Modernity in Motion offers a groundbreaking exploration of Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor’s richly layered body of work spanning fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Through the lens of transnational Indigenous studies, this compelling study reveals how Vizenor’s concept of transmotion, which he defines as the interplay between local and global identities, reconstructs modernity as a dynamic force of transformation.
Close readings illuminate Vizenor’s radical storytelling, which bridges seemingly disparate worlds: the White Earth Reservation, Nazi-occupied Paris, post-Hiroshima Japan, and beyond. By weaving these far-flung geographies into unexpected constellations, Vizenor challenges readers to rethink Indigenous history, sovereignty, and creative expression within a global framework.
Positioned at the intersection of tribal-centric and world literature paradigms, Modernity in Motion is essential reading for scholars of Indigenous studies and comparative literature.
About the Author :
David J. Carlson is professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino. He is a cofounder and editor of Transmotion, an online open-access journal of Indigenous studies inspired by the work of Gerald Vizenor.
Review :
“Well-conceived, well researched, accessible, and highly engaging, David Carlson’s Modernity in Motion is an essential resource both for established scholars of Indigenous literary and cultural studies and for readers newly discovering Gerald Vizenor and his work. Many studies claim to parse Vizenor’s idiosyncratic nomenclature for the impacts of colonialism and to explicate the intricate turns of Vizenor’s writing of theory as story, but this book is the real deal—and a must read.”—Chadwick Allen, author of Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies and Transit: Serpent Mound Crossing Space, Time, Discourse
“An impressively comprehensive, extremely valuable, and up-to-date contribution to Vizenor scholarship. Carlson’s careful readings and contextualizations provide access to even the most challenging texts.”—John Gamber, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine
“In this intellectually and imaginatively capacious book, David Carlson achieves a rare feat: making accessible the expansive reach of Gerald Vizenor’s words and worlds. Modernity in Motion traces Vizenor’s transformative engagement with modernity and its manifestations, and in doing so, offers fresh frameworks for thinking of the global through Indigenous frameworks. With a dexterity across genres, histories, and movements worthy of Vizenor, Carlson’s richly engaging work presents a major contribution to Vizenor studies, Indigenous literary studies, and modernist studies.”—Susan Bernardin, professor and director, School of Language, Culture, Society, Oregon State University
