INVENTING DESTINY

From the University Press of Kansas. 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. For more information see the Inventing Destiny  page

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CURRENTLY

I have submitted revisions to my article, "'Where the East Peters Out: Dallas, Fort Worth, and Regional Branding in the Great Southwest," to Anne Hyde and Alexander Finkelstein who are putting together an anthology on regionalism for the University of Nebraska Press. Although I worked on it most of last year, I had been reluctant to mention it because I was not confident that it would come together. It covers territory that I had little experience researching, and I was not sure I had anything to add to the discussion about region, especially considering my aversion to the concept. With the guidance of Anne and Alex, however, I think the article will have something interesting to contribute, and I am looking forward to input from peer readers. (see more)

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ELSEWHERES

Taking a look at Frances Flora Palmer's Across the Continent (1868) featured on the cover of our anthology Inventiny Destiny. Click here.