Description
Book SynopsisWhat might be gained from reading Native literatures from global rather than exclusively local perspectives of Indigenous struggle? In Trans-Indigenous, Chadwick Allen proposes methodologies for a global Native literary studies based on focused comparisons of diverse texts, contexts, and traditions in order to foreground the richness of Indigenous self-representation and the complexity of Indigenous agency. Through demonstrations of distinct forms of juxtapositionacross historical periods and geographical borders, across tribes and nations, across the Indigenoussettler binary, across genre and mediaAllen reclaims aspects of the Indigenous archive from North America, Hawaii, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia that have been largely left out of the scholarly conversation. He engages systems of Indigenous aestheticssuch as the pictographic discourse of Plains Indian winter counts, the semiotics of Navajo weaving, and Maori carving traditions, as well as Indigenous technologies like lar
Trade Review"Chadwick Allen’s articulation of a Trans-Indigenous methodology is clear-minded, robust, and urgent. A committed focus on specific texts is underpinned by deep and genuinely reflective intellectual, ethical, and political commitments.
Trans-Indigenous both emphasizes and will be a key player in the configuration of global Indigenous literary studies; yet it is able, through its sheer specificity, to speak provocatively and productively beyond a singular discipline or nation." —Alice Te Punga Somerville, Victoria University of Wellington
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Ands turn Comparative turn Trans-
Part I. Recovery/Interpretation
1. “Being” Indigenous “Now”: Resettling “The Indian Today” within and beyond the U.S. 1960s
2. Unsettling the Spirit of ’76: American Indians Anticipate the U.S. Bicentennial
Part II. Interpretation/Recovery
3. Pictographic, Woven, Carved: Engaging N. Scott Momaday’s “Carnegie, Oklahoma, 1919” through Multiple Indigenous Aesthetics
4. Indigenous Languaging: Empathy and Translation across Alphabetic, Aural, and Visual Texts
5. Siting Earthworks, Navigating Waka: Patterns of Indigenous Settlement in Allison Hedge Coke’s Blood Run and Robert Sullivan’s Star Waka
Notes
Bibliography
Index
