From the Editor

Abstract

From the Editor Kiara M. Vigil, Editor Han mitakuyepi, Greetings my relatives, As we all reemerge and re-envision our lives in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, SAIL is finding its footing anew and enjoying a gradual uptick in submissions for our publication. This issue highlights work that came to the press during the pandemic. For these authors the process of review and revision took longer than usual, but each was able to engage deeply and thoughtfully in preparing the work that you will read here. Lloyd Sy’s “The Hermeneutics of Starvation: Fish in James Welch’s Winter in the Blood” traces various forms of lack in Welch’s novel’s depiction of scarcity. This essay argues that the dearth of fish within a Blackfeet/Gros Ventre diet pushes characters to interpret their circumstances through a “hermeneutics of starvation.” With attention to sexual violence and rhetorics of survivance Cortney Smith engages with a close reading of a novel by Louise Erdrich to reveal how the suspense genre and weaving in Ojibwe storytelling help to unearth issues Native women continue to face. In “Snake Eyes: Linda Hogan’s Monumental Serpentine Embodiment of Justice,” Catharine Kunce explores how Hogan’s essay creates “sentence by sentence” and “word by word” an articulated representation of a snake to create both a physical and metaphysical “mound of insight.” Moving from this earthwork and the knowledge it contains to the figure of Sacagawea, Melissa Adams-Campbell’s article traces how three Native women authors, Monique Mojica (Kuna-Rappahonnock), Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), and Diane Glancy (Cherokee and German), challenge nationalist mythmaking around Sacajawea by amplifying Indigenous community concerns and archival found texts. Keeping with the theme of Native women’s perspectives and stories is Lindsey Stephens’s “As Long As It Gets Read: The [End Page vii] Lakota As-Told-To Genre, Authenticity, and Mediated Authorship in Mary Brave Bird’s Lakota Woman and Ohitika Woman.” In this essay, Stephens situates Mary Brave Bird’s controversial text within Lakota activist literary traditions. In addition to these scholarly works, this issue features several poems by Kimberly M. Blaeser and Kenzie Allen to highlight the enduring importance of creative works within Studies in American Indian Literatures. Finally, this issue includes one posthumously published piece by Tadeusz Lewandowski titled: “The Intellectual Evolution of Sherman Coolidge, Red Progressivism’s Neglected Voice.” His wife communicated that Tadeusz was enthusiastic about being able to share this work with SAIL, where he compares Sherman Coolidge’s leadership in the Society of American Indians with other Red Progressives. Tadeusz’s work aims to highlight Coolidge’s contributions to Native intellectual history by centering the personal history of this figure and different contributions of intertribal activists during the early twentieth century. Wophida tanka for reading, Kiara M. Vigil, Editor [End Page viii] Copyright © 2023 University of Nebraska Press