Intersection of Fantasy & Native America

Amy H. Sturgis was one of the first folks I interviewed at this blog. So I was happy to get to interview her again, this time due to the release of The Intersection of Fantasy & Native America: From H.P. Lovecraft to Leslie Marmon Silko (Edited by Amy H. Sturgis and David D. Oberhelman). Sturgis always gives incredibly interesting and insightful answers–as well as being involved in an amazing wide variety of projects. Here’s the official description of this particular project: “A number of contemporary Native American authors incorporate elements of fantasy into their fiction, while several non-Native fantasy authors utilize elements of Native America in their storytelling. Nevertheless, few experts on fantasy consider American Indian works, and few experts on Native American studies explore the fantastic in literature. Now an international, multi-ethnic, and cross-disciplinary group of scholars investigates the meaningful ways in which fantasy and Native America intersect, examining classics by American Indian authors such as Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor, and Leslie Marmon Silko, as well as non-Native fantasists such as H.P. Lovecraft, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling. Thus these essayists pioneer new ways of thinking about fantasy texts by Native and non-Native authors, and challenge other academics, writers, and readers to do the same.” Now, on with the interview.

Tim O’Shea: Is the target audience for a book like this mainstream, literary scholars or a mixture of both? Why I ask is when I read chapter titles like “Vizenor the Trickster: Postmodernism Versus Terminal Creeds and Cultural Schizophrenia” I get a smidge intellectually intimidated (that’s meant as a compliment, not a slam)…

Amy H. Sturgis: I’m so glad you asked! We went to great pains to make certain this text would be accessible to interested lay readers as well as students and scholars of fantasy and/or Native American literature. Therefore, in each essay the author introduces and explains the books that he or she will discuss, and the essayists also define their terms carefully to avoid jargonism. This is especially important since our contributors come from such a wide range of fields, each of which employs its own unique terminology. In the essay you mention, Tripper Ryder employs some of the terms his subjects use, but he breaks down each of them in a reader-friendly manner before delving into his fascinating analysis of Gerald Vizenor’s fiction. Never fear! This book was designed to be for any and all who are interested in fantasy and Native America.

O’Shea: How many topics did you consider before deciding on who would be participating in the book–and how long did the selection process take?

Sturgis: Our original Call for Papers went out in 2007 with a deadline of July 2008, and we were intentionally broad in our description, casting a wide net for essays that discussed either works by Native American authors that contained fantastic elements, or works of fantasy by non-Native authors that incorporated Native America in some manner. It took David Oberhelman and me a full year of reading the submissions, responding to them with our comments, and working on revisions with the potential contributors in order to decide on a final Table of Contents. We wanted the best essays possible, and we also wanted them to speak to and inform one another. I’m exceptionally pleased with the essays we chose; the organization of the volume grew rather naturally from these papers to form what I think is a very compelling volume that says something new and important.

O’Shea: A blurb from Travis Prinzi for the book included the following line: “I’m now convinced there’s a vast treasure store of fantasy I haven’t even begun to experience…” In editing the book, were you introduced to any works or concepts that you had not considered before and/or that in some way broadended your perspective on the topic?

Sturgis: I love that quote from Travis Prinzi! Frankly, I learned something from each of the essays in this collection, so a comprehensive answer to your question might become another book in its own right. I will say that I was particularly taken with Punyashree Panda’s angle, however; as a non-Anglo, non-Native, non-Westerner, Punyashree possessed a unique perspective on her subject, and she brought a refreshingly new voice to her analysis of the quest in works by J.R.R. Tolkien and Leslie Marmon Silko. I particularly like the fact that her “outsider’s” discussion of Ceremony and The Lord of the Rings proves that one need not share the same background as the author in order to gain meaningful insights from great literature.

O’Shea: In one comment in the wake of the book’s initial promotion, someone expressed disappointment that Andre Norton’s work was not considered in the topics examines. Admittedly it’s impossible to cover all aspects and every writer, but was there a short list of authors you wanted to include but were unable to, due to space?

Sturgis: To be honest, I haven’t thought in those terms, because the book was never intended to be a comprehensive encyclopedia of authors and works. In fact, the project sprang from my Scholar Guest of Honor speech at MythCon, the annual meeting of The Mythopoeic Society, in 2006; that year’s theme was “Fantasy and Native America,” and in my talk I outlined the problems I saw with the lack of attention being given by scholars and readers to the fantasy in Native American literature as well as the presence of Native America in mainstream fantasy. I framed my address as a challenge for more cross-subject and cross-disciplinary discussion — this address became the first chapter in the book — and that challenge was ably met by our contributors, who cover authors as diverse as Neil Gaiman and Gerald Vizenor. But this book represents a first step only. The goal of the volume is to encourage others to join in the dialogue, to think differently about these subjects, and so I am pleased that others are already finding additional authors and works they find to be relevant to this discussion. I want to hear more conversations and see more publications on these subjects!

