Professor
Mark Rifkin
Professor
Mark Rifkin
Scholar of Indigenous Studies, Queer and Trans Studies, and U.S. Literary Studies
Research
I am Professor of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies and Indigenous Studies at the University at Buffalo. My research primarily focuses on Native American writing and politics from the eighteenth century onward, exploring the ways that Indigenous peoples have negotiated U.S. racial and imperial formations. I explore the roles of gender, sexuality, affect, and eroticism in those dynamics, addressing legal and administrative frameworks, textual representations, and forms of everyday experience. I also have written extensively about the relations among varied processes of racialization in the context of U.S. empire.
BOOKS
The Cambridge Introduction to Queer and Trans Studies
The book provides a detailed analysis of important work in queer and trans studies over the past thirty years. Stretching from early figures (such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Cathy Cohen, José Muñoz, and Sandy Stone) to the most recent scholarship, it offers a rich account of these fields’ major ideas and contributions while indicating how they have evolved.
The Politics of Kinship
Race, Family, Governance
What if we understood the idea of family as central to representing alternative forms of governance as expressions of racial deviance? The Politics of Kinship shows how ideologies of family recast Indigenous and other forms of collective self-organization and self-determination as disruptive racial tendencies in need of state containment and intervention.
Speaking for the People
Native Writing and the Question of Political Form
Speaking for the People examines nineteenth-century Native writings to reframe contemporary debates around Indigenous recognition, refusal, and resurgence. It shows how works by nineteenth-century Native authors illustrate the intellectual labor involved in representing modes of Indigenous political identity and placemaking.
Fictions of Land and Flesh
Blackness, Indigeneity, Speculation
In Fictions of Land and Flesh Mark Rifkin explores the impasses that arise in seeking to connect Black and Indigenous movements, turning to speculative fiction to understand those difficulties and envision productive ways of addressing them.
Beyond Settler Time
Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination
What does it mean to say that Native peoples exist in the present? Beyond Settler Time investigates the dangers of seeking to include Indigenous peoples within settler temporal frameworks.
Settler Common Sense
Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance
The book explores how some of the most canonical of American writers take part in the legacy of displacing Native Americans. It shows how these texts’ queer imaginings rely on treating settler notions of place and personhood as self-evident, erasing the advancing expropriation and occupation of Native lands.
The Erotics of Sovereignty
Queer Native Writing in the Era of Self-Determination
The Erotics of Sovereignty looks at how contemporary queer Native writers use representations of sensation to challenge official U.S. accounts of Native identity. It illustrates how these authors affirm the significance of the erotic as an exercise of individual and community sovereignty.
When Did Indians Become Straight?
Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty
The book explores the complex relationship between contested U.S. notions of normality and shifting forms of Native American governance and self-representation.
Manifesting America
The Imperial Construction of U.S. National Space
The book explores the creation and extension of U.S. jurisdiction in the antebellum period, particularly over Native Americans and former Mexicans.
BOOKS
The Cambridge Introduction to Queer and Trans Studies
The book provides a detailed analysis of important work in queer and trans studies over the past thirty years. Stretching from early figures (such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Cathy Cohen, José Muñoz, and Sandy Stone) to the most recent scholarship, it offers a rich account of these fields’ major ideas and contributions while indicating how they have evolved.
The Politics of Kinship
Race, Family, Governance
What if we understood the idea of family as central to representing alternative forms of governance as expressions of racial deviance? The Politics of Kinship shows how ideologies of family recast Indigenous and other forms of collective self-organization and self-determination as disruptive racial tendencies in need of state containment and intervention.
Speaking for the People
Native Writing and the Question of Political Form
Speaking for the People examines nineteenth-century Native writings to reframe contemporary debates around Indigenous recognition, refusal, and resurgence. It shows how works by nineteenth-century Native authors illustrate the intellectual labor involved in representing modes of Indigenous political identity and placemaking.
Fictions of Land and Flesh
Blackness, Indigeneity, Speculation
In Fictions of Land and Flesh Mark Rifkin explores the impasses that arise in seeking to connect Black and Indigenous movements, turning to speculative fiction to understand those difficulties and envision productive ways of addressing them.
Beyond Settler Time
Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination
What does it mean to say that Native peoples exist in the present? Beyond Settler Time investigates the dangers of seeking to include Indigenous peoples within settler temporal frameworks.
