Category: Native Amer./Indigenous Studies

Gender, Family, and Kinship

Follow the UNC Press Blog for a celebration of women’s histories and women historians throughout March. The following excerpt is taken from Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century by Brianna Theobold In the nineteenth century, gender relationships in Crow society, as in many North American Indigenous cultures, are better described as complementary than… Continue Reading Gender, Family, and Kinship

Ryan Hall: Why Should Americans Bother Learning About Canada?

Today we welcome a guest post from Ryan Hall, author of Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877, out now from UNC Press. For the better part of two centuries, between 1720 and 1877, the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) people controlled a vast region of what is now the U.S. and Canadian Great Plains. As one… Continue Reading Ryan Hall: Why Should Americans Bother Learning About Canada?

Meet the Editors: A Conversation with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson on the David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

We’re pleased to share a Q&A with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson, series editors of our David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History. This series explores contested boundaries and the intercultural dynamics surrounding them and includes projects in a wide range of time and space within North America and beyond, including Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Series… Continue Reading Meet the Editors: A Conversation with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson on the David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

Ryan Hall: Blackfoot Country and the Case for a Vast Early America

Today we welcome a guest post from Ryan Hall, author of Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877, out now from UNC Press. For the better part of two centuries, between 1720 and 1877, the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) people controlled a vast region of what is now the U.S. and Canadian Great Plains. As… Continue Reading Ryan Hall: Blackfoot Country and the Case for a Vast Early America

Jack Reid: Hitchhiking and Kinship Practices in the Navajo Nation

Today we welcome a guest post from Jack Reid, author of Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation, out now from UNC Press. Between the Great Depression and the mid-1970s, hitchhikers were a common sight for motorists, as American service members, students, and adventurers sought out the romance of the road in droves. Beats, hippies,… Continue Reading Jack Reid: Hitchhiking and Kinship Practices in the Navajo Nation

Allison Margaret Bigelow: Mining Language and Political Discourse

Today we welcome a guest post from Allison Margaret Bigelow, author of Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World, out now from the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and UNC Press. Mineral wealth from the Americas underwrote and undergirded European colonization of the New World; American gold and silver… Continue Reading Allison Margaret Bigelow: Mining Language and Political Discourse

Céline Carayon: Legible Signs and Symbolic Violence: Communicating Nonverbally, Then and Now

Today we welcome a guest post from Céline Carayon, author of Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas, out now from UNC Press and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Taking a fresh look at the first two centuries of French colonialism in the Americas, this book answers the long-standing question of… Continue Reading Céline Carayon: Legible Signs and Symbolic Violence: Communicating Nonverbally, Then and Now

Brianna Theobald: A Birth in the Water Protector Camps

Today we welcome a guest post from Brianna Theobald, author of Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century, published last week by UNC Press. This pathbreaking book documents the transformation of reproductive practices and politics on Indian reservations from the late nineteenth century to the present, integrating a localized history of childbearing, motherhood, and… Continue Reading Brianna Theobald: A Birth in the Water Protector Camps

Brianna Theobald: The History-Making Work of Native Nurses

On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day we welcome a guest post from Brianna Theobald, author of Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century, published this month by UNC Press. This pathbreaking book documents the transformation of reproductive practices and politics on Indian reservations from the late nineteenth century to the present, integrating a localized history… Continue Reading Brianna Theobald: The History-Making Work of Native Nurses

Oscar de la Torre: The Towering Inferno: Fire and Globalization in Amazonia

Today we welcome a guest post from Oscar de la Torre, author of The People of the River: Nature and Identity in Black Amazonia, 1835-1945, published last fall by UNC Press. In this history of the black peasants of Amazonia, Oscar de la Torre focuses on the experience of African-descended people navigating the transition from slavery to freedom. He draws on… Continue Reading Oscar de la Torre: The Towering Inferno: Fire and Globalization in Amazonia

Paul Musselwhite: 1619 – The Origins of America’s Paradox

Today we welcome a guest post from Paul Musselwhite, one of the editors of Virginia 1619:  Slavery and Freedom in the Making of English America, just published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, and UNC Press. Virginia 1619 provides an opportunity to reflect on the origins of English colonialism around the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic… Continue Reading Paul Musselwhite: 1619 – The Origins of America’s Paradox

Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote: Massalena Ahtone, American Indian Exposition, 1940

