Queequeg's Coffin

Informationen zum Autor Birgit Brander Rasmussen Klappentext The encounter between European and native peoples in the Americas is often portrayed as a conflict between literate civilization and illiterate savagery. That perception ignores the many indigenous forms of writing that were not alphabet-based, such as Mayan pictoglyphs, Iroquois wampum, Ojibwe birch-bark scrolls, and Incan quipus. Queequeg's Coffin offers a new definition of writing that comprehends the dazzling diversity of literature in the Americas before and after European arrivals. This groundbreaking study recovers previously overlooked moments of textual reciprocity in the colonial sphere, from a 1645 French-Haudenosaunee Peace Council to Herman Melville's youthful encounters with Polynesian hieroglyphics.By recovering the literatures and textual practices that were indigenous to the Americas, Birgit Brander Rasmussen reimagines the colonial conflict as one organized by alternative but equally rich forms of literacy. From central Mexico to the northeastern shores of North America, in the Andes and across the American continents, indigenous peoples and European newcomers engaged each other in dialogues about ways of writing and recording knowledge. In Queequeg's Coffin, such exchanges become the foundation for a new kind of early American literary studies. Zusammenfassung Rather than seeing American literature as beginning with the writings of English or Spanish colonists! Brander Rasmussen points to the wide variety of indigenous writing in the Americas prior to colonization. The study looks at writing between 1524 and the mid-19th century work of Herman Melville. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgments xi Introduction. " A New World Still in the Making: 1 1. Writing and Colonial Conflict 17 2. Negotiating Peace, Negotiating Literacies: The Undetermined Encounter with Early American Literature 49 3. Writing in the Conflict Zone: Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno 79 4. Indigenous Literacies, Moby-Dick, and the Promise of Queequeg's Coffin 111 Afterword 139 Notes 145 Works Cited 185 Index 201...

Auteur

Birgit Brander Rasmussen

Texte du rabat

The encounter between European and native peoples in the Americas is often portrayed as a conflict between literate civilization and illiterate savagery. That perception ignores the many indigenous forms of writing that were not alphabet-based, such as Mayan pictoglyphs, Iroquois wampum, Ojibwe birch-bark scrolls, and Incan quipus. Queequeg's Coffin offers a new definition of writing that comprehends the dazzling diversity of literature in the Americas before and after European arrivals. This groundbreaking study recovers previously overlooked moments of textual reciprocity in the colonial sphere, from a 1645 French-Haudenosaunee Peace Council to Herman Melville's youthful encounters with Polynesian hieroglyphics. By recovering the literatures and textual practices that were indigenous to the Americas, Birgit Brander Rasmussen reimagines the colonial conflict as one organized by alternative but equally rich forms of literacy. From central Mexico to the northeastern shores of North America, in the Andes and across the American continents, indigenous peoples and European newcomers engaged each other in dialogues about ways of writing and recording knowledge. In Queequeg's Coffin, such exchanges become the foundation for a new kind of early American literary studies.

Résumé
Rather than seeing American literature as beginning with the writings of English or Spanish colonists, Brander Rasmussen points to the wide variety of indigenous writing in the Americas prior to colonization. The study looks at writing between 1524 and the mid-19th century work of Herman Melville.

Contenu

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction. " A New World Still in the Making: 1

1. Writing and Colonial Conflict 17
2. Negotiating Peace, Negotiating Literacies: The Undetermined Encounter with Early American Literature 49
3. Writing in the Conflict Zone: Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno 79
4. Indigenous Literacies, Moby-Dick, and the Promise of Queequeg's Coffin 111
   Afterword 139
   Notes 145
   Works Cited 185
   Index 201