LITR 5731 Seminar in American
Multicultural Literature
Minority Literature
Lecture Notes
begin Love Medicine
obituary for Russell Means, American Indian Movement (AIM) activist & film actor
Russell Means, left, as Chingachgook
in Last of the Mohicans 1992
LITR 5434
Reading Race in Early Modern England
Spring 2013
Tuesdays 4-6:50 PM
Dr. Elizabeth Klett
In this class, we will explore the ways in which race is constructed in early
modern English texts. Our reading
list will likely include: The Masque of
Blackness by Ben Jonson, The Merchant
of Venice and Othello by William
Shakespeare, The Jew of Malta by
Christopher Marlowe, Selimus, Emperor of
the Turks by Robert Greene, A
Christian Turn’d Turk by Robert Daborne,
The Renegado by Philip Massinger,
Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave by Aphra
Behn, and selections from travel narratives.
All of these writings deal with key questions that we will explore
throughout the semester:
-
How did early modern writers think about the concept of “race”?
-
How did the English envision and construct people of different races and
religions, such as Jews, Turks, Moors, etc.?
-
How do the texts represent the encounters between Europeans and these
“Others”?
-
How do these authors construct England and “Englishness” with respect to the
“Other”?
Contact Dr. Klett at
klette@uhcl.edu
for more information.
Pictured: “The janissary going to the wars” and “A gentlewoman of the Turks,”
from Nicolas de Nicolay, The Navigations,
Peregrinations and Voyages Made into Turkey (1585).
The University
of Houston Graduate English Society is hosting our 3rd annual Graduate Student
Conference. We want to develop this into an annual event to promote
academic discussion and a sense of community between graduate students in the
coastal plains region. This is a wonderful opportunity for your graduate
students to participate in a professional, regional, low cost conference and to
build those relationships that are so important for all scholars. The
conference web address is http://www.coastalplainsconference.org
Please help us
promote this event by distributing the Call for Papers to your faculty and
graduate student list serve.
Lone Star College–CyFair invites you to attend its Adjunct
Faculty Hiring Fair on November 10, 2012.
|
Date: |
Saturday, November 10, 2012 |
|
Time: |
9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. |
|
Place: |
College
Center/Conference Center |
|
Campus Address: |
|
|
Important Parking
Information: To avoid parking tickets,
please park in the North Parking Lot in front of the College Center
(Building 5). LSC-CyFair
campus map.
There will be signage to direct you. |
|
Due to an unprecedented enrollment
growth over the past year, Lone Star College-CyFair has a wide variety of
adjunct instructor positions available for Spring 2013. Please go to
LoneStar.edu/lsc-jobs
to read more and apply for the current positions. Instructions
on how to apply are attached.
Please bring a
current résumé/c.v., copies of your college transcripts, and any relevant
licenses or certifications for the Department Chairs to review. Recruiters
will be there to answer general questions about the employment process.
Disciplines
Not Needed At This Time:
Business Administration
Education
Fire Science
Department Chairs will be present to speak with applicants in
the following academic disciplines:
Art Appreciation (#6130)
(Master’s degree in Art or M.F.A specific to the discipline
from an accredited college)
Drama (#5806)
(Master’s of Art or Master’s of Fine Art degree in Drama or
Theatre, or a Master’s degree with 18 graduate hours in Drama)
English (#5814)
(Master’s degree in English or a
Master’s with 18 graduate hours in English from an accredited college)
English-Developmental (Transitional)
(#5793)
(Bachelor’s degree in English, or
Bachelor's degree in education or related field with 18 hours in English and/or
Reading)
ESOL (#5832)
(Master’s degree in the discipline or
ESOL teaching certification with at least 3 years work experience in the field)
History (#5941)
(Master’s degree in History or a
Master’s with 18 graduate hours in History from an accredited college)
Humanities (#6464)
(A Master's degree in Humanities,
Liberal Arts, Art History, or a Master's degree with a minimum of eighteen
graduate semester hours from any one or combination of the following areas:
Philosophy, English Literature, Arts, History, and Humanities. Graduate hours in
Speech or Foreign Languages would not be appropriate. A Master’s in Classical
Studies is appropriate. “Arts” is limited to an MFA or a minimum of 15 of the 18
graduate hours in non-performance art
Philosophy (#6462)
(Master’s degree in Philosophy or a
Master’s with 18 graduate hours in Philosophy from an accredited college)
If you are unable to attend this event but are interested in
teaching at LSC-CyFair, please apply on-line so that the chairs are able to
access and review your materials.
