Overview

Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds explores the critically neglected intersection of Native and African American cultures. This interdisciplinary collection combines historical studies of the complex relations between blacks and Indians in Native communities with considerations and examples of various forms of cultural expression that have emerged from their intertwined histories. The contributors include scholars of African American and Native American studies, English, history, anthropology, law, and performance studies, as well as fiction writers, poets, and a visual artist. Essays range from a close reading of the 1838 memoirs of a black and Native freewoman to an analysis of how Afro-Native intermarriage has impacted the identities and federal government classifications of certain New England Indian tribes. One contributor explores the aftermath of black slavery in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, highlighting issues of culture and citizenship. Another scrutinizes the controversy that followed the 1998 selection of a Miss Navajo Nation who had an African American father. A historian examines the status of Afro-Indians in colonial Mexico, and an ethnographer reflects on oral histories gathered from Afro-Choctaws. Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds includes evocative readings of several of Toni Morrison’s novels, interpretations of plays by African American and First Nations playwrights, an original short story by Roberta J. Hill, and an interview with the Creek poet and musician Joy Harjo. The Native American scholar Robert Warrior develops a theoretical model for comparative work through an analysis of black and Native intellectual production. In his afterword, he reflects on the importance of the critical project advanced by this volume. Contributors. Jennifer D. Brody, Tamara Buffalo, David A. Y. O. Chang, Robert Keith Collins, Roberta J. Hill, Sharon P. Holland, ku'ualoha ho’omnawanui, Deborah E. Kanter, Virginia Kennedy, Barbara Krauthamer, Tiffany M. McKinney, Melinda Micco, Tiya Miles, Celia E. Naylor, Eugene B. Redmond, Wendy S. Walters, Robert Warrior

Full Product Details

9780822338659

Table of Contents

Reviews

Tiya Miles and Sharon Patricia Holland have brought together precision history, evocative criticism, and wrenching memoir and fiction to offer a compelling picture of the meeting grounds where black and Indian lives intertwine. So much more than a decentering of whiteness, this collection truly opens up new and exciting terrain. --Philip J. Deloria, author of Indians in Unexpected Places This collection is an important extension of a vital topic--historical and contemporary cultural and political relationships between Indian and African peoples--fully into the realm of African diaspora studies. --James F. Brooks, editor of Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds addresses an extremely important nexus in ethnic studies and cultural studies and demonstrates the indispensable contributions of relational and comparative study. --George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger

""Tiya Miles and Sharon Patricia Holland have brought together precision history, evocative criticism, and wrenching memoir and fiction to offer a compelling picture of the meeting grounds where black and Indian lives intertwine. So much more than a decentering of whiteness, this collection truly opens up new and exciting terrain.""--Philip J. Deloria, author of Indians in Unexpected Places ""This collection is an important extension of a vital topic--historical and contemporary cultural and political relationships between Indian and African peoples--fully into the realm of African diaspora studies.""--James F. Brooks, editor of Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America ""Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds addresses an extremely important nexus in ethnic studies and cultural studies and demonstrates the indispensable contributions of relational and comparative study.""--George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger

"""Tiya Miles and Sharon Patricia Holland have brought together precision history, evocative criticism, and wrenching memoir and fiction to offer a compelling picture of the meeting grounds where black and Indian lives intertwine. So much more than a decentering of whiteness, this collection truly opens up new and exciting terrain.""--Philip J. Deloria, author of Indians in Unexpected Places ""This collection is an important extension of a vital topic--historical and contemporary cultural and political relationships between Indian and African peoples--fully into the realm of African diaspora studies.""--James F. Brooks, editor of Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America ""Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds addresses an extremely important nexus in ethnic studies and cultural studies and demonstrates the indispensable contributions of relational and comparative study.""--George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger"

Author Information

Tiya Miles is Assistant Professor of American Culture, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Native American Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom. Sharon P. Holland is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity, also published by Duke University Press.

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