English 591N - S-Topics/Indigenous Literature

What is it to be a writer of indigenous literature? What does such categorization suggest about a work?and what does it fail to mention? Is ?indigenous literature? an indicator of genre? Or simply an ascribed attribute of the writer? If the former, what devices, tropes, or themes does it share? If the latter, what prejudices do we bring to the work? This course examines contemporary Native American poetry, fiction, essays, and theories as both expressions and interrogations of indigenous identity and culture and as strategies for survivance within the larger American context. While we will focus on a broad diversity of contemporary writers and the literature they produce, we will also look at the historic, cultural, social, religious, aesthetic, and political contexts out of which contemporary Native Americans write. Additionally, we will discuss the significant issues facing indigenous people across the nation from colonization, stereotypes, and discrimination, to intergenerational trauma, to climate change and relocation and more as we learn to identify key differences as well as constellations of connections. Most importantly, we will think about how indigenous literature is defined and understood within broader topics and trends in contemporary literature, including how indigenous writers imagine themselves and how they imagine identity, self, place, nature, and nation. Through our readings, discussions, and assignments, you will develop your own decolonial lens as we examine the impacts of United States policy, land borders, and geographical inheritances on Indigenous cultures and even on the notion of text and categorization itself.