‘Black Elk Speaks’ is book talk topic

The Oklahoma City University book discussion series “Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma” will continue at 7 p.m. Tuesday with John G. Neihardt’s “Black Elk Speaks.” It will be in the Walker Center for Arts and Sciences.

Admission to all book discussions is free. The series is made possible through a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Council.

C. Blue Clark, a law professor and expert on American Indian legal issues and religion, will lead discussion of the book.

“Black Elk Speaks” is the autobiographical account of the Oglala Sioux medicine man relayed from Black Elk to Neihardt. Black Elk participated in the Battle of the Little Horn and survived the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Clark said “Black Elk Speaks” is the single most important work about American Indian spirituality.

“It’s also an important work because it describes the end of confinement of the reservation, the end of the nomadic life and all that it entails,” Clark said.

“That means assimilation, boarding schools, loss of land, conversion to Christianity and capitalism. He was an eyewitness to it and describes it eloquently.”

The theme of this season’s “Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma” is “Myth and Literature.”

“Myths have been called stories in which people find their most important meanings,” said Harbour Winn, director of the Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film & Literature at OCU.

“In this series, we’ll explore humanity’s profound need to search for meaning and significance in the patterns of great stories from world mythology.”

The school is at NW 26 and Florida Avenue.

For more information about the series, call 2085472 or email Winn at hwinn@okcu.edu.

Other dates and books in the “Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma” discussion series are:

Feb. 5: “A Passage to India” by E.M. Forster.

Feb. 19: “The Summer Before the Dark” by Doris Lessing.

March 5: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.