Overview

The War in Words is the first book to study the captivity and confinement narratives generated by a single American war as it traces the development and variety of the captivity narrative genre. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola examines the complex 1862 Dakota Conflict (also called the Dakota War) by focusing on twenty-four of the dozens of narratives that European Americans and Native Americans wrote about it. This six-week war was the deadliest confrontation between whites and Dakotas in Minnesota's history. Conducted at the same time as the Civil War, it is sometimes called Minnesota's Civil War because it was—and continues to be—so divisive. The Dakota Conflict aroused impassioned prose from participants and commentators as they disputed causes, events, identity, ethnicity, memory, and the all-important matter of the war's legacy. Though the study targets one region, its ramifications reach far beyond Minnesota in its attention to war and memory. An ethnography of representative Dakota Conflict narratives and an analysis of the war's historiography, The War in Words includes new archival information, historical data, and textual criticism.

Full Product Details

Author:   Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola
Publisher:   University of Nebraska Press
Imprint:   University of Nebraska Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.744kg
ISBN:  

9780803213708

ISBN 10:   0803213700
Pages:   398
Publication Date:   01 May 2009
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Preface List of Narratives and Their Chronological Contexts Methodology Historical Perspectives on the Dakota War   Part 1. European Americans Narrating Captivity Introduction 1. Martha Riggs Morris and Sarah Wakefield: Captivity and Protest 2. Harriet Bishop McConkey and Isaac Heard: Captivity and Early Dakota War Histories 3. Edward S. Ellis: Captivity and the Dime Novel Tradition 4. Mary Schwandt Schmidt and Jacob Nix: Captivity and German Americans 5. Jannette DeCamp Sweet, Helen Carrothers Tarble, Lillian Everett Keeney, and Urania White: Captivity and the Antiquarian Impulse 6. Benedict Juni: Captivity and the Boy's Adventure Story   Part 2. Native Americans Narrating Captivity Introduction 7. Samuel J. Brown and Joseph Godfrey: Captivity and Credit 8. Paul Mazakutemani: Captivity and Spiritual Autobiography 9. Cecelia Campbell Stay and Nancy McClure Faribault Huggan: Captivity and Bicultural Women's Identity 10. Big Eagle, Lorenzo Lawrence, and Maggie Brass: Captivity and Cultural Stereotypes 11. Good Star Woman: Captivity and Ethnography 12. Esther Wakeman and Joseph Coursolle: Captivity and Oral History 13. Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve: Captivity and Counter Captivity   Conclusion: Captive to the Past? The Legacy of the Dakota War Notes Works Cited Index

Reviews

A combination of literary history, historiography, and cultural contextualization, this cogent book situates the little-known literature produced by this unresolved conflict in the context of genre studies, American Studies, public memory, and trauma and reconciliation. --S. K./i>--S. K. Bernardin CHOICE

Everyone teaching the Dakota War or captivity narratives, or seeking a cultural lens into a microcosm of nineteenth-century Indian Wars, will find this an essential addition to their library. . . . Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola has given us an interesting and effective way to think about this complicated moment in Minnesota history-a moment many groups are still struggling to come to terms with. -- Wendy Lucas Castro Southwest Journal of Cultures (08/11/2009)

Author Information

Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola is a professor of English and the director of the William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program in English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is the editor of Women's Indian Captivity Narratives and the coauthor of The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550–1900.

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