Date

5-20-2026

Degree

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA)

Chair

Jennifer Bell

Keywords

Hybrid creative nonfiction, Native American history, historical memory, cultural erasure, Indigenous trauma, witness literature, postmodern historiography, phenomenology of memory, historical injustice, forced assimilation, narrative ethics, Native American genocide, boarding schools, Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, Osage murders, Long Walk of the Navajo, historical trauma, archival silence, creative nonfiction

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Creative Writing

Abstract

What Cannot Be Returned is a hybrid creative nonfiction thesis that examines forgotten and often minimized injustices committed against Native American communities throughout American history. Through a combination of historical research, witness literature, and fictionalized narrative, this project explores events including the California genocide, the Long Walk of the Navajo, Osage oil exploitation, Indian boarding schools, forced sterilization, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Trail of Tears, and Wounded Knee. The thesis argues that while these losses—land, language, family, identity, autonomy, and life—cannot be undone, they must be remembered with honesty and care. Grounded in archival records, government documents, survivor accounts, and historical scholarship, each chapter uses narrative to move beyond summary and invite deeper emotional understanding. Rather than attempting to speak for Indigenous people, this project seeks to resist erasure by witnessing the silences left within traditional historical narratives. Ultimately, What Cannot Be Returned presents remembrance as an ethical act and storytelling as a way to confront absence, expose historical harm, and refuse to look away.

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