In Search of First Contact

[Bekah]

Well thank you again!  That title is now on my wish-list at Amazon.   

Bek

On Jun 4, 2012, at 11:10 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:

> In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the
> Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery
> Author(s): Annette Kolodny
> Published: 2012
> Pages: 448
> Illustrations: 10 illustrations
> 
> In Search of First Contact is a monumental achievement by the
> influential literary critic Annette Kolodny. In this book, she offers
> a radically new interpretation of two medieval Icelandic tales, known
> as the Vinland sagas. She contends that they are the first known
> European narratives about contact with North America. After carefully
> explaining the evidence for that conclusion, Kolodny examines what
> happened after 1837, when English translations of the two sagas became
> widely available and enormously popular in the United States. She
> assesses their impact on literature, immigration policy, and concepts
> of masculinity.
> 
> Kolodny considers what the sagas reveal about the Native peoples
> encountered by the Norse in Vinland around the year A.D. 1000, and she
> recovers Native American stories of first contacts with Europeans,
> including one that has never before been shared outside of Native
> communities. These stories contradict the dominant narrative of "first
> contact" between Europeans and the New World. Kolodny rethinks the
> lingering power of a mythic American Viking heritage and the
> long-standing debate over whether Leif Eiriksson or Christopher
> Columbus should be credited as the first discoverer. With this
> paradigm-shattering work, Kolodny shows what literary criticism can
> bring to historical and social scientific endeavors
> 
> http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=9551