Written by the body : gender expansiveness and indigenous non-cis masculinities

**Examining the expansive nature of Indigenous gender representations in history, literature, and film** Within Native American and Indigenous studies, the rise of Indigenous masculinities has engendered both productive conversations and critiques. Lisa Tatonetti intervenes in this conversation with __Written by the Body__ by centering how female, queer, and/or Two-Spirit Indigenous people take up or refute masculinity, and, in the process, offer more expansive understandings of gender. __Written by the Body__ moves from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century archive to turn-of-the-century and late-twentieth-century fiction to documentaries, HIV/AIDS activism, and, finally, recent experimental film and literature. Across it all, Tatonetti shows how Indigenous gender expansiveness, and particularly queer and non-cis gender articulations, moves between and among Native peoples to forge kinship, offer protection, and make change. She charts how the body functions as a somatic archive of Indigenous knowledge in Native histories, literatures, and activisms—exploring representations of Idle No More in the documentary __Trick or Treaty__, the all-female wildland firefighting crew depicted in Apache 8, Chief Theresa Spence, activist Carole laFavor, S. Alice Callahan, Thirza Cuthand, Joshua Whitehead, Carrie House, and more. In response to criticisms of Indigenous masculinity studies, __Written by the Body__ de-sutures masculinity from the cis-gendered body and investigates the ways in which female, trans, and otherwise nonconforming masculinities carry the traces of Two-Spirit histories and exceed the limitations of settler colonial imaginings of gender. Cover Page 1 Indigenous Americas 3 Title Page 4 Indigenous Americas 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: Text, Archive, and Action: The Body in Motion 12 Chapter 1: Warrior Women in History and Early Indigenous Literatures 34 Chapter 2: Warriors, Indigenous Futures, and the Erotic: Anna Lee Walters and Daniel Heath Justice 66 Chapter 3: Big Moms, or The Body as Archive 86 Chapter 4: Body as Shield and Shelter: Indigenous Documentary Film 120 Chapter 5: HIV/AIDS Activism and the Indigenous Erotic: Carole laFavor 146 Chapter 6: An Erotics of Responsibility: Non-Cis Identities and Community Accountability 180 Coda: Written by the Body: Felt Theory, New Worlds, and Transformative Possibilities 232 Notes 238 Bibliography 264 Index 286 About the Author 305 "Examines the expansive nature of Indigenous gender representations in history, literature, and film"-- Provided by publisher