O’Shea: How did you and David D. Oberhelman break down the editorial chores on the project? What was the largest challenge in the whole editorial process?

Sturgis: I had edited three books by myself, but I had never collaborated with another editor previously. In this case I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with David, who is a class act in every possible way. We had the good fortune to find ourselves in constant agreement; we value the same things in a text, and when we compared notes on submissions, we discovered our thoughts were often almost identical. But David also approached the project with tools and training that are different than mine, so I think we complemented each other nicely. We read and commented on submissions and their revisions together, just as we made the final decisions on acceptances. In other tasks, we divided the labor; I was the liason with the contributors, and David was the liason with The Mythopoeic Press; I worked more on the final edit of the text, while David worked more with its layout; etc. The largest challenge was deciding among the terrific submissions. In the end, we had to turn away some essays that were quite good but that fit less well with the overall shape of the collection. I do believe the final product as it stands represents the very best possible combination of essays.

O’Shea: The book’s contributors are a cross-disciplinary group of scholars–can you speak to the variety of disciplines represented in the book?

Sturgis: This is one of the aspects of the collection that excites me most; not only does it represent a discussion across the (often arbitrary) lines of subject matter (in this case, fantasy literature and Native American literature), but it also represents a discussion across the traditional boundaries of disciplines. Our contributors come from a variety of fields, some of which rarely have the opportunity to interact at all, much less inform each other: Literature, Anthropology, Creative Writing, Communications, Education, and History. Several of our contributors literally “wrote the book” on their respective subjects, as well.

O’Shea: Can you discuss the thinking behind Melissa Gay’s cover for the book?

Sturgis: It is a privilege to have Melissa Gay’s remarkable art represent our volume. (This is the second time I’ve had the delight of working with Melissa; her “Aslan” painting served as the cover art for my book Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis.) We were looking for an image that could equally represent Native American literature and so-called “mainstream” fantasy, and I think Melissa captured this beautifully with her depiction of the “Forest Spirit.” On the one hand, this might be the Green Man who rose from an ancient pagan past to adorn the Christian churches of Western Europe, only to be transformed into the Green Kight of Arthurian legend and later remimagined in more contemporary stories. On the other hand, it might be at home in the Americas, a representation of one of the traditional manitous or sacred spirits recognized by a given Native nation, or perhaps it is a personification of the power of nature and a way of life, the kind modern American Indian authors such as Louise Erdrich have described in their recent writings. The strength of the art, beyond its obvious beauty, is that it speaks on many levels — and in many languages.

O’Shea: While the book’s essays seeks to reveal interconnections between fantasy and Native American fiction–were there any perceived misperceptions of interconnections that were proven to not truly exist?

Sturgis: Not really. At first I did expect more of a focus on how poorly some non-Native writers incorporate Native characters or themes into their works — that is, with such little care for research, attention to detail, or respect (yes, I mean you, Best-Selling Author I Will Not Name) — but as darkly satisfying as such nitpicking might be in the short term, I think the volume is all the better for focusing on excellent, timeless literature by non-Natives as well as Natives (yes, I mean you, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Michael Bishop, J.K. Rowling, etc.), as well as on the compelling areas where these worlds of fantasy and Native America intersect.

O’Shea: Is there anything you’d like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about?

Sturgis: I don’t think so. The book is available at Amazon.com and directly from The Mythopoeic Press; also, David and I each will be attending various conventions and events in 2010, and we should have copies with us to sign and sell. Many thanks to all who have been so interested and supportive of this project.

O’Shea: Given that your website is named The Worlds of Amy H. Sturgis–what other projects are you working on at present?

Sturgis: Thanks for asking! I’ve just completed an article on the cultural phenomenon behind 2012 for Apex Magazine. In the new year, I will be finishing writing my new book, The Gothic Imaginations of J.R.R. Tolkien, Madeleine L’Engle, and J.K. Rowling for Zossima Press, and I’ll also be working on a couple of exciting new projects that, unfortunately, I’m not yet at liberty yet to discuss. In the meantime, I’ll also be teaching my courses for Belmont University, contributing my regular “History of the Genre” segments to the StarShipSofa podcast, and appearing at some terrific cons around the country. There’s more information on all my forthcoming projects at my official website.

As always, it’s a joy to speak with you, Tim. Thanks so much!

