Instructor: Miriam Schacht (e-mail
me)
Office Hours: T/TH 2-3:30 and by appointment.
Office: PAR 403 (on occasion I may meet with students in PAR 6 to go over technology-related
questions)
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 real-life experiences of Native Americans. In this course, we will ask 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"?
Who defines Indianness? Who has defined it in the past, and to what ends? Also,
why is it important to ask such questions? We will read selections from Philip
Deloria's Playing Indian.
Writing: 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 American national
identity. How are Indians represented in popular culture (movies, television,
novels)? How important is it that "Indians" have stopped being the
bad guys getting killed by 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 Thomas King's The Truth About Stories.
Writing: A research paper on a topic you have chosen from this unit's readings.
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 Naturally Native
and Return of Navajo Boy. We will consider how - or if - these authors
are defining themselves, and how they approach the cultural stereotype of the
"Indian."
Writing: A research paper on a topic you have chosen from this unit's readings.
Texts
Required:
Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories.
Recommended:
Hairston, Maxine and John Ruszkiewicz. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for
Writers.
Selected required readings on reserve in the UGL or handed out in class
Last updated 18. January 2005