Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE

Department: English

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An examination of the literature of the Native American Renaissance, from N. Scott Momaday's groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, House Made of Dawn (1968), to the recent works of some emerging writers. Although our focus will be on the contemporary novel, we will also explore American Indian autobiography and other works of nonfiction. Our literary analysis will be supplemented by an awareness of the cultural and political movements important to American Indian peoples in the late 20th century. To what extent are Native texts both innovative forms of artistic expression within a literary tradition and instruments of social change? How might Native American works be read as "resistance" literature? In exploring such questions, the class will address the issues of sovereignty, land claims, activism, and identity.