The Rich Earth between Us

“[A] beautifully written first book. . . . The Rich Earth Between Us offers an expanded understanding of intimacy through Black and Indigenous writings in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. The book powerfully attests to the importance of small practices of worldmaking and small moments of connection between humans and the earth, as these moments offer a vision for a decolonial future.”—Journal of the History of Sexuality

“Johnson weaves Indigenous and critical Black studies into the fabric of the environmental humanities, queer studies, and political theology, ultimately demonstrating how an interdisciplinary tapestry can map the deracination of disciplinarity itself. . . . [W]hat reading Rich Earth commands is how we can (re)think archive, text, and narration as vital components of classrooms not defined by historicity.”—Eighteenth Century Studies

“The Rich Earth is a complex work opening many possibilities for future inquiry. . . [whose chapters] create intriguing, novel parallels between the works of Black and Indigenous authors who articulated modes of embodiment and commoning as means of dissenting from colonial property forms . . . [of which] Johnson fully explores.”—Early American Literature

“This text joins a growing conversation on the solidarities between African diasporic and Indigenous communities of the Atlantic World. The creativity, care, and deep, multifield engagement that Johnson brings to her primary sources is a model for what scholarship on this period can be.” —Greta LaFleur, Yale University

“Johnson moves fluidly through current scholarship and theoretical work to produce a deeply thoughtful and reorienting reading of the work of four prominent eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Black and Native writers. A powerful and original contribution that is very much at the heart of current conversations in the field.”—Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Northeastern University