After the Theft of the Sacred Volume 75: Experiential Religion in Indigenous Writing (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series)

In recent decades, individualistic and secular ways of participating in the world have grown pervasive in Western society.This evolution has compelled shifts in Indian Country as well.In After the Theft of the Sacred, Native American literature scholar Reginald Dyck investigates these shifts, and the resulting complexities of contemporary Indigenous religious and spiritual experiences.Drawing on a wide range of works by well-known Indigenous authors, he shows how Native communities and characters use their lived religions to make sense of an increasingly fragmented and urban world. Dyck explores a range of interdisciplinary perspectives to reckon with the transition from an Indigenous communal social imaginary to a modern individualistic one in which belief has become a choice rather than a given.He applies careful close readings to the novels of Ray Young Bear, Greg Sarris, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Tommy Orange; and the poetry of Simon J. Ortiz, Robert Davis Hoffmann,