U.S. Literature: Gender in Native American Literatures and Cultures

The study of Native American gender, especially the hybrid figure of the berdache, has not only illuminated the specificity of the indigenous cultures and literatures of the United States; it has also called the attention of critics looking for new models of relation between women and men. What follows is a list of basic texts in which these issues are discussed, offering new perspectives relevant to feminism and gender studies.

Allen, Paula Gunn. 1992. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon.

Basow, Susan. 1986. Gender Stereotypes: Traditions and Alternatives. Monterey: Brooks & Cole.

Bataille, Gretchen M., and Kathleen M. Sands. 1984. American Indian Women: Telling Their Lives. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.

Blackwood, Evelyn. 1985. ?Breaking the Mirror: The Construction of Lesbianism and the Anthropological Discourse on Homosexuality.? Journal of Homosexuality, 11.3-4 (Summer): 1-17.

---. 1997. ?Native American Genders and Sexualities: Beyond Anthropological Models and Misrepresentations.? Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, eds. Urbana: U of Illinois P. 284-94.

---. 1984. ?Sexuality and Gender in Certain Native American Tribes: The Case of Cross-Gender Females.? Signs, 10.1 (Autumn): 27-42.

Callender, Charles, and Lee M. Kochems. 1985. ?Men and Not-Men: Male Gender-Mixing Statuses and Homosexuality.? Journal of Homosexuality, 11.3-4 (Summer): 165-78.

---. 1983. ?The North American Berdache.? Current Anthropology, 24.4 (Aug./Oct.): 443-70.

Cromwell, Jason. 1997. ?Traditions of Gender Diversity and Sexualities: A Female-to-Male Transgendered Perspective.? Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, eds. Urbana: U of Illinois P. 119-42.

Gay American Indians, and Will Roscoe, eds. 1988. Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. New York: St. Martin?s.

Goldner, Virginia. 1991. ?Toward a Critical Relational Theory of Gender.? Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 1.3: 249-72.

Greenberg, David F. 1985. ?Why Was the Berdache Ridiculed?? Journal of Homosexuality, 11.3-4 (Summer): 179-89.

Herdt, Gilbert. 1994. ?Third Sexes and Third Genders.? Introduction. Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. Gilbert Herdt, ed. New York: Zone. 21-81.

Jacobs, Sue-Ellen. 1997. ?Is the ?North American Berdache? Merely a Phantom in the Imagination of Western Social Scientists?? Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, eds. Urbana: U of Illinois P. 21-43.

Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, and Wesley Thomas. 1994. ?Native American Two-Spirits.? Anthropology Newsletter, 35.8 (Nov.): 7.

Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, eds. 1997. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana: U of Illinois P.

Kochems, Lee M., and Sue-Ellen Jacobs. 1997. ?Gender Statuses, Gender Features, and Gender/Sex Categories: New Perspectives on an Old Paradigm.? Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, eds. Urbana: U of Illinois P. 255-64.

Lang, Sabine. 1998. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. Austin: U of Texas P.

Martínez Falquina, Silvia. 2002. Ceremonias postindias: transgresión y re/visión de fronteras en la narrativa de Louise Erdrich. Oviedo: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo.

---. 2004.Indias y fronteras: el discurso en torno a la mujer Étnica. Oviedo: KRK.

---. 2005. ?Trickster Berdache: the Healing Power of Transformation in Louise Erdrich?s The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse? American Mirrors: (Self)Reflections and (Self)Distortions. Eds. Mª Felisa López Liquete, Amaia Ibarrán Bigalondo, Federico Eguíluz Ortiz de Latierro, David Río Raigadas. Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco.

---. 2007. ?Gender Diversity in Native America: a Postindian Re/Vision of Borders.? Masculinities, Femininities and the Power of the Hybrid in U.S. Narratives: Essays on Gender Borders. Eds. Nieves Pascual, Laura Alonso-Gallo, Francisco Collado-Rodríguez. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. 231-244.

Medicine, Beatrice. 1993. ?North American Indigenous Women and Cultural Domination.? American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 17.3: 121-30.

O?Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1980. Women, Androgynes, and other Mythical Beasts. Chicago: U of Chicago P.

Patel, Geeta. 1997. ?Home, Homo, Hybrid: Translating Gender.? College Literature, 24.1 (Febr.): 133-50.

Roscoe, Will. 1998. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. Houndmills: Macmillan.

---. 1994. ?How to Become a Berdache: Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender Diversity.? Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. Gilbert Herdt, ed. New York: Zone. 329-72.

Scott, Joan W. 1986. ?Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.? American Historical Review 91.5 (Dec.): 1053-75.

Sollors, Werner. 1986. Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture. New York: Oxford UP.

Trexler, Richard C. 1995. Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP.

Vizenor, Gerald, and A. Robert Lee. 1999. Postindian Conversations. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P.

Williams, Walter L. 1985. ?Persistence and Change in the Berdache Tradition Among Contemporary Lakota Indians.? Journal of Homosexuality, 11.3-4 (Summer): 191-200.

---. 1986. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon.