| Course ID: | ANTH(NAMS) 3410H. 3 hours. |
| Course Title: | Contemporary Native America (Honors) |
Course
Description: | Cultural diversity of contemporary Native American tribes of the continental United States and Alaska, including lifestyles, politics, literature, music, art, and socioeconomic conditions. |
| Oasis Title: | Contemporary Native America H |
| Duplicate Credit: | Not open to students with credit in ANTH 3410, NAMS 3410, ANTH 3410E, NAMS 3410E |
| Nontraditional Format: | When course is taken as part of a summer field school, all lectures and demonstrations will total the equivalent amount of time as the traditional three hours lecture per week during a semester. The emphasis is on direct experiential contact with Native America -- landscape, ceremony, and culture. |
| Prerequisite: | (ANTH 1102 or ANTH 2120H) and permission of Honors |
Semester Course
Offered: | Not offered on a regular basis. |
| Grading System: | A-F (Traditional) |
|
| Course Objectives: | Most students have little real knowledge of 20th century Indians
beyond stereotypes and media "sound-bites." This course attempts
to remove the banality and falsity of idealized Indians ("White
Man's Indians") presenting instead the strength and diversity of
contemporary Native America. |
| Topical Outline: | 1. Introduction and review of military and judicial defeats of
the U.S. tribes -- Southeast tribes; the Iroquois; the Plains
and West.
2. Removal and Reservations. Challenge of self
government. Decertification and assimilation policies -
allotment and blood quantum. The Lumbees of North
Carolina.
3. Grassroots and the American Indian Movement.
4. Alcatraz to Wounded Knee.
5. Indian Education and Medicine. Status of Native American
health -- traditional and contemporary healing; herbs and
pharmaceuticals; mental health.
6. Spirituality and Religion. Hopi. Survival of
ritual. White "Shamans." Religious freedom and sacred
places.
7. Archaeology and the Indian -- NAGPRA.
8. Arts in Native America.
a) The Pow-Wow Culture. Contemporary
dance and music - reinventing the flute and drum.
b) Ceramics, baskets and textiles. Painting and sculpture.
c) Contemporary literature and poetry.
d) Toli.
9. Traditional Environmental Knowledge - T.E.K. Ecology and the
Indian. The environmental movement co-op of the Indian.
"New Age."
10. Indians and the End of the 20th Century. The Choctaws-
poverty to "Las Vegas."
11. Latin America - the Indian's "South Africa." Peasant
revolts, genocide and the conscience of America.
12. Beyond 2000 -- American Indians and the Future. The end of
Indian "Nations?" |