In this course, we will cover 20th and 21st century American Indian literatures in a wide range of genres and media. Through our investigation of these texts, we will also cover the Indigenous histories, knowledges, and traditions in which they are situated and with which they engage. Alongside our reading of Indigenous creative works, we will think with tribally specific intellectual genealogies, trans-Indigenous connections, and interdisciplinary formations of Native Literary Studies and Critical Indigenous Studies. We will consider several different reading practices for engaging with American Indian and Indigenous literatures and what these texts offer for strengthening Indigenous community and sovereignty; critiquing settler colonialism, white supremacy, and other forms of US empire; and engaging with the question of “how to be a good relative.”
Instead of approaching texts in a strict chronological order or by individual author(s), this course is loosely organized around 3 regions of Indian Country—Chumash/Esselen/California Indian lands, Lakota/Dakota/Nakota lands, and Indian Territory/Choctaw/Cherokee lands. Although we will focus on literatures from these Indigenous contexts, our investigations will also consider the intertribal, global, and trans-Indigenous contexts in which these literatures are necessarily situated.