Philipp Kneis – författare

Colonization has imposed drastic changes on indigenous societies in North America. This process has reverberated through cultural conceptions and constructions of social roles, particularly affecting the roles of elders and the old. This book charts these changes by analyzing representations of old age in American Indian literature. In comparing traditional stories with contemporary works, the analytical focus lies on establishing what developments can be observed in the conceptualizing of old age as visible in representations of social, political and cultural roles, such as that of the sage. Authors discussed include Sherman Alexie, Chrystos, Louise Erdrich, Janet Campbell Hale, N. Scott Momaday, Simon Ortiz, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lucy Tapahonso, Velma Wallis, and James Welch.

The volume discusses utopian representations of American society, and reflections of American political thought and vision in literature, film, and television. The articles address topics of ecology, urbanism, politics, society, and heroism. Specifically, the volume addresses texts by Paul Auster, Ernest Callenbach, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Herman Melville, Edgar Allen Poe, Sam Shepard, Alexis de Toqueville, James Welch, and Nathanael West, and television series like 24, and the Star Trek and Stargate franchises, as well as video games. Contributors include Sandra Beyer, Rasmus Damkjær Christensen, Antje Dallmann, Allison Davis-White Eyes, Martin Dalgaard Grøn, Reinhard Isensee, Berenike Jung, Philipp Kneis, Daniela Simon, Katarzyna Sobieraj, Renate Ulbrich, and Thomas Wagenknecht.