WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2015-2016       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Ethnography and Native American Literature: Performativity and the Archive
AMST 272
Spring 2016 not offered
Crosslisting: ENGL 267, ANTH 257

In this course, we will explore the relationship between writing and Native Americans. To do this, we will follow two different trajectories to chart the points where they converge and diverge. In the first, we will track the development of ethnography as a practical discipline and subfield of anthropology; in the second, we will explore the formation of Native American literature as a field of study, as well as the critical discourses subtending it. Beginning from the commonsensical distinction between scientific writing about Native Americans and literary writing by Native Americans, we will move to a more robust sense of "writing" that will trouble this clear-cut distinction, notions of authorship, and definitions of Native American identity, particularly in regard to "oral literature" on which both threads depend. The weaving of these threads will bring us into contact with theories of race and gender, questions of alternate temporalities and/or histories, formations of indigeneity and postcoloniality, and a number of different textual strategies including performativity and its relationship to the archive and memory.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA AMST
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)

Last Updated on DEC-10-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459