Inventing Destiny

The mythmakers of US expansion have expressed “manifest destiny” in many different ways—and so have its many discontents. A multidisciplinary study that delves into these contrasts and contradictions, Inventing Destiny offers a broad yet penetrating cultural history of nineteenth-century US territorial acquisition—a history that gives voice to the underrepresented actors who significantly complicated US narratives of empire, from Native Americans and Anglo-American women to anti- and non-national expansionists. The contributors—established and emerging scholars from history, American studies, literary studies, art history, and religious studies—make use of source materials and techniques as various as artwork, religion, geospatial analysis, interior colonialism, and storytelling alongside fresh readings of traditional historical texts. In doing so, they seek to illuminate the complexities rather than simplify, to transgress borders rather than redraw them, and to amplify the under-told stories rather than repeat the old ones. Their work identifies and explores the obscure—or obscured—fictions of expansion, seeking a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of culture creation and recognizing those who resisted US territorial aggrandizement. In sum, Inventing Destiny demonstrates the value of cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of the multiple rationales, critiques, interventions, and contingencies of nineteenth-century US expansion.

This text rethinks the contours of Japanese history, culture and nationality. Challenging the mythology of a historically unitary, even monolithic Japan, it offers a different perspective on culture and identity in modern Japan.

A reinterpretation of a key moment in the political history of the United States—and of the Americans who sought to decouple American ideals from US territory. Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University Most Americans know that the state of Texas was once the Republic of Texas—an independent sovereign state that existed from 1836 until its annexation by the United States in 1846. But few are aware that thousands of Americans, inspired by Texas, tried to establish additional sovereign states outside the borders of the early American republic. In Breakaway Americas, Thomas Richards, Jr., examines six such attempts and the groups that supported them: "patriots" who attempted to overthrow British rule in Canada; post-removal Cherokees in Indian Territory; Mormons first in Illinois and then the Salt Lake Valley; Anglo-American overland immigrants in both Mexican California and Oregon; and, of course, Anglo-Americans in Texas. Though their goals and methods varied, Richards argues that these groups had a common mindset: they were not expansionists. Instead, they hoped to form new, independent republics based on the "American values" that they felt were no longer recognized in the United States: land ownership, a strict racial hierarchy, and masculinity. Exposing nineteenth-century Americans' lack of allegiance to their country, which at the time was plagued with economic depression, social disorder, and increasing sectional tension, Richards points us toward a new understanding of American identity and Americans as a people untethered from the United States as a country. Through its wide focus on a diverse array of American political practices and ideologies, Breakaway Americas will appeal to anyone interested in the Jacksonian United States, US politics, American identity, and the unpredictable nature of history.

Dreams, reality, memories, false memories, past lives and space time. These are all relative factors when you enter this realm of impossible possibilities. While this book contains over five hundred pieces of literature, the writings look at multiple debatable topics whilst taking a humorous approach to tackling issues that surround many occurrences. As the journey of understanding and knowledge expansion continues, it becomes obvious that the road isn’t easy, especially when there are glitches. The final battle is never an easy one. Travel along this journey at your own risk, if you dare.

“Her book offers many insights into the criminality of Native people, as well as that of women or anyone else who is poor and oppressed.” —Canadian Woman Studies Luana Ross writes, “Native Americans disappear into Euro-American institutions of confinement at alarming rates. People from my reservation appeared to simply vanish and magically return. [As a child] I did not realize what a ‘real’ prison was and did not give it any thought. I imagined this as normal; that all families had relatives who went away and then returned.” In this pathfinding study, Ross draws upon the life histories of imprisoned Native American women to demonstrate how race/ethnicity, gender, and class contribute to the criminalizing of various behaviors and subsequent incarceration rates. Drawing on the Native women’s own words, she reveals the violence in their lives prior to incarceration, their respective responses to it, and how those responses affect their eventual criminalization and imprisonment. Comparisons with the experiences of white women in the same prison underline the significant role of race in determining women’s experiences within the criminal justice system. “Professor Ross, through painstaking phenomenological analysis, has unmasked some of the ways in which (race, class, and gender) prejudices, and their internalization by individuals targeted by them, exert enormous influence on the processes and outcomes of the American criminal justice system . . . This book will be of tremendous import to a broad, interdisciplinary audience.” —Franke Wilmer, Associate Professor of Political Science, Montana State University

This volume presents nine articles about the development, migration, culture and identify of the ethnic minorities in socialist China. The articles in this volume, which originally appeared in Open Times (开放时代), broadly reflect the concerns, interests and perspectives of the Chinese scholars involved in the study of China’s ethnic minorities.