Signs of the Americas

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A01=Edgar Garcia
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
alphabet reference
amazonian shamans
ancient relics
Author_Edgar Garcia
automatic-update
aztec priests
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DS
Category=HBJK
Category=JBCC
Category=JFC
Category=NHK
COP=United States
culture
dead languages
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
early writing forms
environmental thinking
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
expropriation
hieroglyphs
identity
indigenous peoples
khipu
Language_English
latin american literary criticism
legal philosophy
literature
mistranslation
nationalism
PA=Available
petroglyphs
pictographs
pictography
picture-writing
political activism
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
race
sign-systems
signifiers
softlaunch
visual art

Product details

  • ISBN 9780226659022
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 21 Nov 2019
  • Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

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Indigenous sign-systems, such as pictographs, petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, and khipu, are usually understood as relics from an inaccessible past. That is far from the truth, however, as Edgar Garcia makes clear in Signs of the Americas. Rather than being dead languages, these sign-systems have always been living, evolving signifiers, responsive to their circumstances and able to continuously redefine themselves and the nature of the world. Garcia tells the story of the present life of these sign-systems, examining the contemporary impact they have had on poetry, prose, visual art, legal philosophy, political activism, and environmental thinking. In doing so, he brings together a wide range of indigenous and non-indigenous authors and artists of the Americas, from Aztec priests and Amazonian shamans to Simon Ortiz, Gerald Vizenor, Jaime de Angulo, Charles Olson, Cy Twombly, Gloria Anzald a, William Burroughs, Louise Erdrich, Cecilia Vicu a, and many others. From these sources, Garcia depicts the culture of a modern, interconnected hemisphere, revealing that while these "signs of the Americas" have suffered expropriation, misuse, and mistranslation, they have also created their own systems of knowing and being. These indigenous systems help us to rethink categories of race, gender, nationalism, and history. Producing a new way of thinking about our interconnected hemisphere, this ambitious, energizing book redefines what constitutes a "world" in world literature.
Edgar Garcia is the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of English at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography.