The book explores the creation and extension of U.S. jurisdiction in the antebellum period, particularly over Native Americans and former Mexicans. It examines how U.S. law recodes the identities and territoriality of these populations and the self-depictions they offer in nonfictional texts. The government’s narration of national space is haunted and disturbed by the persistence of the political geographies of peoples made domestic in the absorption of indigenous and Mexican lands. Exploring the confrontation between U.S. law and the self-representations of those once-alien peoples subjected to it, the book focuses on Indian removal in the southeast and western Great Lakes and the annexation of Texas and California.
In foregrounding self-determination, a central concept in current international debates over the rights of indigenous peoples, the project challenges the somewhat amorphous image of betweenness conveyed by such prominent critical formulations as “the borderlands,” “the middle ground,” and “the contact zone,” examining a variety of writings (including memorials, autobiographies, and histories) produced by imperially displaced populations for the ways that they index specific forms of collectivity and placemaking disavowed by U.S. policy. More specifically, it shows how U.S. institutions legitimize conquest as consensual by creating forms of official recognition and speech for dominated groups that reinforce the obviousness of U.S. mappings and authority, and it demonstrates how forcibly internalized populations disjoint, refunction, and contest the roles created for them so as to create room in public discourse for critiquing U.S. efforts to displace their existing forms of land tenure and governance.
Reviews
"Manifesting America is an important innovative work that will provoke argument and inspire emulation. Each chapter is compelling and rich in its interweaving of textual readings, history, and theory."
Amy Kaplan
University of Pennsylvania
"Manifesting America is an important innovative work that will provoke argument and inspire emulation. Each chapter is compelling and rich in its interweaving of textual readings, history, and theory."
Amy Kaplan
University of Pennsylvania
"Manifesting America is an important innovative work that will provoke argument and inspire emulation. Each chapter is compelling and rich in its interweaving of textual readings, history, and theory."
Amy Kaplan
University of Pennsylvania
"These steady-handed, often tough-minded readings document a genealogy of the interconnections between American Indian and Mexican-American experiences of American imperialism. Drawing on subaltern studies to great intellectual advantage, Mark Rifkin in Manifesting America innovates, re-imagines, and creates new pathways toward including indigeneity in American studies."
Robert Warrior
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"These steady-handed, often tough-minded readings document a genealogy of the interconnections between American Indian and Mexican-American experiences of American imperialism. Drawing on subaltern studies to great intellectual advantage, Mark Rifkin in Manifesting America innovates, re-imagines, and creates new pathways toward including indigeneity in American studies."
Robert Warrior
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"These steady-handed, often tough-minded readings document a genealogy of the interconnections between American Indian and Mexican-American experiences of American imperialism. Drawing on subaltern studies to great intellectual advantage, Mark Rifkin in Manifesting America innovates, re-imagines, and creates new pathways toward including indigeneity in American studies."
Robert Warrior
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Meticulously researched and sweeping in scope, Rifkin's book points us toward the many rewards not only of reading critically nonfictional texts within their communities but also of reading their communities within a richly complicated and cosmopolitan regional framework that unbounds Native American and literary studies in order to enter a dynamic and piercing engagement with allied areas of inquiry. Fiercely comparative and far-ranging, this book will sharpen debates in graduate seminars and conference panels across the discipline as we more fully integrate literary and nonliterary scholarly projects."
Studies in American Indian Literatures
"Meticulously researched and sweeping in scope, Rifkin's book points us toward the many rewards not only of reading critically nonfictional texts within their communities but also of reading their communities within a richly complicated and cosmopolitan regional framework that unbounds Native American and literary studies in order to enter a dynamic and piercing engagement with allied areas of inquiry. Fiercely comparative and far-ranging, this book will sharpen debates in graduate seminars and conference panels across the discipline as we more fully integrate literary and nonliterary scholarly projects."
Studies in American Indian Literatures
"Meticulously researched and sweeping in scope, Rifkin's book points us toward the many rewards not only of reading critically nonfictional texts within their communities but also of reading their communities within a richly complicated and cosmopolitan regional framework that unbounds Native American and literary studies in order to enter a dynamic and piercing engagement with allied areas of inquiry. Fiercely comparative and far-ranging, this book will sharpen debates in graduate seminars and conference panels across the discipline as we more fully integrate literary and nonliterary scholarly projects."