Thank you in advance for your
interest in teaching at Lone Star College–CyFair!
Talent Acquisition Team
5000 Research Forest
The Woodlands, TX 77381
Email: employment@lonestar.edu
Website: LoneStar.edu/lsc-jobs
Black Elk Speaks 1932; Love Medicine 1984, 1993
Continuities with Black Elk? What has changed about American Indian literature?
If Black Elk and Love Medicine are both examples of Native American literature, how do you talk about them together?
3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: "Loss and Survival"
(Whereas immigrants define themselves by leaving the past behind in order to become American, the Indians were once “the Americans” but lost most of their land along with many of their people. Yet Native Americans defy the myth of "the vanishing Indian," choosing to "survive," sometimes in faith that the dominant culture will eventually destroy itself, and the forests and buffalo will return.)
loss and survival, 124-125
Romanticization of Indian? or post-modern substitutes for Romanticism?
Evaluate description:
Erdrich as part of wave of recent ethnic women writers who balance wide popularity with critical respectability
How?
What resemblances to popular + critically praised African American and Mexican American women writers (e. g. Maya Angelou, Sandra Cisneros)
"friendlier" writer than Morrison, but less profound--but pleasantly profound--how?
In brief, evaluate Erdrich's style--positively and negatively
How much do these issues impact the "assimilation-resistance" conflict in minority literature? Does Native American literature / culture offer alternatives to these extremes of cross-cultural interaction?
"acculturation"
"syncretism" 146
American Indians offer yet another option--a variant on assimilation that's sometimes called "acculturation." This is a form of change that's peculiar to traditional societies like Native America.
Broad distinction:
Assimilation: person or group gives up old culture to adapt to new culture; compare "conversion," where you give up old ways for new ones
Acculturation: old culture absorbs new items or ideas, incorporates them to pre-existing culture.
Example of American Indian acculturation: horses
Assimilation is more radical, revolutionary, more rapid and unsettling change.
Acculturation is more gradual--something relatively new can look like it's been there forever.
Examples of acculturation in Black Elk?
98
Indians & Asians
Original confusion by Columbus: Native Americans > "Indios" b/c he thought he'd discovered India
Still confusion over "Indians"--someone from India? Indian Americans or American Indians? Indian Americans say "Red Indians"
Deep-origin stories of American Indians: Asia like Africa for African Americans
Research complicates any single theory about Native American origins, but prevailing unitary theory . . .
Indians cross Bering Straits b/w Russia and Alaska 10-12 thousand years ago
In 1970s, this background developed as a theme in modern American Indian literature
Background: 20th-century Native American presence in U. S. Armed Forces
World War 2 (1942-45) against Japanese Asians
Vietnam War against Vietnamese Asians
Two major books of "American Indian Renaissance" of 1960s-70s describe irony of American Indians serving White America by fighting Asian Americans
N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968; Pulitzer Prize 1969)
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977)
Love Medicine
116 Asian-looking eyes
176 Vietnam memory
3.
As in the course's previous three texts, Christian
symbols and thought are interwoven with Native American religion, so note some
examples.
What effect does this "syncretism" have on our perceptions
of these differing traditions?
Where or how does Gerry Nanapush fit into these
traditions?
review previous 3 texts?
opening chapter: eggs as fertility (cf rabbit) (syncretism already at work in
Europe) (religion as abstract dialogue)
7
walking over snow like water
water imagery: baptism/cleansing or wandering? cf fish as Christ and fertility
symbol
23
car and June
35
Firebird
37
northern lights . . . everything one piece
[cf
42 once they smash . . . can't be put right]
43
dark fish must rise
43
pray x Indian blood
45
where God had only half a hand in creation
46
smelled him on me [Satan or man?]
48
2 choices: cf Todorov: dog or angel
54
the vision rose up cf 145
67
cf wounded animals, killed saints
77
too handsome to be real, constructed by the Manitous
87
manitous, invisible ones who lived in the woods
101
Father Damien and the Pillager
108
swastika / wheel
117
Gerry as joker
118
natural criminal and hero
146
scar aches on Good Friday
4.
When the text's Indian characters move into the
mainstream or white culture, through what means or institutions do they do so?
How is the white culture characterized?