Settler Common Sense
Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance
The book explores how some of the most canonical of American writers take part in the legacy of displacing Native Americans. It shows how these texts’ queer imaginings rely on treating settler notions of place and personhood as self-evident, erasing the advancing expropriation and occupation of Native lands.
The Erotics of Sovereignty
Queer Native Writing in the Era of Self-Determination
The Erotics of Sovereignty looks at how contemporary queer Native writers use representations of sensation to challenge official U.S. accounts of Native identity. It illustrates how these authors affirm the significance of the erotic as an exercise of individual and community sovereignty.
When Did Indians Become Straight?
Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty
The book explores the complex relationship between contested U.S. notions of normality and shifting forms of Native American governance and self-representation.
Manifesting America
The Imperial Construction of U.S. National Space
The book explores the creation and extension of U.S. jurisdiction in the antebellum period, particularly over Native Americans and former Mexicans.
BOOKS
The Cambridge Introduction to Queer and Trans Studies
The book provides a detailed analysis of important work in queer and trans studies over the past thirty years. Stretching from early figures (such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Cathy Cohen, José Muñoz, and Sandy Stone) to the most recent scholarship, it offers a rich account of these fields’ major ideas and contributions while indicating how they have evolved.
The Politics of Kinship
Race, Family, Governance
What if we understood the idea of family as central to representing alternative forms of governance as expressions of racial deviance? The Politics of Kinship shows how ideologies of family recast Indigenous and other forms of collective self-organization and self-determination as disruptive racial tendencies in need of state containment and intervention.
Speaking for the People
Native Writing and the Question of Political Form
Speaking for the People examines nineteenth-century Native writings to reframe contemporary debates around Indigenous recognition, refusal, and resurgence. It shows how works by nineteenth-century Native authors illustrate the intellectual labor involved in representing modes of Indigenous political identity and placemaking.
Fictions of Land and Flesh
Blackness, Indigeneity, Speculation
In Fictions of Land and Flesh Mark Rifkin explores the impasses that arise in seeking to connect Black and Indigenous movements, turning to speculative fiction to understand those difficulties and envision productive ways of addressing them.
Beyond Settler Time
Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination
What does it mean to say that Native peoples exist in the present? Beyond Settler Time investigates the dangers of seeking to include Indigenous peoples within settler temporal frameworks.
Settler Common Sense
Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance
The book explores how some of the most canonical of American writers take part in the legacy of displacing Native Americans. It shows how these texts’ queer imaginings rely on treating settler notions of place and personhood as self-evident, erasing the advancing expropriation and occupation of Native lands.
The Erotics of Sovereignty
Queer Native Writing in the Era of Self-Determination
The Erotics of Sovereignty looks at how contemporary queer Native writers use representations of sensation to challenge official U.S. accounts of Native identity. It illustrates how these authors affirm the significance of the erotic as an exercise of individual and community sovereignty.
When Did Indians Become Straight?
Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty
The book explores the complex relationship between contested U.S. notions of normality and shifting forms of Native American governance and self-representation.
Manifesting America
The Imperial Construction of U.S. National Space
The book explores the creation and extension of U.S. jurisdiction in the antebellum period, particularly over Native Americans and former Mexicans.
CV
Presentations and Podcasts
Feb 1, 2024
Presentation
The Politics of Kinship: Race, Family, Governance
Gender Institute, University at Buffalo
Sep 22, 2023
Presentation
Mark Rifkin, Speaking for the People
American Antiquarian Virtual Book Talk
Apr 22, 2023
Presentation
Trans Nineteenth Century Symposium
Rutgers University
Dec 7, 2021
Podcast
Queering temporality and moving beyond settler time
Green Dreamer
Jun 22, 2021
Podcast
“Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination”
New Books in Literary Studies
Feb 5, 2020
Presentation
Gender Talk with Mark Rifkin
Berea College
Nov 9, 2018
Presentation
Comparative Literature Luncheon Series
Penn State
Aug 21, 2014
Podcast
Settler Common Sense: Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance
New Books in Native American Studies
Oct 16, 2012
Podcast
When Did Indians Become Straight
WUNC
ConTact me
mrifkin@buffalo.edu
Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies
1030 Clemens Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York 14260
ConTact me
mrifkin@buffalo.edu
Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies
1030 Clemens Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York 14260
ConTact me
mrifkin@buffalo.edu
Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies
1030 Clemens Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York 14260
Copyright ©Mark Rifkin. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright ©Mark Rifkin. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright ©Mark Rifkin. All Rights Reserved.