Kristina Baudemann - The Future Imaginary in Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures

The Future Imaginary in Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures

This book examines the future in Indigenous North American speculative literature and digital arts. Asking how different Indigenous works imagine the future and how they negotiate settler colonial visions of what is to come, the chapters illustrate that the future is not an immutable entity but a malleable textual/digital product that can function as both a colonial tool and a catalyst for decolonization. Central to this study is the development of a methodology that helps unearth the signifying structures producing the future in selected works by Darcie Little Badger, Gerald Vizenor, Stephen Graham Jones, Skawennati, Danis Goulet, Scott Benesiinaabandan, Postcommodity, Kite, Jeff Barnaby, and Ryan Singer. Drawing on Jason Lewiss future imaginary as the theoretical core, the book describes the various forms of textual representation and virtual simulation through which notions of Indigenous continuation are expressed in literary and new media works. Arguing that Indigenous authors and artists apply the aesthetics of the future as a strategy in their works, the volume conceptualizes its multimedia corpus as a continuously growing archive of, and for, Indigenous futures.

Kristina Baudemann is an instructor and research assistant in the Department for English and American Studies at the Europa-Universitt Flensburg in Germany.

Series editors: Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz, and Sabine N. Meyer

Routledge Research in Transnational Indigenous Perspectives features scholarly work exploring both Indigenous perspectives that are explicitly trans-national and transnational perspectives on Indigenous topics. As such, it is committed to fostering and presenting high-quality research in the area of Indigenous Studies, addressing historical and contemporary political, social, economic, and cultural issues concerning the Indigenous peoples of North and South America, Europe, Australasia, and the larger Pacific region. The series is thus not limited to one particular methodological approach, but looks at the highly dynamic and growing field of Indigenous Studies that is of central interest for a range of different disciplines.

Twenty-First Century Perspectives on Indigenous Studies

Native North America in (Trans)Motion

Edited by Birgit Dwes, Karsten Fitz, and Sabine N. Meyer

Native American Survivance, Memory, and Futurity

The Gerald Vizenor Continuum

Edited by Birgit Dwes and Alexandra Hauke

Indigenous Bodies, Cells, and Genes

Biomedicalization and Embodied Resistance in Native American Literature

Joanna Ziarkowska

The Future Imaginary in Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures

Kristina Baudemann

https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Transnational-Indigenous-Perspectives/book-series/RRTIP

The Future Imaginary in Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures

Kristina Baudemann

First published 2022

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2022 Kristina Baudemann

The right of Kristina Baudemann to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 9780367754815 (hbk)

ISBN: 9780367754822 (pbk)

ISBN: 9781003162629 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003162629

Typeset in Sabon

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

(June 20, 1987February 7, 2019)

PART I
(Un)Writing the futureTextual imaginaries

PART II
(Dis)Simulating the futureImaginaries in cyberspace

This book is a revised version of the doctoral dissertation Signifying Futures: Future Imaginaries in Indigenous North American Literatures and New Media Arts, written and defended at the Europa-Universitt Flensburg.

This publication was made possible by the German Research Foundation (DFG). My research was generously funded by the Europa-Universitt Flensburg, the Jrgen-Sae-Frderpreis, the German-American Fulbright Commission, and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures (IIF).

I want to thank my supervisor Birgit Dwes, without whose unfaltering support, insight, and patience this project would not have been possible. I am also indebted to Kerstin Knopf and Hartmut Lutz for providing valuable feedback. The many friends and colleagues who supported me throughout different stages of my project shall not be forgotten. My special thanks are due to Gerald Vizenor and Laura Hall, to Jason Lewis and Skawennati, to Allan J. Ryan and Rae, and to Suzanne Kite for their hospitality and kindness; to Skawennati for letting me use her words; to Scott Benesiinaabandan, Danis Goulet, and Skawennati for sharing private links/files of their artwork with me; to Verena Adamik whose insights were greatly helpful as I revised my manuscript; and to Ryan Singer who provided the amazing artwork for this book.

My deep love and infinite thanks are due to my mother and father who have always supported me, and who have been patient with their grumpy and absent daughter throughout the past years; and to Marcel without whose support, great humor, and cooking skills this study would not have been possible.

Flensburg, August 2018

I want to thank my little family, Bjrn and our beloved son Lasse Jonas. You have taught me what it means to see the future.

Flensburg, May 2021

DOI: 10.4324/9781003162629-1

In Darcie Little Badgers short story N e! (2016), veterinarian Dottie King abandons her plans to begin a new life on Mars. Instead of joining the settlement of the red frontier (67) advertised as both a space adventure and an amazing job opportunity King considers making use of her training on the Din Orbiter (68), the sovereign Din nation starship that is less polished than the newer starships and less predictable. As Kings ex-girlfriend Addie puts it, [t]he gravitys unreliable. Sometimes, its like walking on the moon, and other times, youre fifty kilograms heavier than you should be (69). The future on the Din Orbiter seems riskier than choosing the well-trodden path of emigrating to Mars, and King, who is Lipan Apache, is unsure whether she belong[s] there (75). Nevertheless, it is the longing for a Din starship pilot named Cora and the certainty of being needed on Orbiter Din that prompt King to consider changing the course of her future (with a little help from the trickster, an epileptic husky puppy named Conan). Asked to choose between different narratives of what her life might be like, King opts for Indigenous territory.