David Treuer
2015-2016
Katrin H. Lamon Resident Scholar
Affiliation at time of award:
Professor
Department of English
University of Southern California
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
This book project is intended as a counter-narrative to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It begins where Dee Brown left off—in 1891—and brings the story of the American Indian up to the present with the opposite thesis in tow: rather than the end of Indian life (as Brown contends) 1891 was a low point (perhaps the lowest) from which we have risen. Treuer argues that the years 1890 – 2010 were witness to a much more fundamental struggle for Indians than the preceding 350 years, and rather than disappearing, the civilizations and cultures of American Indians have experienced tremendous growth and rebirth. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee will be the first book to bring history, reportage, current events, personal narrative, and ethnography into contact as a resource for general readers, students, and academics.