Inscribing Sovereignties: Writing Community in Native North America (Critical Indigeneities)

Round, Phillip H.

ISBN 10: 1469680696 / ISBN 13: 9781469680699

Published by The University of North Carolina, 2024

About this Item

Seller Inventory # mon0004151868

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Inscribing Sovereignties: Writing Community in Native North America (Critical Indigeneities)
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1469680696
• ISBN 13: 9781469680699
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Before European settlers arrived in North America, more than 300 distinct languages were being spoken among the continent’s Indigenous peoples. But the Euro-American emphasis on alphabetic literacy has historically hidden the power and influence of Indigenous verbal and nonverbal language diversity on encounters between Indigenous North Americans and settlers. In this pathbreaking work, Phillip H. Round reveals how Native North Americans sparked a communications revolution in their adaptation and resistance to settlers' modes of speaking and writing. Round especially focuses on communication through inscription—the physical act of making a mark, the tools involved, and the social and cultural processes that render the mark legible. Using methods from history, literary studies, media studies, linguistics, and material culture studies, Round shows how Indigenous graphic practices embodied Native epistemologies while fostering linguistic innovation.

Round’s broad theory of graphogenesis—creating meaningful inscription—leads to new insights for both the past and present of Indigenous expression in a range of forms. Readers will find powerful new insights into Indigenous languages and linguistic practices, with important implications not just for scholars but for those working to support ongoing Native American self-determination.

About the Author

Phillip H. Round is professor emeritus of English and Native American and Indigenous studies at the University of Iowa.