Current Courses

Spring 2007

Core 171: Shared Places: An Introduction to Tribal Histories and Cultures. Part 2: Indigenous Aesthetics
The second half of a freshmen course that explores the Indigenous themes of All My Relations, Circle of Life, Wisdom Sits in Places, the Trickster, and Resilience in Northwest Native literature, art, music and dance.

English 483: African American Literature: political liberation through a musical lens
This course surveys the development of the African American oral tradition with a focus on music and written literature, beginning with African survivals and ending with contemporary fiction and poetry, rap and hip hop.

AIST 320: The Celluloid Indian: Native Americans in Popular Film
This course explores the history of the changing representations of American Indians in U.S. film and the appearance of Native writers, directors and actors in the 1990s, and a move toward a Native aesthetic in film and video.

UI American Indian Film Festival
The UI American Indian Studies Program organizes an American Indian Film Festival each spring. See programs for the last four years here:  American Indian Film Festival.
2007 Film Festival dates are March 28-31st at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre.
Film Festival committee members include Stacey Barron, Heather Kae, Tiffany Midge, and Jan Johnson

Fall 2006

English 484: American Indian Literature
This course examines contemporary American Indian prose essay, fiction, short fiction, poetry and drama, with a focus on themes of history, identity and survivance (resistance + survival).

English 504: Historical Trauma and Healing in Native American Literatures and Communities
How are the trauma and intergenerational grief of a legacy of genocide and colonization expressed in Native literatures (essays, fiction, poetry, music) and communities? What is the relationship of trauma to identity and story?