Winter 2005 NewsNotes - the E-Publication of the Society for Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US (MELUS)

Demonstrates how imperialism was fundamental to the formation of the early American republic.
FUGITIVE EMPIRE: Locating Early American Imperialism
Andy Doolen

University of Minnesota Press | 280 pages | 2005
ISBN 0-8166-4453-5 | hardcover | $59.95
ISBN 0-8166-4454-3 | paperback | $19.95

Andy Doolen investigates colonial and early national America, revealing how whiteness and American identity were conflated to stabilize racial hierarchy and to repulse challenges to national policies of slavery, war, and continental expansion. Bridging the gap between the British Empire and the new United States, Doolen concludes that imperial authority lies at the heart of American republicanism.

“Fugitive Empire makes provocative and compelling links between the conspiracy theories that undergird a white American identity in the late colonies, and Federalist projects fifty years later.” —Dana D. Nelson

For more information, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/D/doolan_fugitive.html

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An intensely personal and political confrontation with prejudice, hatred, and violence.
WORDS TO OUR NOW: Imagination and Dissent
Thomas Glave

University ! of Minnesota Press | 216 pages | 2005
ISBN 0-8166-4679-1 | hardcover | $25.95

It seems as if our nation becomes more fragmented with each passing day. The rifts between the wealthy and the poor, between whites and those of color, between heterosexuals and homosexuals, and between conservatives and liberals, are widening at an alarming rate. Acknowledging the problem is not enough; shame and anger are not enough; change is our only option. America is faced with a choice: stand together, or fall apart. Thomas Glave offers a convincing argument for the former.

In his latest book, Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent, Glave delivers a searing condemnation of the prejudices, hatreds, and inhumanities that persist in the United States and elsewhere as both official policy and social reality. Urging readers that the time for change is and must be now, Glave puts forth a deeply moral and ethical understanding of human rights to make vital connections across nations, races, genders, and sexualities.

This immensely important book experiments with language and form to provide a compelling model of creative writing as a tool for social change and humanity.

“Deepening the tradition of intellectual, imaginative dissent of writers like Édouard Glissant, Kamau Brathwaite, Frantz Fanon, and James Baldwin, Words to Our Now is an eloquent blend of personal and political imagery, of compassion and fury. Thomas Glave addresses issues crucial to citizens of this world: the endless warfare against which we live our lives, whether at home or abroad; the warfare we wage against one another. Che Guevara said that the true revolutionary is motivated by love. Words to Our Now is the work of a revolutionary mind.” —Michelle Cliff

Thomas Glave is assistant professor of English at SUNY Binghamton. He is a Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of numerous fellow! ships and awards, including the O. Henry Award for Fiction (the first black gay writer to receive the award since James Baldwin). The author of Whose Song? and Other Stories, Glave was named a “Writer on the Verge” by The Village Voice in 2000.

For more information, including and excerpt and the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/glave_words.html

Traces how Cuba’s revolutionary past and uncertain future collide with post–Cold War realities.
CUBAN PALIMPSESTS
José Quiroga

University of Minnesota Press | 296 pages | 2005
ISBN 0-8166-4213-3 | hardcover | $59.95
ISBN 0-8166-4214-1 | paperback | $19.95
Cultural Studies of the Americas Series, volume 19

José Quiroga explores the sites, both physical and imaginative, where memory bears upon Cuba's collective history. From the nostalgic photographs of Walker Evans to the stature of Fidel Castro, from the legacy of artist Ana Mendieta to the reburial of Che Guevara, Cuban Palimpsests memorializes the ruins of Cuba's past and offers a meditation on its place within the new world order.

“Cuban Palimpsests covers uncharted territory, particularly the post-Soviet collapse period and its impact on Cuban culture.” —María de los Angeles Torres

For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/Q/quiroga_cuban.html

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Reveals the history and impact of Native American nonfiction writing.
THE PEOPLE AND THE WORD: Reading Native Nonfiction
Robert Warrior

University of Minnesota Press | 280 pages | 2005
ISBN 0-8166-4616-3 | hardcover | $59.95
ISBN 0-8166-4617-1 | paperback | $19.95
Indigenous Americas Series

Focusing on autobiographical writings and critical essays, as well as communally authored and political documents, The People and the Word explores how the Native tradition of nonfiction has both encompassed and dissected Native experiences. Warrior begins by tracing a history of American Indian writing from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century, then considers four particular moments: Pequot intellectual William Apess’s autobiographical writings from the 1820s and 1830s; the Osage Constitution of 1881; narratives from American ! Indian student experiences, including accounts of boarding school in the late 1880s; and modern Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday’s essay “The Man Made of Words,” penned during the politically charged 1970s.

“A tremendously exciting and long-overdue project in the intellectual development centered around American Indian studies.” —K. Tsianina Lomawaima

For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/W/warrior_people.html

For more information on the Indigenous Americas Series:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/byseries/indigenous.html

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"ReVisioning American Jewish Literature: Yesterday and Today and Tomorrow"

Studies in American Jewish Literature, 24 (2005), Daniel Walden, Editor.

