USC Upstate professor publishes book on literature

[Okwes]

USC Upstate professor publishes book on literature and art of N. Scott
Momaday Published: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - 4:28 pm
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Jim Charles, professor of English education at the University of South
Carolina Upstate, has recently published a book through Peter Lang
Publishers titled "Reading, Learning, Teaching N. Scott Momaday."
Momaday, a member of the Kiowa American Indian tribe, won the 1969
Pulitzer Prize award for fiction. The book is one of the "Confronting
the Text, Confronting the World" series of books published by Peter Lang
Publishers geared towards teachers and professors of American
literature.
Charles' book, through description and analysis of various approaches,
analyses, lesson plans, study guides, course descriptions, and critical
interpretations, is a guide for educators to use in teaching high school
through college-level students about Momaday's poetry, novels, essays,
children's stories, paintings, drawings and works in mixed genres.
"Momaday's work can be pretty daunting, even for experienced teachers of
American Indian literatures," says Robert Nelson, professor emeritus of
the University of Richmond, who reviewed Charles' book. "Jim Charles has
done a great job of showing just how teachable Momaday's work is, and
his suggestions for how and what to teach are going to be enormously
helpful for anyone who will be teaching Momaday's prose or poetry."
Charles, who has taught English education at USC Upstate for 21 years
and a course in American Indian literature for 14 years, says that
"Momaday challenges readers' assumptions about culture and history, and
he presents a unique worldview that includes some of the most lyrical
passages written in English."
To date, Momaday has published 14 major works, including two novels, a
memoir, three collections of poems, four works in mixed genres, two
children's books, a compilation of essays and a play. In all these
works, according to Charles, Momaday "provides readers entre into a
unique world -- unique on the basis of race, culture, history and
experience € ¦â’ » a world shaped by his experiences as a Kiowa who grew
up among the Pueblo peoples and Navajo -- the world of one who has
successfully negotiated the drastically different experiences of both
American Indians and non-Indians."
Momaday's body of work also embraces the theme of an individual's and
community's connection to family, to the land, and to nature and the
subsequent balance and harmony arising from those connections. The
landscape of the American Southwest and the family background of Indian
traditions also contribute to the sense of place in all of his written
and artistic works.
Novarro Scott Momaday was born in 1934 in Lawton, Oklahoma at the Indian
Hospital to Alfred, a full-blooded Kiowa Indian and Natachee Scott, who
was part Cherokee Indian. When he was very young, Momaday's parents
moved the family to New Mexico where they devoted their lives to
teaching American-Indian children on the Navajo, San Carlos Apache and
Jemez Pueblo reservations.
As teachers, according to Charles, Momaday's parents emphasized an
appreciation for education, the Indian tradition of oral storytelling,
language and literature. Momaday was drawn to a career in teaching and
writing. After graduating from the University of New Mexico he earned
his master's and doctorate degrees from Stanford University. He became a
professor of literature and writing at University of California at Santa
Barbara, Stanford University and New Mexico State University. From 1981
to his retirement in 2006, Momaday was on the faculty of the University
of Arizona.
Momaday's accomplishments and accolades include: the Academy of American
Poets Prize in 1962; a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966; Pulitzer Prize for
fiction in 1969; Outstanding Indian of the Year award; initiate of the
Kiowa Gourd Dance Society; the Premio Litterario Internazionale
"Mondello," Italy's highest literary award; and many honorary
doctorates.
Momaday was a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American
Indian in Washington, D.C. and is on the board of the Buffalo Trust, a
non-profit foundation for the preservation, protection, and return of
the cultural heritage to Native peoples, especially children.
With a Ph.D. in English education from the University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, Jim Charles has taught English for 25 years at the ninth
grade and university levels, and he has been awarded two NEH Fellowships
for the study of American Indian literatures and cultures. For 14 years,
Charles and his fellow professor Dr. Richard Predmore, have taught a
200/300-level course "American Indian Literature," which includes
Momaday's novels and poems, at USC Upstate. He has developed a 300-level
special topics course, "The Literature of N. Scott Momaday," within the
past year.
For further information, contact Jim Charles at [e-mail]
<mailto:[e-mail]> or by calling [phone]. The book
may be obtained through Peter Lang Publishers at www.peterlang.com
<http://www.peterlang.com/> or by calling [phone].