Diversity Reading List

Abstract: Forty years have passed since the Midcontinent American Studies Journal published its landmark special issue, "The Indian Today."  Since that publication, the landscape of Indian country has changed dramatically. This change has come primarily from an amazing cultural resurgence among Native Peoples in the United States — a resurgence that has manifested itself in everything from the Red Power movement to the birth of American Indian studies in the academy; to the renaissance of contemporary Native art, literature, and film; to the creation of tribal colleges, museums, and cultural centers; to the unprecedented rise in economic development; to notable gains in power in political and legal arenas.

Abstract: The analogy Darwin drew between artificial and natural selection in "On the Origin of Species" has a detailed structure that has not been appreciated. In Darwin's analogy, the kind of artificial selection called Methodical selection is analogous to the principle of divergence in nature, and the kind of artificial selection called Unconscious selection is analogous to the principle of extinction in nature. This paper argues that it is the analogy between these two different principles familiar from his studies of artificial selection and the two different principles he claims are operative in nature that provides the main structure and force of the analogy he uses to make his case for the power of natural selection to produce new species. Darwin's statements explicitly distinguishing between these two kinds of principles at work in nature occur prominently in the text of the Origin. The paper also shows that a recent revisionist claim that Darwin did not appeal to the efficacy of artificial selection is mistaken