Studies in American Indian Literatures
"Manifesting America skillfully reorients American studies from its current fascination with the transnational, spotlighting instead processes through which the U.S. incorporated Indigenous and Mexican peoples and their lands into its national imaginary. Rifkin's attention to this discursive naturalization of U.S. authority as non-coercive reinvigorates the critique of empire-building at home."
Chadwick Allen
The Ohio State University
"Manifesting America skillfully reorients American studies from its current fascination with the transnational, spotlighting instead processes through which the U.S. incorporated Indigenous and Mexican peoples and their lands into its national imaginary. Rifkin's attention to this discursive naturalization of U.S. authority as non-coercive reinvigorates the critique of empire-building at home."
Chadwick Allen
The Ohio State University
"Manifesting America skillfully reorients American studies from its current fascination with the transnational, spotlighting instead processes through which the U.S. incorporated Indigenous and Mexican peoples and their lands into its national imaginary. Rifkin's attention to this discursive naturalization of U.S. authority as non-coercive reinvigorates the critique of empire-building at home."
Chadwick Allen
The Ohio State University
"Rifkin's study offers a critical genealogy of the dialectic of incorporation and acquiescence that persists as a central element of U.S. imperial nationalism. This path-breaking study will be widely read and discussed by scholars in American history, Native American studies, and American literary studies."
Donald E. Pease
Dartmouth College
"Rifkin's study offers a critical genealogy of the dialectic of incorporation and acquiescence that persists as a central element of U.S. imperial nationalism. This path-breaking study will be widely read and discussed by scholars in American history, Native American studies, and American literary studies."
Donald E. Pease
Dartmouth College
"Rifkin's study offers a critical genealogy of the dialectic of incorporation and acquiescence that persists as a central element of U.S. imperial nationalism. This path-breaking study will be widely read and discussed by scholars in American history, Native American studies, and American literary studies."
Donald E. Pease
Dartmouth College
"Compels us to think carefully of the rhetorical and legal legerdemain of imperial conquest and the centrality of language in the making of the United States as a hegemonic power."
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"Compels us to think carefully of the rhetorical and legal legerdemain of imperial conquest and the centrality of language in the making of the United States as a hegemonic power."
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"Compels us to think carefully of the rhetorical and legal legerdemain of imperial conquest and the centrality of language in the making of the United States as a hegemonic power."
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"Brilliantly conceptualized and argued, Manifesting America is an essential and path-breaking contribution to the fields of Native American studies, Chicano/a-Latino/a studies, border studies, and American studies."
Wicazo Sa Review
"Brilliantly conceptualized and argued, Manifesting America is an essential and path-breaking contribution to the fields of Native American studies, Chicano/a-Latino/a studies, border studies, and American studies."
Wicazo Sa Review
"Brilliantly conceptualized and argued, Manifesting America is an essential and path-breaking contribution to the fields of Native American studies, Chicano/a-Latino/a studies, border studies, and American studies."
Wicazo Sa Review
"Rifkin's book...brings indigenous presence, culture, and activism to the fore, countering entrenched narratives of invisibility, powerlessness, and acquiescence with persistent and creative resistance to ongoing colonial oppression."
American Literature
"Rifkin's book...brings indigenous presence, culture, and activism to the fore, countering entrenched narratives of invisibility, powerlessness, and acquiescence with persistent and creative resistance to ongoing colonial oppression."
American Literature
"Rifkin's book...brings indigenous presence, culture, and activism to the fore, countering entrenched narratives of invisibility, powerlessness, and acquiescence with persistent and creative resistance to ongoing colonial oppression."
American Literature
Rifkin convincingly demonstrates that the "dialectic of absorption and assent" framed U.S. imperial nationalism."
Western Historical Quarterly
Rifkin convincingly demonstrates that the "dialectic of absorption and assent" framed U.S. imperial nationalism."
Western Historical Quarterly
Rifkin convincingly demonstrates that the "dialectic of absorption and assent" framed U.S. imperial nationalism."
Western Historical Quarterly
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.