American Studies: Faculty Books

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  Before American History: Nationalist Mythmaking and Indigenous Dispossession

  Christen Mucher

  Before American History examines the project of settler nationalism from the 1780s to the 1840s in two of North America’s republics—the US and Mexico—through an analysis of historical knowledge production. As the US and Mexico transformed from European colonies into independent republics—and before war scarred them both—antiquarians and historians compiled and interpreted archives meant to document America’s Indigenous pasts. Before American History approaches two iconic imaginings of the past—the carved Sun Stone and the mounded earthwork—as archives of nationalist power and Indigenous dispossession as well as objects that are, at their material base, Indigenously-produced but settler-controlled and settler-interpreted.

  In making the connection between earthworks built by an allegedly vanished people merely peripheral to US citizens and the literal touchstone of Mexicans’ history, Before American History details how Mexican and US nationalists created national histories out of Indigenous pasts and thereby wrote Indigenous pasts out of their national histories and out of national lands. It uncovers how the manipulation of Indigenous pasts and (mis)interpretations of “American Antiquities”—Indigenous documents, objects and monuments—served the purposes of a trans-imperial/transnational network of creole ruling elites, first in New Spain and British America, and later in Mexico and the United States, as they struggled to construct new political, geographic, and historical orders.

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  Fuelling Conservation EcoAnxieties: Pumping and Trumping Tensions Between Industrial/Breadwinner and Ecomodern American Masculinities, 2008–2013

  Evangeline Heiliger

  Chapter Abstract:

  Contemporary white American industrial/breadwinner masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018), traditionally reject the feminine associations of ecoconsumerism, in favour of environmental masculinities that imagine dominating nature and reinforce (imagined) national boundaries, such as Daggett’s “petro-masculinity” (Heiliger, 2019; Hultman & Pulé, 2018; Daggett, 2018). I investigate gendered tensions between 2008 and 2013 that mocked hegemonic white masculinity’s failure to embrace ecomodern practices (Hultman, 2013). I analyse satirical 21st century American cultural artefacts such as The Colbert Report’s “Prescott Oil Loves the Earth” (2008) and Portlandia’s “Meano No Bring Bag” (2012), as well as queer of colour, ecofeminist, critical masculinity, and critical cultural studies theories, and link these to battles over petroleum and plastics to explain the current renewed recycling of heterosexist engagements with nature and “the natural” as responses to Conservation EcoAnxieties during that period. I then point towards recent (2019) satirical cultural productions mocking toxic petro-masculinities as hopeful evidence for future kinder, gentler environmental masculinities.

  Book Abstract:

  This book considers issues of social and ecological significance through a masculinities lens. Earth – our home for aeons – is reeling. The atmosphere is heating up, causing reefs to bleach, fisheries to collapse, regions to flood and dry, vast tracts to burn, the polar ice caps to melt, ancient glaciers to retreat, biodiversity to decline exacerbated by the sixth great extinction, and more. Meanwhile, social and economic disparities are widening. Pandemics are cauterising glocal communities and altering our social mores. Nationalism is feeding divisiveness and hate, especially through men’s violence. Politically extreme individuals and groups are exalting freedom while scapegoating the marginalised. Such are the symptoms of an emerging (m)Anthropocene. This anthology contends with these alarming trends, pointing our attention towards their gendered origins. Building on our monograph Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance (2018), this collection of essays is framed as a dinner party conversation grouped into six discursive themes. Their views reflect a growing community of practice, whose combined efforts capture the most recent perspectives on masculine ecologisation. Together, they aim to help create a more caring world for all, moving the ecological masculinities conversation forward as it becomes an established, international, and pluralised field of study. Source: Publisher

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  Decolonizing "Prehistory" Deep Time and Indigenous Knowledges in North America

  Christen Mucher and Gesa Mackenthun

  Decolonizing "Prehistory" combines a critical investigation of the documentation of the American deep past with perspectives from Indigenous traditional knowledges and attention to ongoing systems of intellectual colonialism. Bringing together experts from American studies, archaeology, anthropology, legal studies, history, and literary studies, this interdisciplinary volume offers essential information about the complexity and ambivalence of colonial encounters with Indigenous peoples in North America, and their impact on American scientific discourse. The chapters in this book reveal how anthropology, archaeology, and cultural heritage have shaped the collective ideological construction of Indigenous cultures, while actively empowering the voices that disrupt conventional tropes and narratives of "prehistory."

  Constructions of America's ancient past--or the invention of American "prehistory"--occur in national and international political frameworks, which are characterized by struggles over racial and ethnic identities, access to resources and environmental stewardship, the commodification of culture for touristic purposes, and the exploitation of Indigenous knowledges and histories by industries ranging from education to film and fashion. The past's ongoing appeal reveals the relevance of these narratives to current-day concerns about individual and collective identities and pursuits of sovereignty and self-determination, as well as to questions of the origin--and destiny--of humanity. Decolonizing "Prehistory" critically examines and challenges the paradoxical role that modern scholarship plays in adding legitimacy to, but also delegitimizing, contemporary colonialist practices.

  Edited by Gesa Mackenthun and Christen Mucher. Contributors: Rick Budhwa, Keith Thor Carlson, Kirsten Matoy Carlson, Jessica Christie, Philip J. Deloria, Melissa Gniadek, Annette Kolodny, Gesa Mackenthun, Christen Mucher, Naxaxalhts'i (aka Sonny McHalsie), Jeff Oliver, Mathieu Picas, Daniel Lord Smail, Coll Thrush. Source: Publisher

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  American Revolution as Extinction and Rebirth

  Christen Mucher

  The idea of America has always encouraged apocalyptic visions. The 'American Dream' has not only imagined the prospect of material prosperity; it has also imagined the end of the world. 'Final forecasts' constitute one of America's oldest literary genres, extending from the eschatological theology of the New England Puritans to the revolutionary discourse of the early republic, the emancipatory rhetoric of the Civil War, the anxious fantasies of the atomic age, and the doomsday digital media of today. For those studying the history of America, renditions of the apocalypse are simply unavoidable. This book brings together two dozen essays by prominent scholars that explore the meanings of apocalypse across different periods, regions, genres, registers, modes, and traditions of American literature and culture. It locates the logic and rhetoric of apocalypse at the very core of American literary history.