Course Description
Summary
Native storytelling has thrived in recited, sung, painted, etched, sculpted, and danced forms since centuries before European colonists arrived on the North American continent. Against the backdrop of this long, linguistically complex, and multi-national artistic tradition, we will closely read the works of Indigenous North American authors, studying how their formal and thematic decisions draw from and add to their respective traditions, even as they address contemporary intertribal concerns such as language revitalization; land reclamation and sovereignty; decolonizing gender; and the continued struggle against settler-colonial legacies of genocide, land seizure, forced re-“education,” and environmental terrorism. Assigned writers may include Tommy Orange, Louise Erdrich, Morgan Talty, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Tommy Pico, Natalie Diaz, Joan Kane, dg nanouk okpik, Joy Harjo, Jake Skeets, No’u Revilla, and Layli Long Soldier.
