Books
Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origin of a Literary Nation
By Sarah Rivett
Unscripted America is a study of how colonists in North America struggled to understand, translate, and interpret Native American languages. Through a close analysis of previously overlooked texts, Unscripted America places American Indian languages within transatlantic intellectual history, while also demonstrating how American letters emerged in the 1810’s through the 1830’s via a complex engagement with the legacies and aesthetic possibilities of indigenous words.
What Readers are Saying about Unscripted america
“Important reading for literary historians and linguists… highly recommended,”
E.J. Vajda, Choice
“an indispensable text for scholars examining the history of cultural exchange in Native North America,”
Frank Kelderman, H-Net
“an enthralling work of cultural history,”
DeWispelare, Notes and Queries
“a significant and impressive contribution to our historical understanding,”
Wigginton, EAL
Further Reading
The Science of the Soul In Colonial New England
In an unprecedented move, Puritan ministers from Thomas Shepard and John Eliot to Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards studied the human soul using the same systematic methods that philosophers applied to the study of nature. In this way, the "science of the soul" was as much a part of seventeenth and eighteenth century natural philosophy as it was part of post-Reformation theology. The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England accounts restore the unity of religion and science in the early modern world and highlight the role and importance of both to transatlantic circuits of knowledge formation.
What readers are saying about The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England
“ambitious,” “demanding.” “a tremendous achievement,” “an extraordinary work of interdisciplinary scholarship,” “the product of formidable analytical acumen.” “Rivett updates Max Weber and his followers”
Journal of American History, 1216
“[Rivett] is the first scholar to investigate the intricate and sustained Atlantic conversations through which an early modern science of the soul was essayed”
EAL
Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas
Edited by Sarah Rivett and Stephanie Kirk
Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas explores the impact of colonial encounters in the Atlantic world on the history of Christianity. Essays from across disciplines examine religious history from a spatial perspective, tracing geographical movements and population dispersals as they were shaped by the millennial designs and evangelizing impulses of European empires. It also illuminates the complexity and variety of the colonial world as it transformed a range of Christian beliefs.
