RHE 309K: Rhetoric of American Indians (Spring 2002)

Instructor: Miriam Schacht

Course Description

Unique Number: 41025
T/Th 2-3:30
FAC 9
Office hours: TBA
E-mail: mschacht@mail.utexas.edu

Click here for final student projects

 

COURSE DOCUMENTS

ASSIGNMENTS
Course Policies Final webpage assignment
Current Syllabus (also has links to assignments) Extra credit assignment
Old Syllabus  

Deloria, Playing Indian: Student Webpages:
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3
Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
   

COURSE HANDOUTS

OTHER LINKS
How to Research/UT Library Resources Advertisements using American Indian images
Using Quotations Useful rhetoric links
  What to do if you are stopped/questioned

Course Description:

[When I was about three years old,] my family took me to my first pow-wow. I kept asking my grandmother, "Where are the Indians? Where are the Indians? Are they going to have bows and arrows?" I was very curious and strangely excited about the prospect of seeing real live Indians even though I myself was one. (Barbara Cameron, Lakota)

We've all seen Indians in movies and books - whether in John Ford and John Wayne's The Searchers, Disney's Pocahontas, or Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. But what exactly are these images of Indians supposed to represent? "Indians" are powerful symbols in American culture - but they do not necessarily reflect the reality of Native Americans. In this course, we will ask just what purposes these images serve, who is defining what "Indian" is, how these images are reproduced, what they claim to represent and what they actually do represent.

The goal of this course is to help you improve your critical reading and writing skills by examining the popular image of the "Indian." You will write three analytic essays and some shorter assignments. You will also read and carefully critique your classmates' work.

Unit One: Constructing the "Indian" in America

Here, we will focus on several related questions: What is an "Indian"? Is there even such a thing? Who can define Indianness? Who has defined it in the past, and who should define it? Also, why is it important to ask such questions? We will read selections from Philip Deloria's Playing Indian, and you will write a rhetorical analysis of one text's definition of "Indian."

Unit Two: The "Indian" in the American Imagination

We will examine how the iconic "Indian" has captured the American imagination, and what role this image plays in developing a particular national identity. How are Indians represented in popular culture (movies, television, novels)? How important is it that "Indians" have stopped being the bad guys killing the cowboys and are now the good guys getting killed by the cowboys? What do these images mean for how Americans - Native and non-Native - view themselves? This unit's texts include the film Dances with Wolves and selections from the course pack. You will write an argument of your choice about a particular "Indian" image.

Unit Three: Rhetorics of Resistance

Here, we will read pieces by several Native American writers, including Luci Tapahonso and Sherman Alexie, and watch the movies Smoke Signals and Naturally Native. We will consider how - or if - these authors are defining themselves, and how they approach the cultural stereotype of the "Indian." You will write an argumentative research essay on a topic you have chosen from this unit's readings.

Textbooks

Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian.
Churchill, Ward. Fantasies of the Master Race
Owens, Louis. Mixedblood Messages
Hairston, Maxine and John Ruszkiewicz. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers, 5th ed. (earlier editions ok)
Course packs as necessary - TBA.
Find the cheapest price online at Campusi.com

The background color of this page is called "Indian Red." For a list of webpage background colors, click here. Note there is also a color called "Navajo White." Note there are no other colors named after ethnic or racial groups. (And no, the Dodgers do not count as an ethnicity.) It's worth thinking about why that's the case. Can you imagine a generally accepted color code including colors like "Caucasian White," "African-American Black," or "Asian Yellow"? Hardly likely, isn't it? Why, then, is it still acceptable to call a color "Indian Red"?

updated 28. March 2002