Consider the ways in which Maria Campbell’s Half Breed interrogates two or more of the following issues: gender, identity, spirituality, narrative structure, and/or intertextuality.

Topic:
Contemporary Indigenous Literatures and Cultures

No# of Pages:
13 pages (3,250 words)

Details:
This essay refers to literature by Native American. You must be careful with your terminology when regarding to indigenous people and when referring to specific tribes. The essay question is:

Consider the ways in which Maria Campbell’s Half Breed interrogates two or more of the following issues: gender, identity, spirituality, narrative structure, and/or intertextuality.
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This is a year 3 essay.
In this essay you will be referring to Maria Campbell`s text (1973) Half Breed. It is a short text around 160-170 pages long, you can refer to any of the above `issues`, though I would recommend to do identity followed by gender or narrative structure. Please also make a few small references to Leanne Howe`s Shellshaker (this can optionally be done through secondary sources only or through direct quotation or thematic/narrative comparison). When introducing Campbell and her memoir and the tribe/geography of her text, please provide a brief description of these things and contextualise them historically as these things are important in Indigenous literature. Using secondary sources, please include the political climate in which Campbell may have experienced her childhood (1950`s) and the political legislation which may have impacted her tribe.

This information will be accessible in the secondary sources. Please include how such legislation would have impacted her sense of identity, spirituality and how her physical dispossession has impacted the protagonist. Please also include how the narrative structure is central to Indigenous literature and try to avoid making cliché comparisons to Western/white literature. Please specify Campbell`s tribe and how her tribal characteristics are unique to her literary style.

Please read Sam Mckegney`s article regarding how to approach Indigenous Literature before beginning this essay.

Please contact me with any other questions

The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature Edited by Porter, Joy ; Roemer, Kenneth M. is useful for general definitions and approaches.

How to define indigenous peoples: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html