Continue to notice differing attitudes toward
nature, science, and time.
Notice how Eli and Nector explore different sides
of the assimilation-resistance issue.
12
allotment
*18
Nector: dates, numbers, figures
*19
reading & writing x woods
21
oral, family story
29
house as communal property
32
fox name has significance
*68
bells, orders, flat voices, rough English x old language
*71
no clocks, white time x Indian time
73
old language, medicine ways, painted bones
81
old language x town, clothes
109
great relocation opportunities
110
> suburbs
112
a new and better metropolitan existence
171
cf
5.
How do the novel's characters conform to or rebel
against stereotypes of the Indian?
124
falling Indian--plunge of the brave
how are gender issues apparent even across racial or
ethnic divisions?
Pay attention not just to peer relations but to
generational relationships and how they are transferred.
11
relationship a file we sharpened on
16
woman as land
29
Lipsha as "girl-eyes"
69
a father, the pattern of all men
84
needed a midwife, a mother
85
the old drunk woman I didn't claim as my mother any more
87
like me and not like me
92 [cf Bastard]
girl imitates man
104
"I'm your son." "No more. I have only a daughter."
137
make her into my own private puppet
145
confusion of mother and daughter
169
cf Henry and Nector (Albertine's view)
2.
Identify alternative family structures and other
unique social arrangements of the American Indian community.
What is the attitude toward intermarriage with
outsiders or toward their offspring?
What divisions or classes exist in this Indian
community?
14
marriageable = Catholic
15
white girl, Swedish boy
29
house as communal property
63
Lazarres x Kashpaws
75
too close a relation . . . dangerous to mix things up
89
they would not whisper "dirty Lazarre"
111
Bev's perfect tan
118
pack of boys, one organism
148
solid class, children well behaved and educated + dress
162
all colors of humans, [Henry] could tell they were not his
6.
I don't know how to ask this question perfectly
respectfully or appropriately, but last year some undergrads appeared freaked by
the sexual bravado of Love Medicine.
It strikes me that
House Made of Dawn is a fairly sexy book in
places, and Silko's Ceremony
also has a definite interest in the subject.
Is this coincidence or is this something noteable
about American Indians?
We might contrast this with the neglect or disdain
for sexuality that is present in earlier texts.
--comedy plus creation; cf Hindu mythology
116
it was reaction I looked for
120
tasting his own miraculous continuance
assimilation/resistance : revolutionary/traditional
7
Great-uncle Eli x no-good Morrisey to cities; plus 33 King well-liked in the
Cities
9
Zelda marries Swede Johnson
16
dates, numbers, figures stuck with Grandpa since he strayed
17 a son on either side of the line.
Nector came home from boarding school knowing white
reading and writing, while Eli knew the woods
Eli
still sharp, while Grandpa's mind had left us, gone wary and wild
cf
25 Grandpa paler than his brother
29
Eli explains skunk by point at different parts of his body
30 ciga swa
old Cree
18
problem of memory (plus Washington)
23
I was light, clearly a breed (raised as an Indian)
24
[Lynette] don't fit in
34
Everything seemed to be one piece.
36
Lipsha's knowledge; I loved him for being both ways
37
vision memory
39
Lynette: we'll go back to the Cities, go home
Once they smash, there is no way to put them right.
family/education
7
"Patient Abuse" to nursing student and to Kashpaw
27
house like communal property for the Kashpaws
religion
2
eggs as universal fertility symbol
6
Easter, Jesus walks on water
13
Catholic
22
June reborn as car 26 June's car
32
Lynette locked in the Firebird
womanhood
10
mother-daughter relation (contrast Swede Johnson doomed to wander)
12
coming home
13
differenter they acted the more alike they showed themselves
14-15 Grandmaw Kashpaw as earth mother
Literacy as story-telling
20
"Then she got madder yet. . . ." I said.
white people
8
oil trash, boom trash
9-10 Swede Johnson, blond, bleak, and doomed to wander
11
the land my great-grandparents were allotted when the government decided to turn
Indians into farmers; a joke; sold to the whites and lost forever
16
dates, numbers, figures stuck with Grandpa since he strayed
17 a son on either side of the line.
Nector came home from boarding school knowing white
reading and writing, while Eli knew the woods
Eli
still sharp, while Grandpa's mind had left us, gone wary and wild
31
Lynette; "I don't know nothing about my family, but I know I'm full-blooded
Norwegian."