Baudemann, Kristina. The Future Imaginary in Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures. Routledge, 2022.

Abstract

Kristina Baudemann’s The Future Imaginary In Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures draws together texts by Indigenous authors that share a common trope: dreaming of “a common future while nevertheless being mindful of their cultural differences” (2). Her case studies address six novels and eight stories that imagine the future against the backdrop of the past. Positing that the “gradual disappearance of Indigenous people is a narrative—rather than historic fact or natural necessity,” Baudemann explains how that narrative is “grounded in the circular logic according to which their supposed absence in times to come justifies the colonizers’ past and present genocidal dealings with them” (5-6). Yet, as Baudemann’s meticulously researched book documents, the future is not a cemented truth but rather malleable and dependent on actions in both the past and present. As she sets forth in her opening chapter, Baudemann’s method of “future analysis” requires that she develop and apply new theoretical parameters that highlight how each text she examines “creates its own future imaginary” (7, emphasis in original). Collectively, these new imaginaries overturn the past by offering futures with endless possibilities for indigenous peoples.