Today we welcome a guest post from Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote, author of Crafting an Indigenous Nation:  Kiowa Expressive Culture in the Progressive Era, just published by UNC Press. In this in-depth interdisciplinary study, Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote reveals how Kiowa people drew on the tribe’s rich history of expressive culture to assert its identity at a time of profound challenge. Examining traditional forms… Continue Reading Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote: Massalena Ahtone, American Indian Exposition, 1940

Andrew Newman: Captivity Narratives and The Handmaid’s Tale, Part 2

Today we welcome the second of his two-part guest post from Andrew Newman, author of Allegories of Encounter:  Colonial Literacy and Indian Captivities, just published by UNC Press and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Presenting an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to colonial America’s best-known literary genre, Andrew Newman analyzes depictions of reading, writing, and recollecting texts in… Continue Reading Andrew Newman: Captivity Narratives and The Handmaid’s Tale, Part 2

Andrew Newman: Captivity Narratives and The Handmaid’s Tale, Part 1

Today we welcome the first of a two-part guest post from Andrew Newman, author of Allegories of Encounter:  Colonial Literacy and Indian Captivities, just published by UNC Press and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Presenting an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to colonial America’s best-known literary genre, Andrew Newman analyzes depictions of reading, writing, and recollecting texts in… Continue Reading Andrew Newman: Captivity Narratives and The Handmaid’s Tale, Part 1

Malinda Maynor Lowery: A Nation of Nations

Today is Indigenous People’s Day, and we welcome a guest post from Malinda Maynor Lowery, author of The Lumbee Indians:  An American Struggle, just published by UNC Press. Jamestown, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and Plymouth Rock are central to America’s mythic origin stories. Then, we are told, the main characters–the “friendly” Native Americans who met the settlers–disappeared. But the… Continue Reading Malinda Maynor Lowery: A Nation of Nations

Hertha D. Sweet Wong: The History of Canada, as told by Miss Chief Eagle Testickle

Today we welcome a guest post from Hertha D. Sweet Wong, author of Picturing Identity:  Contemporary American Autobiography in Image and Text, just published by UNC Press. In Picturing Identity, Hertha D. Sweet Wong examines the intersection of writing and visual art in the autobiographical work of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American writers and artists who employ a mix of written and… Continue Reading Hertha D. Sweet Wong: The History of Canada, as told by Miss Chief Eagle Testickle

Hertha D. Sweet Wong: The long history of Native identity, in words and pictures

Today we welcome a guest post from Hertha D. Sweet Wong, author of Picturing Identity:  Contemporary American Autobiography in Image and Text, just published by UNC Press. In Picturing Identity, Hertha D. Sweet Wong examines the intersection of writing and visual art in the autobiographical work of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American writers and artists who employ a mix of written and… Continue Reading Hertha D. Sweet Wong: The long history of Native identity, in words and pictures

Time for another UNC Press book giveaway: Enter to win two new books in Native American and Indigenous studies!

UNC Press is raffling off the two inaugural volumes in our new series, Critical Indigeneities. To help us celebrate, enter to win copies of: Defiant Indigeneity:  The Politics of Hawaiian Performance by Stephanie Nohelani Teves The Sound of Navajo Country:  Music, Language, and Diné Belonging by Kristina M. Jacobsen To enter, simply follow us on Twitter (@uncpressblog), re-Tweet this contest,… Continue Reading Time for another UNC Press book giveaway: Enter to win two new books in Native American and Indigenous studies!

Author Interview: Stephanie Elizondo Griest, All the Agents and Saints

Today UNC Press publicity director Gina Mahalek talks to Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands, about liminal spaces/borderlands, spirituality, shared struggles, and more. ### Gina Mahalek: Your first four books are a celebration of wanderlust, which has fueled your travels to nearly 50 countries. Why did you leave the open road for… Continue Reading Author Interview: Stephanie Elizondo Griest, All the Agents and Saints

Douglas Hunter: Dighton Rock, Leif Eriksson, and the Origins of Scientific Racism

Today we welcome a guest post from Douglas Hunter, author of The Place of Stone:  Dighton Rock and the Erasure of America’s Indigenous Past, on the contested history of Dighton Rock and it’s petroglyphs. Claimed by many to be the most frequently documented artifact in American archeology, Dighton Rock is a forty-ton boulder covered in petroglyphs in southern Massachusetts. First… Continue Reading Douglas Hunter: Dighton Rock, Leif Eriksson, and the Origins of Scientific Racism