1:00p-2:15p 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.
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, Sherman Alexie, 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 October and you can obtain a list of the books
ordered from me then.