There are 13 articles, one short story, and five book reviews. 224 pages. University of Nebraska Press. For more information, contact Manjit Kaur at mkaur@unlnotes.unl.edu

Among Worlds New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldúa'

I'm delighted to announce the publication of my new book--an edited collection of essays and narratives about Gloria Anzaldúa* Entre Mundos/Among Worlds New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldúa'* published by Palgrave Macmillan. Highlighting some of Anzaldúa's lesser-explored theories, Entre Mundos/Among Worlds invites readers to re-examine Anzaldúa's writings and theorizing from additional perspectives. This collection broadens Anzaldúan scholarship, shifting the conversation in new directions while underscoring the visionary yet pragmatic social-justice dimensions of her work.

Below is the table of contents

Unfinished Words: The Crossing of Gloria Anzaldúa
Chela Sandoval

Shifting Worlds, Una Entrada
AnaLouise Keating

autohistoria y autohistoria-teoría. . . . (re)writing self, (re)writing culture
1. Gloria y yoWriting silence and the search for the fronteriza voice
Zulma Y. Méndez

2. The 1,000-Piece Nights of Gloria Anzaldúa Autohistoria-teoría at Florida Atlantic University
Caren S. Neile

3. Reclaiming Pleasure Reading the Body in “People Should Not Die in June in South Texas”
Mary Loving Blanchard

4. Daughter of Coatlicue: An Interview with Gloria Anzaldúa
Irene Lara

5. House of Nepantla
Irene Reti

nepantla. . . . pathways to change
6. La Gloriosa Travesura de la Musa Que Cruza /The Misbehaving Glory(a) of the Border-Crossing Muse Transgression in Anzaldúa's Children's Stories
Edith M. Vásquez

7. Apertures of In-Betweeness, of Selves in the Middle
Mariana Ortega
8. From within Germinative Stasis Creating Active Subjectivity, Resistant Agency
Maria Lugones

9. Negotiating Paradoxical SpacesWomen, Disabilities, and the Experience of Nepantla
Carrie McMaster

nos/otras . . . . intersecting selves/intersecting others
10. What Do You Learn From What You See? Gloria Anzaldúa and Double Vision in the Teaching of Writing
Eve Wiederhold

11. Reading National Identities The Radical Disruptions of Borderlands/La Frontera
Beth Berila

12. Teaching la Conciencia de la Mestiza in the Midst of White Privilege
Simona J. Hill

13. "Know Me Unbroken" Peeling Back the Silenced Rind of the Queer Mouth through the Works of Gloria Anzaldúa
Mark W. Bundy

14. New Pathways to Understanding Self-in-Relation Anzaldúan (Re)Visions for Developmental Psychology
Kelli Zaytoun

conocimientos . . . . expanding the vision
15. “So Much Meat”Gloria Anzaldúa, the Mind/Body Split, and Exerting Control over My Fat Body
Elena Levy-Navarro

16. Champion of the SpiritAnzaldúa’s Critique of Rationalist Epistemology
Amala Levine

17. Shifting the Shapes of Things to Come The Presence of the Future in Gloria Anzaldúa
Jane Caputi

18. Doing Mestizaje When Epistemology Becomes Ethics
Mónica F. Torres

el mundo zurdo, the new tribalism . . . . forging new alliances
19. This is Personal Re-Visiting Gloria Anzaldúa from within the Borderlands
            Lee Maracle

20. Spirit, Culture, Sex Elements of the Creative Process in Anzaldúa’s Poetry
            Linda Garber

21. Radical Rhetoric Anger, Activism, and Change
Amanda Espinosa-Aguilar

22. Tierra Tremenda The Earth's Agony and Ecstasy in the Work of Gloria Anzaldúa
Inés Hernández-Avila

23. Shifting Perspectives: Spiritual Activism, Social Transformation, and the Politics of Spirit
Ana Louise Keating

"Reading this intellectually delicious anthology reminded me of Anzaldua's stunning genius. It provides further evidence that she belonged to all of us and none of us at the same time. This book is a tantalizing invitation to expand our understanding of Anzaldua's ideas. As an educator and as a Chicana, I have been yearning for this anthology for some time."

"This wide-ranging and imaginative volume offers invaluable insight into the work of one of the most important cultural theorists and creative writers of our time. One can only applaud the contributors' efforts to do justice to the scope and depth of Anzaldua's dazzlingly original poetry and prose. This bold and illuminating book will help scholars in American Studies, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Religious Studies and a range of other fields, come to terms with the rich, multivalent achievement of the incomparable Gloria Anzaldua."--Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Stanford University, Past-President American Studies Association

From Ana Louise Keating, Ph.D., Women's Studies, Texas Woman's University, PO Box 425557, Denton, TX 76204-5557 , Fax940/898-2101 , Phone940/898-2129 (W); 940/323-8695 (H), akeating@twu.edu or zami@mindspring.com

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