This paper traces the evolution of American Indigenous literature from oral tradition to English written creation, noting its long-term neglect by mainstream academia before the 1960s until the civil rights movement propelled its renaissance and entry into the center of American literature. Since the 21st century, foreign academia has produced multiple guide and introduction works, mostly in the form of essay collections or single-author volumes, lacking systematic historical connection. The 2020 publication of The Cambridge History of Native American Literature gathers 30 essays from European and American critics and Indigenous writers, discussing core controversies surrounding literary boundaries, authorial identity politics, stylistic diversity, and cross-border globalization trends, employing eclectic interdisciplinary research methods. It has become an important benchmark for 21st-century research in this field, with its methodological approach offering enlightening value for domestic related research and the updating of literary historiography paradigms.

Shaping a Diachronic Framework through Indian Policy and Literary-Cultural Movements

This section analyzes the framework arrangement method of The Cambridge History of Native American Literature, which uses linear time as longitude and specific literary-cultural phenomena as latitude to divide American Indigenous literature into four stages. Part I "Origins and Migrations" focuses on the period before the 1870s, exploring tribal traditional languages, oral traditions, performance cultures, and the bidirectional interaction between texts from the colonial contact period and early American literature, expanding the conceptual boundaries of "literature" to include totem poles, canoe making, and birch bark scrolls. Part II "Assimilation and Modernity" covers 1879 to 1967, examining the suppression and recovery of Indigenous subjectivity under political pressures including the boarding school system, the Reorganization Act, the relocation program, and termination policies, revealing how Indigenous literature presents modernity experience through strategies of colonial resistance and destereotyping. Part III "The Native American Renaissance" carries the heaviest analytical weight, focusing on the post-1960s period to examine how contemporary Indigenous literature moved from margin to center and achieved narrative tradition revival through the combined impetus of social justice movements including the Black Civil Rights Movement and the Red Power Movement, together with multiculturalist thought, while also introducing discussion of interactive relations with Canadian Indigenous literature. Part IV "Visions and Revisions" displays new 21st-century research trends, attending to new elements in genre literature and critical perspectives including trans-Indigenous, globalization, digital media, and Indigenous futurisms, finally including two personalized narrative essays by Indigenous writers that oppose identity essentialism through satirical means, embodying the bidirectional interaction between literary research and creative writing. The book mainly unfolds from four historical stages following Indigenous groups' contact with colonizers, reflecting the contradictory tension between colonialism, capitalist development, and the modernization transformation of Indigenous literature.

Controversial Topics and Interdisciplinary Research Methods in American Indigenous Literature

This section explores the editorial philosophy and interdisciplinary research methods of The Cambridge History of Native American Literature. In the preface, Taylor proposes the controversial assertion that "in fact there is no such thing as 'Native American literature,'" questioning the integrity and closure of this literary type, emphasizing its internal plural characteristics and differences, and opposing essentialist definitional approaches. This view continues Roemer's advocacy for dynamic naming while more strongly endorsing the expansive function of the term "Indigenous" to echo the post-UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples trend of globalized Indigenous literary studies.

The book employs multiple interdisciplinary research methods to expand research horizons. In terms of literary classification, it extends the concept of "literature" to performance cultures, legal treaties, birch bark and other material carriers; Flint explores Indigenous performance's active shaping of modernity, while Piatote traces the origins of Indigenous women's writing in legal documents and material records. Cross-cultural perspectives emphasize internal differences within Indigenous cultures and bidirectional interaction with other cultures; Rivet reveals Indigenous languages' participatory influence on American literary history, while Byers-Nichols attends to identity fluidity in Black-Indigenous literature. Interdisciplinary and cross-media methods appear in intersecting studies of law and literature, visual and textual forms. Trans-regional and trans-Indigenous research extends boundaries to Mexico, Canada, Oceania and other regions; Ho'omanawanui's review of Native Hawaiian literature fills previous research gaps.

Furthermore, the book emphasizes reflection on previous research and attention to emerging literary types, preserving traditional genre study approaches while also opening new territories in horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction, displaying the contemporary characteristics of American Indigenous literary historiography through inheritance and innovation.

Domestic American Indigenous Literary Historiography Models and Their Implications

This section traces the development and current state of domestic American Indigenous literary historiography, noting its emergence at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries with overall relative lag. Early research appeared sporadically in general histories of American literature; for example, the 1978 edition of A Brief History of American Literature only briefly described Indigenous culture in the colonial chapter, while the 2007 revised edition added an appendix introducing Indigenous modern fiction. The 2000 four-volume New History of American Literature broke with tradition by locating the origins of American literature in the Indigenous traditional literature period, recognizing its status as "mainstream literature," continuing Elliott's pluralistic and open editorial style. The 2014 publication From Margin to Canon: The Origin and Development of American Native Literature became the first specialized history in China, correcting neglect of Indigenous literary tradition beginnings but with weak coverage of 21st-century literature. The paper focuses on analyzing three implications of The Cambridge History of Native American Literature: first, its framework combining diachronic and synchronic approaches, using problem-conscious orientation to deeply analyze literary uniqueness, compensating for domestic flat narrative deficiencies; second, interdisciplinary research methods including cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and cross-media approaches, expanding cognition of early oral literature, globalization trends, and genre fiction; third, the inclusive philosophy embodied in the essay collection format and diverse author backgrounds. It proposes that Chinese scholars can, based on local experience, form dialogue with foreign research through comparative study of ethnic minority literature or "outsider" internal aesthetic perspectives, promoting domestic research paradigm transformation and writing concept renewal.