Betty Louise Bell (born November 23, 1949, in Davis, Oklahoma)[1] is an American author and educator. She is a scholar and fiction writer of Cherokee ancestry. She earned her PhD in 1985 from Ohio State University.[2]

Works edit

Bell published an autobiographical novel Faces in the Moon in 1994 in which an abused "mixed-blood Cherokee" protagonist, named Lucie, has no access to nostalgic stereotypes about Native Americans in the United States but still finds an identity. In the protagonists mind, the contemporary stereotype is that of poverty and ghettoization, but the protagonist is asked by white friends: "What's it like being Indian".[3]

Career edit

Bell is a former director of the Native American Studies Program and former assistant professor of American culture, English, and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan.[4] Her areas of scholarly interest include Native American literature, Women's Studies, 19th-century American literature, and creative writing.[5][6] Bell has published critical articles on Native American Literature that emphasize the political and personal aspects of Native American identity.[7]

Academic publications edit

  1. A Red Girl's Reasoning: Native American Women Writers and the Twentieth Century
  2. Reading Red: Feminism in Native America (Editor)
  3. Norton Anthology of Native America Literatures (Coeditor)

References edit

  1. ^ Jace Weaver (1997). That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 155.
  2. ^ "Betty Louise Bell on Native American Authors". Archived from the original on 28 November 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
  3. ^ Cassandra Newby-Alexander; Charles Howard Ford; William Henry Alexander, eds. (2008). Voices from Within the Veil: African Americans and the Experience of Democracy. Cambridge Scholars Pub. p. 39. ISBN 9781443811767.
  4. ^ "Betty Louise Bell". University of Oklahoma Press. Retrieved 2023-03-29.
  5. ^ "Faces in the Moon". Kirkus. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  6. ^ Cronin Ott, Heather (2009). "Faces in the Moon by Betty Louise Bell". University of Minnesota: Voices from the Gaps. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  7. ^ Bataille, Gretchen M. and Laurie Lisa, Ed. Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland, 1993