Friday, October 12, 2012

October 12, 2012: Columbus Day Alternatives, Part Five

[For this AmericanStudier, Columbus Day is by far the most troubling of our national holidays. So I’ve decided to propose an alternative, Cross-Cultural Day, which would be an occasion to remember and celebrate some of the most inspiring relationships between Native and Non-Native Americans in our history. This week I’ll be highlighting such inspiring individuals and interactions in my posts. Your thoughts, nominations, and other perspectives appreciated for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!]
Highlighting an inspiring cross-cultural effort that’s going on right now!
On the day when this year’s New England American Studies Association Conference begins in Providence, it’s very appropriate that I cede my blog over to the voice of a colleague with whom I’ve had the good fortune to work a good deal on NEASA matters: Siobhan Senier of the University of New Hampshire. Much of that work, like much of Dr. Senier’s work overall, has been dedicated to highlighting and sharing Native American voices, not only from American history but also and even more significantly in our contemporary moment. And for a few years now she’s been working on a culminating project to that end: an anthology of Native American literature from New England, one assembled in conversation with contemporary Native voices and authors.
For more on that project, I turn the blog over to Dr. Senier, and to the blog that she and her co-editors have created to document and extend their work in progress:
Check that out, add your comments and thoughts as the project continues, and help shape the next generation of cross-cultural American writing, community, and identity.
And, of course, share your responses to any of the week’s posts, or to anything else related to Columbus Day, cross-cultural America, and more, for the weekend’s crowd-sourced post!
Ben
PS. You know what to do!
10/12 Memory Day nominees: A tie between George Washington Cable, who did as much for American historical and social understandings with his fiction as with his political writings; and Robert Coles, who has done as much for American psychology and narratives of childhood and identity with his teaching as with his pioneering writings.

No comments:

Post a Comment