Title: American indians and the American imaginary : cultural representation across the centuries /
Authors: Strong, Pauline Turner, 1953-
Publisher: Paradigm Publishers,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Indians of North America Public opinion.; Indians of North America Historiography.; Indian captivities Historiography.; Ethnohistory North America.; Indians in popular culture.; Indians in literature; Indians in motion pictures.; Public opinion North America
Abstract: American Indians and the American Imaginary considers the power of representations of Native Americans in American public culture. The book's wide-ranging case studies move from colonial captivity narratives to modern film, from the camp fire to the sports arena, from legal and scholarly texts to tribally-controlled museums and cultural centers. The author's ethnographic approach to what she calls representational practices focus on the emergence, use, and transformation of representations in the course of social life. Central themes include identity and otherness, indigenous cultural politics, and cultural memory, property, performance, citizenship, and transformation. American Indians and the American Imaginary will interest general readers as well as scholars and students in anthropology, history, literature, education, cultural studies, gender studies, American Studies, and Native American and Indigenous Studies. It is essential reading for those interested in the processes through which national, tribal, and indigenous identities have been imagined, contested, and refigured.
Contents: The ethnography of representational practices -- Tribe and nation -- Five hundred years -- Indian blood -- Captivity in white and red -- The contemporary captivity narrative -- On captivity as digital spectacle -- Crafting American selves -- Animated Indians -- The mascot slot -- Sovereignty, indigeneity, and ethnographic representation -- A native space on the national mall.