In 2007, Sturgis edited The Magic Goblet by Emilie Flygare-Carlen {early feminist Gothic novel} [first English edition in over 100 years, first scholarly English edition ever]; and edited Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis, an anthology of essays about Lewis, Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling, based on a conference she directed.

For 2008, she wrote Tecumseh: A Biography for Greenwood Press, due out in late Spring; wrote Art in Its Most Essential Sense’: H.P. Lovecraft and the Imaginative Tale book chapter in forthcoming anthology of stories that inspired H.P. Lovecraft, due out from Apex Publications in late Spring; co-wrote Sexy Nerds: Illya Kuryakin, Mr. Spock, and the Image of the Cerebral Hero in Television Drama with Cynthia W. Walker, due out later in 2008 in Common Sense: Intelligence as Presented on Popular Television in Lisa Holderman, ed., Lexington Books; and is co-editing a book on the intersection of Fantasy and Native America (due out with Mythopoeic Press in 2009).

Tim O’Shea: You’ve edited translations of The Magic Ring (1825) by Baron de la Motte Fouqué and most recently The Magic Goblet (1845) by Emilie Flygare-Carlén–how soon before you edit a translation of The Who’s Magic Bus (1968)?

Amy H. Sturgis: That will come after I edit a translation of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and before my edition of Queen’s A Kind of Magic (1986). I’m working chronologically, you see. *laughs*

O’Shea: Seriously though, how soon after you finished editing the Magic Ring translation did you realize one of your next projects would be the Magic Goblet?

Sturgis: I took on The Magic Goblet quite soon after completing The Magic Ring. The timing was right, and I had fallen in love with the book. And yes, we made jokes about it – and still do. As a matter of fact, it feels rather odd not to have a “Magic project” on my desk at the moment!

O’Shea: I was interested to read (regarding The Magic Goblet) that the work was considered “controversial in the 19th century for its depiction of the callous anti-hero Seiler and its honest treatment of the subject of divorce“. When a work of controversy is translated into English is some of the controversial aspects downplayed or eliminated. In this instance, were there any scenes or aspects of the modern translation that restored anything (that might have been left out in previous translations)?

Sturgis: Translating a work can alter meanings and subtleties, and so I think it’s entirely possible for a translation of a work to be less shocking and provocative than the original text. Fortunately, for this edition I was restoring the excellent first English translation of the novel, which was published only four years after the original Swedish version of the book. This English edition caused excitement in its own right. Just to give you an idea of this translation’s controversial nature, North American Review in 1845 called it “a wild phantasmagoria of unmixed and unaccountable evil.”

O’Shea: What is the biggest challenge to editing a project like The Magic Goblet?

Sturgis: I would say there are two: one physical, the other intellectual. The physical challenge is reconstructing and preserving the text itself. One of the reasons I felt so strongly about doing this project was that few surviving copies of the book remained intact. If interested scholars, students, or other readers wished to read the book – and it is worthy of reading and rereading! – they had very little opportunity. The copy from which I worked was one of a handful left in good shape, and yet its pages were brittle and discolored, and it required very delicate handling. The very act of saving the text – scanning it (an imperfect art form with faded nineteenth-century pages, I assure you!), formatting it, and proofing each line against the original text multiple times – threatened the original. It was a sensitive operation. Logistics with world libraries also came into play when passages were too badly corrupted to be identifiable and another rare original copy proved necessary to cross-check its contents. So I would identify the act of transferring the endangered text into a proofed electronic copy to be the biggest physical challenge of editing such a work.

The intellectual challenge for me was to put The Magic Goblet in its context so those who now discover it will be able to appreciate its story, themes, and relevance. For example, much of the controversial nature of the story comes from Flygare-Carlén’s consideration of class and gender. She uses a Gothic sense of claustrophobia to highlight the places in which her protagonists seem to have very few options, even as she creates some rather remarkable and powerful characters (and manages to assemble quite a body count, as well!). Her ideas come into focus much more clearly, and thus the story becomes much more meaningful, if we realize what an outsider Flygare-Carlén was, a woman from a poor fishing village who became her country’s first professional novelist, a woman who first had married out of obedience and not from love, and then later given birth out of wedlock to a child she was forced to surrender. As fantastic and sensational as the book might first seem, in fact it represented a world that Flygare-Carlén knew. In the introductory materials I wrote for this volume, I hoped to convey what a pathbreaking novel this is, and how much of the author and her experience breathes in every page.

O’Shea: As noted by your publisher “Flygare-Carlén has long since fallen into obscurity”. Have you heard of any professors that have incorporated the newly edited edition into their syllabus. Do you have hope that attention from U.S. scholars might pull Flygare-Carlén out of obscurity?

