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Signs of the Americas: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs, and Khipu

Online ISBN:
9780226659169
Print ISBN:
9780226658971
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Signs of the Americas: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs, and Khipu

Edgar Garcia
Edgar Garcia
University of Chicago
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Published online:
17 September 2020
Published in print:
23 January 2020
Online ISBN:
9780226659169
Print ISBN:
9780226658971
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

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 this book makes clear. 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. The book 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, this study 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 Anzaldúa, William Burroughs, Louise Erdrich, Cecilia Vicuña, and many others. From these sources, the book 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.

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