Description
Book SynopsisHuhndorf looks at modern cultural manifestations of the desire of European Americans to emulate Native Americans, showing how seemingly harmless images of Native Americans can articulate and reinforce a range of power relations including slavery, patriarchy, and oppression.
Trade ReviewGoing Native will be graciously welcomed into American Indian Studies and the study of colonialism/imperialism. Huhndorf's detailed research and methodology are important contributions to American Indian Studies because they allow for the examination of cultural texts and social positions of power without having to resort to arguments of what is authentic and non-authentic Indian culture.
* H-Net Reviews *
For teachers, Going Native provides a wealth of examples we might bring into the classroom, as well as a critique of identity politics that students will find interesting.... As a Native person working in academia, I am heartened by an inquiry that uses white representations of nonwhite peoples to examine European American identity and insists on applying identity theory to the dominant culture.
-- Katy Gray Brown * Hypatia *
Huhndorf's shrewd analysis goes beyond simply identifying and then castigating those European Americans who have disregarded the repercussions of their cultural appropriation. The result is that Going Native persuasively demonstrates how such acts can be much more revealing of their historical moment then they at first might seem.
* American Literature *
Teaching American Indian history, more than other courses, demands attention to the politics of representation. Non-native students are likely to be completely unfamiliar with the historical material presented to them and, at the same time, to feel an ownership and strong attachment to particular images of Indians. As Shari M. Huhndorf argues in Going Native, the racial dynamics of conquest, encoded into popular culture, are still very much central to non-native American identity. For this compelling reason, this book is a useful and imaginative addition to the literature on Indian-white relations.
* Journal of American History *
The book's central focus is the eradication of an old, and the birth of a new, nation. It is about the origins and significance of manifest destiny—perhaps the most original analysis of that process I have seen.... This is a fascinating book and the opening quotation by Vine Deloria on how Indians haunt the collective unconscious of the white man sets the tone for a lively read.... It is an important contribution to the literature on a topic that deserves much more public debate.
* Cultural Survival Quarterly *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. "If Only I Were an Indian"Chapter One. Imagining America: Race, Nation, and Imperialism at the Turn of the CenturyChapter Two. Nanook and His Contemporaries: Traveling with the Eskimos, 1897-1941Chapter Three. The Making of an Indian: "Forrest" Carter's Literary InventionsChapter Four. Rites of Conquest: Indian Captivities in the New AgeConclusion. Rituals of Citizenship: Going Native and Contemporary American Identity