Sturgis: This edition is so new, I expect it is only now making its way to scholars and libraries. While the ink was still drying on its pages, however, I incorporated this Valancourt Books version in my upper-division seminar History and the Gothic Imagination at Belmont University for the Fall 2007 semester. I was extremely gratified by the enthusiastic reception of my students, many of whom expressed their surprise at how contemporary the psychology and situations of the characters seemed to them. Because the individual subplots of the story are bound up quite ingeniously in an overarching mystery, the tale easily takes hold of a reader and demands attention, which is another benefit of using the text in class. I do hope more professors will adopt the book and expose new readers to it, and use its publication as a springboard for further study of Flygare-Carlén and her literary career. The woman and her works deserve additional analysis and appreciation.

O’Shea: In editing Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis, you have an anthology of essays about Lewis, Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling. I can see the shared link between co-workers and contemporaries like Lewis and Tolkien, but I was wondering if you could speak to the shared themes and subtextual connections that brings Rowling’s work to the Lewis discussion mix?

Sturgis: Good question! Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used the building blocks of existing world stories and societies to build new mythologies through which they could explore their own understandings of right and wrong, good and evil. You can see the influence of classical legends in Lewis’s Narnia and medieval epics in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, for instance. Their writings remain beloved and relevant today, I would say, in part because they utilized such tried-and-true building blocks that had already spoken to centuries of audiences, and in part because their main focus was the human condition, a subject as timely today as when they wrote. I think a number of later authors – the late, great Madeleine L’Engle, for one – followed in the footsteps of Tolkien and Lewis and created similarly deep fantasy worlds through which they could comment on the morality and meaning of our own. I would say J.K. Rowling is definitely an inheritor of the storytelling tradition of Lewis and Tolkien because of this. She draws from a deep well of inspiration – classical myths and legends, Arthurian traditions, etc. – to create something new, in which she can tell modern morality tales. For that matter, Rowling’s Harry Potter universe bears the unmistakable footprints of Lewis and Tolkien, and she has acknowledged her direct debt to them both. I could go on at length about the connections I see between Lewis, Tolkien, Rowling, and the themes of their works, but your readers might appreciate a quick link instead of a long ramble; my CSL article “Harry Potter is a Hobbit: Rowling, Tolkien, and the Question of Readership,” which is available online here, goes into my thoughts on this in more detail.

O’Shea: One comment of praise about the Lewis essays anthology notes it is a “welcome collection of reflections on C.S. Lewis by both seasoned and fresh voices on a wide range of topics…” What are some of the fresh voices and/or wide-ranging topics that are represented in the anthology?

Sturgis: My goal when compiling this anthology was to include essays that investigated Lewis and his legacy from all sides. I had an embarrassment of riches from which to choose, because a number of able scholars from a variety of different disciplines had attended and presented their work at the “Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis” event, an international conference at Belmont University in November 2005, for which I served as manager. I’m extremely proud of the range of works represented by the book. For example, Past Watchful Dragons includes essays by scholars of literature, law, popular culture, theology, and history. Some deal with Lewis’s main writings, such as The Chronicles of Narnia, while others consider secondary works made from them, such as audio and film adaptations. Some go beyond Narnia to consider the perspectives on education, love, and religion that Lewis shared in other writings. Additional essays make connections between Lewis and related writers such as Tolkien and Rowling.

I’ll give you a couple of examples of fascinating connections made by contributors to this volume. On the issue of global politics, Dr. Karen Wright Hayes uses insights from George Orwell to analyze Lewis’s science fiction as commentary on the nature of imperialism in her article “Surprised, but Not by Joy: Political Comment in Out of the Silent Planet.” On the subject of fantasy and gender – a topic that recurs repeatedly in any discussion of Lewis’s Narnia – Dr. Kathryn N. McDaniel reads the house-elves of the Harry Potter universe as metaphors for house-wives in “The Elfin Mystique: Fantasy and Feminism in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series.” I hope that this anthology will invite readers to have a broader appreciation of Lewis and his legacy while inspiring new discussions and debates about his work and relevance.

O’Shea: Biographies like Tecumseh, where your subject has been dead since 1813–with the passage of time, how many misconceptions were you able to dispel and what major new information were you able to uncover about him and his legacy?

