9:30A-10:45A TR (30) 3 cr

English L364 will concern itself primarily with prose by
contemporary Native Americans, although we will start with the
classic collaborative (auto)biography BLACK ELK SPEAKS, which we
will treat as an example of traditional literature.  The course
will be organized around several contrasts which we will try to
address throughout, including those between Native American
literatures and other kinds of literature being created in
America today, between writing by men and writing by women, and
between the ways literature is regarded in the dominant
Euro-American society and Native American societies.  Thus we
will be looking at the structure of the various literatures,
their place in their respective cultures, and the remarkable
continuity of traditional values and concerns into contemporary
novels, most of which written by people who speak only English
and who are writing in a genre (extended prose fiction) that was
not found in any Native American culture before the period of
contact with Europeans.=20
While the precise contents of the course has yet to be fixed
(most texts will be in tradebook editions, notorious for going
out of print), we will surely consider the major writers in the
field, such as Louise Erdrich, Leslie Silko, N. Scott Momaday,
James Welsh, Michael Dorris, Paula Gunn Allen, Linda Hogan, and
Gerald Vizenor.  The class will be divided into small groups, and
each group will be responsible for organizing the discussion of
probably two books each, a system which allows you some direct
"hands-on" experience both with textual criticism and the means
of presenting a text to others.  You will write two or three
papers, all of which you will be encouraged to revise and
resubmit.  There should be two examinations, a midterm and a
final.  I expect to complete the selection of texts by late June
and you can obtain a list of the books ordered from me then.