Affirmation

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Truth and Consequences: Law, Myth and Metaphor in American Indian Contested Adoption

This article considers the effects of the operations of myth and metaphor on law through a comparison of a United States Supreme Court decision and a novel that deal with the contested trans-racial adoption of an American Indian child. It argues that the United States founding myth of Manifest Destiny—of the divinely ordained fate of the continent to host a (white) Christian state—is determinative of the way in which legal decisions regarding American Indians are made. The myth of Manifest Destiny contains a metaphor of vanished American Indians, such that contemporary American Indians are rendered nearly invisible and whose existence is not easily absorbed into the working of the American legal system. The American Indian Child Welfare Act provides protections against assimilation for indigenous families and community, thus working at cross-purposes to the ultimate aim of Manifest Destiny. What happens in those instances when legal provisions and interpretation run counter to Manifest Destiny? Through the consideration of the situation of a contested adoption, this article reveals the heavy influence of Manifest Destiny in the Supreme Court decision, which is counter to the vision of a pluralistic culture envisioned in both the novel and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) itself. The consequences of legal resistance to ICWA for American Indian communities and as to the operation of the legal system itself are discussed

Imperial Ascent: Mountaineering, Masculinity, and Empire

The thrills and chills of mountaineering literature have long attracted a devoted audience of serious climbers, adventure-seekers, and armchair enthusiasts. In recent decades, scholars have come to view these tales of prowess and fortitude as texts laden with ideological meaning. In Imperial Ascent, a comparative study of seven such twentieth-century mountaineering narratives, Peter L. Bayers articulates the multiple and varied ways mountaineering and its literature have played in the formation and maintenance of national identity. By examining such works as Belmore Browne\u27s The Conquest of Mount McKinley and Sir John Hunt\u27s The Ascent of Everest, Bayers contends that for American and British climbers, mountaineering is tied to imperial ideology and dominant notions of masculinity. At the same time, he demonstrates how Tiger of the Snows,, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay\u27s account of climbing Mount Everest, undermines Western conceptions of mountaineering and imperialism. Throughout this theoretically informed critique, Bayers manages to retain the sense of awe and adventure inherent in the original works, making Imperial Ascent a highly engaging read.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/english-books/1037/thumbnail.jp

Save Whom from Destruction? Alaska Natives, Frontier Mythology, and the Regeneration of the White Conscience in Hudson Stuck\u27s The Ascent of Denali

A literary criticism of the book The Ascent of Denali (1914) by Hudson Stuck is presented. It explores the impact of the closing of the frontier and the industrial modernization of the U.S. wherein frontier mythology became important to the well-being of the males of the progressive era. It notes that Stuck has undermined and destabilizes frontier ideologies by sympathizing with the Natives of Alaska

The U.S. Mint, the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, and the Perpetuation of the Frontier Myth

The article analyzes coins, mostly nickels, created by the U.S. Mint that aim to celebrate the Lewis and Clark expedition and the role of Native Americans in it, focusing specifically on how the U.S. Mint has obscured historical reality by ignoring the imperialist aspects of the expedition. The author first explains the importance of coins to a sense of national identity in the U.S. The Euro-American tradition of describing Native Americans as either ignoble or noble savages is examined by the author. The author describes these depictions of Native Americans as part of a white American national myth that justifies Native displacement. Specific emphasis is given to the portrayal of Sacagawea on a golden dollar