The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism
In 1761 and again in 1768, European scientists raced around the world to observe the transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event in which the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. In The Transit of Empire, Jodi A. Byrd explores how indigeneity functions as transit, a trajectory of movement that serves as precedent within U.S. imperial history. Byrd argues that contemporary U.S. empire expands itself through a transferable “Indianness” that facilitates acquisitions of lands, territories, and resources.

Examining an array of literary texts, historical moments, and pending legislations—from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma’s vote in 2007 to expel Cherokee Freedmen to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization bill—Byrd demonstrates that inclusion into the multicultural cosmopole does not end colonialism as it is purported to do. Rather, that inclusion is the very site of the colonization that feeds U.S. empire.

Byrd contends that the colonization of American Indian and indigenous nations is the necessary ground from which to reimagine a future where the losses of indigenous peoples are not only visible and, in turn, grieveable, but where indigenous peoples have agency to transform life on their own lands and on their own terms.

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The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism
In 1761 and again in 1768, European scientists raced around the world to observe the transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event in which the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. In The Transit of Empire, Jodi A. Byrd explores how indigeneity functions as transit, a trajectory of movement that serves as precedent within U.S. imperial history. Byrd argues that contemporary U.S. empire expands itself through a transferable “Indianness” that facilitates acquisitions of lands, territories, and resources.

Examining an array of literary texts, historical moments, and pending legislations—from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma’s vote in 2007 to expel Cherokee Freedmen to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization bill—Byrd demonstrates that inclusion into the multicultural cosmopole does not end colonialism as it is purported to do. Rather, that inclusion is the very site of the colonization that feeds U.S. empire.

Byrd contends that the colonization of American Indian and indigenous nations is the necessary ground from which to reimagine a future where the losses of indigenous peoples are not only visible and, in turn, grieveable, but where indigenous peoples have agency to transform life on their own lands and on their own terms.

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The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism

The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism

by Jodi A. Byrd
The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism
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The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism

The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism

by Jodi A. Byrd

Overview

In 1761 and again in 1768, European scientists raced around the world to observe the transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event in which the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. In The Transit of Empire, Jodi A. Byrd explores how indigeneity functions as transit, a trajectory of movement that serves as precedent within U.S. imperial history. Byrd argues that contemporary U.S. empire expands itself through a transferable “Indianness” that facilitates acquisitions of lands, territories, and resources.

Examining an array of literary texts, historical moments, and pending legislations—from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma’s vote in 2007 to expel Cherokee Freedmen to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization bill—Byrd demonstrates that inclusion into the multicultural cosmopole does not end colonialism as it is purported to do. Rather, that inclusion is the very site of the colonization that feeds U.S. empire.

Byrd contends that the colonization of American Indian and indigenous nations is the necessary ground from which to reimagine a future where the losses of indigenous peoples are not only visible and, in turn, grieveable, but where indigenous peoples have agency to transform life on their own lands and on their own terms.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780816676415
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication date: 09/06/2011
Series: First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jodi A. Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and assistant professor of American Indian studies and English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface: Full Fathom Five

Introduction: Indigenous Critical Theory and the Diminishing Returns of Civilization
1. Is and Was: Poststructural Indians without Ancestry
2. “This Island’s Mine”: The Parallax Logics of Caliban’s Cacophony
3. The Masks of Conquest: Wilson Harris’s Jonestown and the Thresholds of Grievability
4. “Been to the Nation, Lord, but I Couldn’t Stay There”: Cherokee Freedmen, Internal Colonialism, and the Racialization of Citizenship
5. Satisfied with Stones: Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization and the Discourses of Resistance
6. Killing States: Removals, Other Americans, and the “Pale Promise of Democracy”
Conclusion: Zombie Imperialism

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

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