The Praise!

Its in!

I don’t know how or when the things people say about your book before it is published became known as “praise,” but I’m here for it.

The praise is in, and it comes from Cherokee Nation scholar Daniel Heath Justice, one of the most generous, intelligent, and praiseworthy but humble people I know. And from Chickasaw Nation scholar Jodi Byrd, one of the fiercest, thought-provoking writers and scholars there is.

I don’t know if I deserve this praise, or if all praise is worthy and deserved, but I wanted to share it, because sometimes we need other people to reflect back to us how the things we do act in the world, how our work moves others. I am grateful. Immensely grateful for this.

“Deftly navigating a staggering array of creative works, critical currents, and cultural contexts, Cherokee Nation scholar Joseph M. Pierce considers questions of relations, kinship, and how Indigenous artists and visionaries can help us realize life-giving worlds in the death-throes of the current imperial order. With personal and poetic imaginings and incisive readings of Indigenous art and scholarship, Speculative Relations is a generative revelation and an urgent, provocative, and generous scholarly contribution. It exemplifies why Pierce is one of the most compelling and dexterous thinkers working at the intersection of Indigenous, queer, and cultural studies today.” - Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation), author of Why Indigenous Literatures Matter

“Joseph M. Pierce’s fierce, beautiful, embodied, and queer approach to Indigenous relationship and kinship is provocative and innovative. He makes a substantial contribution to queer Indigenous studies and to conversations about what Indigenous relationalities mean as alternative worldings. Speculative Relations will be essential for so many of us who are looking for the language, methodologies, and frameworks to do relational work in Indigenous studies.” - Jodi A. Byrd, author of Indigenomicon: American Indians, Video Games, and the Structures of Dispossession

__

The praise is in. And I’ll tell you one more thing: I have decided on the cover. We have a cover!!!! Which means, there will be a cover reveal in the near future. I’ll give you a hint though: think pretty, think yellow.

Photo by Nathan Van de Graaf on Unsplash

It’s not this picture! You’ll see!