Sturgis: In the case of a man like Tecumseh, the man and the myth are nearly inextricable. Even during his lifetime, Tecumseh’s personal story grew intertwined with legend, and he, his allies, and his enemies all played roles in managing and manipulating the mystique that developed around him. After his death, published works about him in the nineteenth century were as likely to be heroic epic poems or highly imaginative novels as researched biographies. Recent scholars have tried to disentangle Tecumseh’s reality from fiction, only to see that his story can only be fully understood when both the man and the myth are taken into account. This apparent paradox – that learning the truth about Tecumseh requires us to go beyond the facts about him – is one of the themes I try to explore in my work. He is a fascinating figure full of seeming contradictions: the symbol of “the noble savage” and yet the diplomatic practitioner of realpolitik, the dedicated servant of unity and the practical artist of compromise, the principled champion of peace and the terrible instrument of war.

Beyond examining these paradoxes in Tecumseh’s story, my primary goal was to bring together much of the excellent scholarship that has been published recently about various aspects of Tecumseh’s life and death, to create one updated and informed narrative for interested readers. I also hoped to answer the question of why Tecumseh remains a figure of such resonance today in popular memory and culture. Although he did not pioneer either the idea of pan-tribal resistance to colonial and U.S. expansionism or the concept of a multi-tribal confederacy, Tecumseh proved more visionary, adaptable, and capable than other leaders who came before him in working toward these goals, and he forged a Native American alliance that shaped world events from Canada to Spanish Florida. The fact that he is today invoked by activist groups, claimed by an international community of admirers, and repeatedly resurrected in works of literature – including an astounding amount of science fiction – tells me that his story and legacy is well worth revisiting in a single-volume, accessible work.

O’Shea: How long have you been researching this Tecumseh book?

Sturgis: The long answer is that I was preparing to work on this book for quite some time before I actually accepted the invitation from Greenwood Press to write it, because much of my past research and writing (both books and articles) on American Indian topics put me in an ideal position to focus on Tecumseh’s story. The short answer is nearly two years.

O’Shea: In a political world where people are distracted by homeland security, Iraq, the rising cost of gas and immigration issues and whatever else you can think of–how hard is it to get the public interested in Native American current issues?

Sturgis: It is a source of continual frustration for me. However, I am very heartened by the use of new media such as blogs, and the energy of independent artists, filmmakers, and other voices in this struggle. For example, the Oglala Sioux passed an ordinance separating the cultivation of industrial hemp from its illegal cousin, marijuana, in the hopes of providing their people with a chance for an economic future instead of third-world poverty. The U.S. federal government confiscated the property of those who tried to cultivate the hemp and destroyed their crops. Few paid attention to the controversy that had raged from the Pine Ridge Reservation to the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals, until two young filmmakers realized the importance of this conflict. The produced the 2007 documentary Standing Silent Nation, which went on to be chosen for inclusion in the award-winning PBS series “P.O.V./American Documentary.” This is encouraging. If these issues are to reach and move a mainstream U.S. or world audience, I think those of us who know about them must continue to discuss them, and publicize them, and explain why people should care. Thanks to the modern mediascape, though, even a very few voices crying out in the wilderness may reach a number of ears.

O’Shea: On a semi-related note, how long have you been blogging at the Liberty and Power blog?

Sturgis: I accepted a kind invitation to join the blog in March 2006, and I’ve been there ever since. I am very pleased to be a part of the Liberty and Power Group Blog and the larger History News Network.

O’Shea: You recently moved from Tennessee to North Carolina. You are a scholar who seems to relish getting involved in local literary/cultural organizations. What kind of groups have gotten your interest in North Carolina so far?

Sturgis: I spent the first six months we were in North Carolina more or less sequestered with my Tecumseh project, but I am now thoroughly enjoying putting down new roots in this beautiful place. Thus far I’ve had the good fortune to become involved with a couple of exciting groups.

I have joined the committee that produces the excellent biannual Voices Film Series for the Hickory, NC community, a project that is co-sponsored by Lenoir-Rhyne College and the Women’s Resource Center in Hickory. Our next program, which is free and open to the public, will take place on the evenings of February 27 and 28, 2008, and will focus on Native America. We will be showing two Native-produced films over two nights: first the award-winning 2006 film Four Sheets to the Wind paired with a live performance, and next the award-winning 2006 documentary Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy paired with comments and a book signing (of The Trail of Tears and Indian Removal) by yours truly. I hope those who are interested will visit here to learn more. We would love to have you join us for these two evenings!

I also will be a guest at ConCarolinas in Charlotte this year, which promises to be a very energizing and exciting convention. I’m looking forward to making further contacts in the regional science fiction and fantasy community and learning even more about the literary and cultural groups in the area.

It’s been a delight talking with you, Tim. I invite you and your readers to visit me at my official website. Thank you so much!