Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 4 - Performative Cultures of Early America

  • from Part I - Traces and Removals (Pre-1870s)
  • Edited by Melanie Benson Taylor, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Native American Literature
    Published online:
    18 September 2020
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020, pp 74-88

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on performance at the crossroads of Native and non-Native cultures in early America. It considers in particular the literary depictions of those performative cultures and the literary productions that arose from them. Sacred, militaristic, political, juridical, theatrical, and communicative performances appear throughout colonial and Indigenous archives. Their presence deeply informs Native American literary history and increasingly drives the evolution of North American literary history. The chapter considers the literary record of strategic performances of Indianness whereby Native Americans claim authority over their identity within colonialism. It then considers how this knowledge should necessarily impact the content of literary anthologies and the literary surveys they serve. Attending to the performative cultures of early America makes visible the formative and persistent influence of Indigenous culture on non-Native expression. But it should not encourage a disregard for cultural distinctions or, more specifically, for the sacred.