation in studies of Native American fiction using the first three novels of the widely acclaimed writer James Welch---Winter in the Blood (1974), The Death of Jim Loney (1979), and Fools Crow (1986). Through Welch's diverse works, I attend to two levels of critical response: how critics make larger claims about approaches to Native American literature more generally, and how they share what I call an ethnographic mode of criticism defined by its parallels with anthropology and its use of ethnographic materials. I show how the ethnographic approach's structuring of the dominant critical readings obscures the narratives' explorations of identity and textuality that range beyond the preservation of a pure, timeless, traditional Indianness. Reading the criticism alongside the novels allows me to expand the boundaries of study to include analysis of critical motivations, strategies, and effects; to expose the problems and dangers of an unexamined adoption of an ethnographic approach; and to analyze the real-world implications of literary criticism for the larger issues of representation so critical in minority studies.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Nelson, Christopher R."],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Parker, Robert Dale"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-09-25T20:15:00Z","date_published":"2015-09-25T20:15:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:16Z","subjects":["Literature, Comparative"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(MiAaPQ)AAI3070393"],"render_values":[{"text":"(MiAaPQ)AAI3070393","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81387","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Parker, Robert Dale"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Nelson, Christopher R."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2015-09-25T20:15:00Z","10000-01-01","2002"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Literature, Comparative"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81387","(MiAaPQ)AAI3070393"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["My project examines the processes of discipline formation in studies of Native American fiction using the first three novels of the widely acclaimed writer James Welch---Winter in the Blood (1974), The Death of Jim Loney (1979), and Fools Crow (1986). 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