Our partners at the University of North Carolina Press were kind enough to share this guest blog post from Tiya Miles, author of the recently published, The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story (see the original posting here). In the book, Miles teases out the complex, multiracial history of  Diamond Hill, the most famous plantation in the southeastern Cherokee Nation. As she reconstructs the history of the plantation, Miles tells the story of Diamond Hill’s founding, its flourishing, its takeover by white land-lottery winners on the eve of the Cherokee Removal, its decay, and ultimately its renovation in the 1950s.

In July,  Miles traveled to the Chief Vann House Historic Site in Georgia to participate in the annual celebration of the historical plantation home. The Friends of the Vann House sponsored a signing for Miles’ book, which is the first history of the House on Diamond Hill. Over the course of the day, past and present were juxtaposed in an experience that truly gave life to history.

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Last spring, First Peoples hosted two events focused on helping authors hoping to publish in the field of Indigenous studies. The first was a dissertation revisions workshop led by William Germano, author of From Dissertation to Book. We also organized a publishing roundtable featuring First Peoples editors, advisory board member, Andrew Canessa, editor of the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, and Aileen Moreton-Robinson, editor of the International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies.

So much good advice came from these events, we just had to share, building upon a previous post on the publishing process. For example, Andrew Canessa addressed the art of writing for scholarly journals, but it can easily be applied to any kind of scholarly publication: “Don’t try to cram everything into one article. Be judicious about what you include so you get your message across without overwhelming your reader. A good editor will help you make decisions about what is necessary and what can be cut. Use theory effectively and economically – don’t over cite. Reviews may be hard to take but have confidence in your ideas. Either use the criticism to better your work or reject it in an intelligent way.”

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First Peoples has a busy week ahead. You’ve likely heard about Native American and Indigenous Studies Association’s (NAISA) conference this week in Tucson, Arizona. This year’s conference looks to be lively and dynamic with so many of the association’s membership engaged in responses to Arizona’s recent legislative actions, as well as their own on-going scholarly investigations.  We’re hosting a series of events as well:

WEDNESDAY, May 19, Dissertation Revision Workshop

On Wednesday afternoon, we’re sponsoring a dissertation revision workshop for forthcoming First Peoples authors with William Germano, author of From Dissertation to Book (University of Chicago Press 2005). Participants invited to this half-day workshop will focus on revising the doctoral dissertation for publication. Conducted in seminar format, the workshop explores means of strengthening skills in professional writing and project design. While the primary focus of the session is the new Ph.D. and his or her dissertation manuscript, Germano’s work also extends beyond that horizon.

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The “Celebration of Latin America, Mexico, and the Borderlands” was held last month in honor of Professor Susan Deeds’ upcoming retirement from Northern Arizona University’s history department. Dr. Deeds has published many widely cited books and articles, including Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s Colonial North: Indians under Spanish Rule in Nueva Vizcaya (University of Texas Press 2003) and is a co-editor of one of the standard textbooks on Mexican history. She is recognized as being one of the leading historians of colonial Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

This conference brought together many of Deeds’ peers and former students, including some of the most recognized scholars of Mexican and Latin American Indigenous pre-colonial and colonial history and U.S.-Mexico border history. As each presenter honored Dr. Deeds with odes to her work and her baking, memories of her as a mentor and teacher, and humorous recollections of collaborations and travels together, it became clear that Dr. Deeds’ dedication to her students and colleagues added yet another dimension to her notable scholarly contributions.

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In the past week, much media attention has centered on Arizona’s stringent new immigration law, Senate Bill 1070, and the more recently proposed legislation to ban ethnic studies courses in all Arizona K-12 schools. The laws and the debates surrounding them have been taken to heart by members of the newly formed Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) whose annual conference is scheduled to be held in Tucson, Arizona later this month. In the impassioned discussion that has taken place on NAISA’s website since the passage of the bill, members of the association have pointed out that many of those who will be most greatly impacted by this new legislation have Latin American Indigenous roots. In recognition of this fact and the widely shared belief that the bill is an affront to civil rights, many members feel a moral obligation to take a stand as a group.

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