title: "Her mouth is medicine": Beth Brant and Paula Gunn Allen's decolonizing queer erotics.
abstract: This article asserts the need to recognize the complexity of the theoretical work of more lesbian Native American writers, focusing specifically Beth Brant (Bay of Quinte Mohawk) and Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna Pueblo). Their poetry and short stories provide a theoretically nuanced analysis of how heteronormativity is intertwined in and dependent on colonialism, and thus a methodology for Queer Theory that requires an understanding of it in relation to colonialism. They reject heteronormative Pocahontas fantasies about Native women, offering a lesbian-based tactic for decolonization through the expression of erotic desire. This article demonstrates the endless possibilities for fierce queer resistance, revolutionary change, and healing from the trauma of genocide and the accompanying colonialist heteropatriarchal disciplining of Native women's bodies.
authors.affiliation: Women's and Gender Studies, Northern Arizona University, SBS West, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5695, USA. Arianne.Burford@nau.edu
authors.forename: Arianne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Burford
mesh_terms: D018595:Colonialism / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans; D007198:Indians, North American / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history; D008091:Literature / Q000266:history; D009656:North America; D011037:Poetry as Topic / Q000266:history