What does it mean to say that Native peoples exist in the present? In Beyond Settler Time Mark Rifkin investigates the dangers of seeking to include Indigenous peoples within settler temporal frameworks. Claims that Native peoples should be recognized as coeval with Euro-Americans, Rifkin argues, implicitly treat dominant non-native ideologies and institutions as the basis for defining time itself.
How, though, can Native peoples be understood as dynamic and changing while also not assuming that they belong to a present inherently shared with non-natives? Drawing on physics, phenomenology, queer studies, and postcolonial theory, Rifkin develops the concept of “settler time” to address how Native peoples are both consigned to the past and inserted into the present in ways that normalize non-native histories, geographies, and expectations.
Through analysis of various kinds of texts, including government documents, film, fiction, and autobiography, he explores how Native experiences of time exceed and defy such settler impositions. In underscoring the existence of multiple temporalities, Rifkin illustrates how time plays a crucial role in Indigenous peoples’ expressions of sovereignty and struggles for self-determination.
Reviews
"Rifkin offers the compelling argument that challenging normative settler time engenders new possibilities for Native articulations of futurity."
Stephanie Lumsden
Studies in American Indian Literatures
"Rifkin offers the compelling argument that challenging normative settler time engenders new possibilities for Native articulations of futurity."
Stephanie Lumsden
Studies in American Indian Literatures
"Rifkin offers the compelling argument that challenging normative settler time engenders new possibilities for Native articulations of futurity."
Stephanie Lumsden
Studies in American Indian Literatures
"Rifkin’s book presents a novel and ambitious perspective in analysing the process of land dispossession and forced assimilation of Native Americans during the consolidation of the U.S. national state in the nineteenth century and its afterlife."
Carolina Aguilera
Ethnic and Racial Studies
"Rifkin’s book presents a novel and ambitious perspective in analysing the process of land dispossession and forced assimilation of Native Americans during the consolidation of the U.S. national state in the nineteenth century and its afterlife."
Carolina Aguilera
Ethnic and Racial Studies
"Rifkin’s book presents a novel and ambitious perspective in analysing the process of land dispossession and forced assimilation of Native Americans during the consolidation of the U.S. national state in the nineteenth century and its afterlife."
Carolina Aguilera
Ethnic and Racial Studies
"A theoretically robust and intellectually satisfying work that challenges readers to think differently not only about the past, but also about time. . . . A welcome addition to the robust body of interdisciplinary writing that has become renowned for its thick descriptions of space and place. . . . Rifkin’s approach is innovative, his analysis is theoretically sophisticated, the scaffolding upon which his analysis hangs is inspiring, and the vocabulary he advances is both useful and empowering."
Kieth Thor Carlson
American Historical Review
"A theoretically robust and intellectually satisfying work that challenges readers to think differently not only about the past, but also about time. . . . A welcome addition to the robust body of interdisciplinary writing that has become renowned for its thick descriptions of space and place. . . . Rifkin’s approach is innovative, his analysis is theoretically sophisticated, the scaffolding upon which his analysis hangs is inspiring, and the vocabulary he advances is both useful and empowering."
Kieth Thor Carlson
American Historical Review
"A theoretically robust and intellectually satisfying work that challenges readers to think differently not only about the past, but also about time. . . . A welcome addition to the robust body of interdisciplinary writing that has become renowned for its thick descriptions of space and place. . . . Rifkin’s approach is innovative, his analysis is theoretically sophisticated, the scaffolding upon which his analysis hangs is inspiring, and the vocabulary he advances is both useful and empowering."
Kieth Thor Carlson
American Historical Review
"Rifkin’s work moves us toward a more expansive understanding of the ways in which collective memory, ceremonial practices, prophesy, oral traditions, and place- based knowledges inform Indigenous corpo-realities and shape quotidian experiences of synchronously felt pasts, presents, and futures. This text is a critical addition to Native American studies and should be read by all striving for a decolonial future."
Sarah Whitt
American Indian Quarterly
"Rifkin’s work moves us toward a more expansive understanding of the ways in which collective memory, ceremonial practices, prophesy, oral traditions, and place- based knowledges inform Indigenous corpo-realities and shape quotidian experiences of synchronously felt pasts, presents, and futures. This text is a critical addition to Native American studies and should be read by all striving for a decolonial future."
Sarah Whitt
American Indian Quarterly
"Rifkin’s work moves us toward a more expansive understanding of the ways in which collective memory, ceremonial practices, prophesy, oral traditions, and place- based knowledges inform Indigenous corpo-realities and shape quotidian experiences of synchronously felt pasts, presents, and futures. This text is a critical addition to Native American studies and should be read by all striving for a decolonial future."
Sarah Whitt
American Indian Quarterly
"It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the full richness of Beyond Settler Time. Rifkin is meticulous in positioning his own work in relation to other scholarship, and while at times this forces the reader to work through the extant discourse surrounding a particular novel or text to get at the new interpretive kernel, that work is always rewarding. . . . Beyond Settler Time is a valuable contribution to the field of indigenous studies."
David J. Carlson
Journal of American Studies
"It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the full richness of Beyond Settler Time. Rifkin is meticulous in positioning his own work in relation to other scholarship, and while at times this forces the reader to work through the extant discourse surrounding a particular novel or text to get at the new interpretive kernel, that work is always rewarding. . . . Beyond Settler Time is a valuable contribution to the field of indigenous studies."
David J. Carlson
Journal of American Studies
"It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the full richness of Beyond Settler Time. Rifkin is meticulous in positioning his own work in relation to other scholarship, and while at times this forces the reader to work through the extant discourse surrounding a particular novel or text to get at the new interpretive kernel, that work is always rewarding. . . . Beyond Settler Time is a valuable contribution to the field of indigenous studies."
David J. Carlson
Journal of American Studies
"Beyond Settler Time provides a necessary and important intervention in theorizations of time in Native American literature and history. Rifkin presents a set of analytic tools that scholars can employ when engaging Indigenous texts with temporal formations, shedding light upon crucial differences in Native American conceptions of time, place, and becoming."
Penelope Kelsey
Western American Literature
"Beyond Settler Time provides a necessary and important intervention in theorizations of time in Native American literature and history. Rifkin presents a set of analytic tools that scholars can employ when engaging Indigenous texts with temporal formations, shedding light upon crucial differences in Native American conceptions of time, place, and becoming."
Penelope Kelsey
Western American Literature
"Beyond Settler Time provides a necessary and important intervention in theorizations of time in Native American literature and history. Rifkin presents a set of analytic tools that scholars can employ when engaging Indigenous texts with temporal formations, shedding light upon crucial differences in Native American conceptions of time, place, and becoming."
Penelope Kelsey
Western American Literature
Other 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.
Other 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.
Other 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.
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.