Dancing With A Ghost

This study examines the traditional Cree and Ojibway world view, develops an appreciation of native philosophy and indicates ways in which native values can be incorporated into court and criminal law processes and other aspects of 'mainstream' culture in Canada.

Growing up in South Dakota, Josh Garrett-Davis knew he would leave. But as a young adult, he kept going back -- in dreams and reality and by way of books. With this beautifully written narrative about a seemingly empty but actually rich and complex place, he has reclaimed his childhood, his unusual family, and the Great Plains. Among the subjects and people that bring his Midwestern Plains to life are the destruction and resurgence of the American bison; Native American "Ghost Dancers," who attempted to ward off destruction by supernatural means; the political allegory to be found in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and current attempts by ecologists to "rewild" the Plains, complete with cheetahs. Garrett-Davis infuses the narrative with stories of his family as well -- including his great-great-grandparents' twenty-year sojourn in Nebraska as homesteaders and his progressive Methodist cousin Ruth, a missionary in China ousted by Mao's revolution. Ghost Dances is a fluid combination of memoir and history and reportage that reminds us our roots matter.

A look into deep communal meanings that emerge is small towns stage their annual festivals.

Hailed as many Native Americans as a messenger for the Indian people, JD Challenger's art teaches us about the symbols and ceremonies of the Native American religious movement known as the Ghost Dance. In art and prose, GHOST DANCING celebrates the beauty and power of the religion's visions, dreams, and symbols. 75 color images. 50 b&w illustrations.

This study of the Wounded Knee trials demonstrates the impact that legal institutions and the media have on political dissent. Sayer draws on court records, news reports, and interviews to show how both the defense and the prosecution had to respond continually to legal constraints, media coverage, and political events outside the courtroom.

Every great city is a restless work in progress, but nowhere is the urban impulse more in flux than in Berlin, that sprawling metropolis located on the fault line of history. A short-lived fever-dream of modernity in the Roaring Twenties, redubbed Germania and primped up into the megalomaniac fantasy of a Thousand-Year Reichstadt in the Thirties, reduced in 1945 to a divided rubble heap, subsequently revived in a schizoid state of post-World War II duality, and reunited in 1989 when the wall came tumbling down — Berlin has since been reborn yet again as the hipster hub of the 21st century. This book is a hopscotch tour in time and space. Part memoir, part travelogue, Ghost Dance in Berlin is an unlikely declaration of love, as much to a place as to a state of mind, by the American-born son of German-speaking Jewish refugees. Peter Wortsman imagines the parallel celebratory haunting of two sets of ghosts, those of the exiled erstwhile owners, a Jewish banker and his family, and those of the Führer’s Minister of Finance and his entourage, who took over title, while in another villa across the lake another gaggle of ghosts is busy planning the Final Solution.

From the author of Three Souls comes a vividly imagined and haunting new novel set in early 20th century Shanghai—a story of friendship, heartbreak, and history that follows a young Eurasian orphan’s search for her long-lost mother. That night I dreamed that I had wandered out to Dragon Springs Road all on my own, when a dreadful knowledge seized me that my mother had gone away never to return . . . In 1908, Jialing is only seven years old when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate near Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong—Eurasian—and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Without her mother’s protection, she can survive only if the estate’s new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in. Jialing finds allies in Anjuin, the eldest Yang daughter, and Fox, an animal spirit who has lived in the haunted courtyard for centuries. But Jialing’s life as the Yangs’ bondservant changes unexpectedly when she befriends a young English girl who then mysteriously vanishes. Always hopeful of finding her long-lost mother, Jialing grows into womanhood during the tumultuous early years of the Chinese republic, guided by Fox and by her own strength of spirit, away from the shadows of her past. But she finds herself drawn into a murder at the periphery of political intrigue, a relationship that jeopardizes her friendship with Anjuin and a forbidden affair that brings danger to the man she loves.

American Book Award Winner A linked collection of stories about the lives of one Native American family in Washington state and Oklahoma Story by graceful story, Ghost Dancing reveals the evolving worlds of Jimmy One Rock, his wife Mary, and their family as they struggle together on a decaying reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Alternating between Washington state and Jimmy's childhood on an Oklahoma reservation, these stories link past and present through memory, myth, ceremony, and a sly humor that undercuts the reverence of outsiders. In spare yet rich language, Anna Linzer creates a memorable portrait of contemporary Native American life. Here is a collection as open and honest and authentic as the characters that it documents, appealing and accessible, as bittersweet as it is lovely. Readers of Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and N. Scott Momaday will discover these stories with pleasure.

Some assume that Canada earned a place among postcolonial states in 1982 when it took charge of its Constitution. Yet despite the formal recognition accorded to Aboriginal and treaty rights at that time, Indigenous peoples continue to argue that they are still being colonized. Grace Woo assesses this allegation using a binary model that distinguishes colonial from postcolonial legality. She argues that two legal paradigms governed the expansion of the British Empire, one based on popular consent, the other on conquest and the power to command. Ghost Dancing with Colonialism casts explanatory light on ongoing tensions between Canada and Indigenous peoples.

Freshman year of university was supposed to mean freedom. It was supposed to be her escape from parents who didn't understand her -- who turned Patricia away every time she reached out for help. New city, new school, new friends, fresh start - Wasn't that how it's supposed to work? Instead, when Patricia moves from her small, isolating hometown to bustling, sprawling cityscape of Toronto, she finds herself more alone than ever. When she meets Derek -- and intriguing yet mysterious classmate -- she's instantly drawn in by his worldly knowledge and easy charm. For a while, things between them are perfect. For a while, it's thrilling being invited into a world, unlike anything Patricia's experienced before. But this isn't a love story, and not everyone is what they seem.