Current Topics ¾ Museum Studies:
Issues in Native American Representation
Dr. Larry J. Zimmerman
Anthropology A460 (Section 12564)
Tuesdays 5:45-8:25 PM
Cavanaugh Hall 203
Office: 434 Cavanaugh
Telephone: 317-274-2383; Fax: 317-279-5220; E-mail: larzimme@iupui.edu
Office Hours: Tues 1-3 PM and immediately before and after class; Wed 10 AM-12 Noon; Other hours by appointment. I am available many other times throughout the week, so if you are in CA, feel free to stop in. However, if you are making a special trip, it’s wise to call ahead.
Course Description
From sports mascots, tourist
“junk,” and New Age paraphernalia to superb films and museum exhibits, the
images of Indians presented to the public and Indians themselves become
confusing and often are stereotypical. Through readings, videos, online
materials, and hands-on projects using exhibits in the
Objectives
Although the objectives of this course are many, several are key:
1. You should recognize and understand the genesis and impacts of stereotypes about Native Americans.
2. You should understand basic concepts of cultural and intellectual property as they apply to Native Americans.
3. You should be able to analyze a representation of Native Americans, contextualize it, and assess its validity and utility.
4. If a representation is erroneous or inaccurate, you should be able to develop and execute a course of action to correct or counter it.
5. You should understand the importance of collaboration with Native Americans if you are in a position to develop or utilize representations of their lives and cultures.
All work in this course is intended to fulfill the
University's Principles of
Undergraduate Learning. The class focuses on critical,
self-reflective thinking, integrates knowledge from a variety of disciplinary
and sociocultural perspectives, examines social and
cultural complexity, and probes the impact of knowledge on ethical, everyday
decision-making. Do let me know if you believe the course does not satisfy any
of the missions included in the Principles.
Course Web Site
The web site that supports this course is located at http://larryjzimmerman.com/narep. Please look at the site soon. Still under development, this site will eventually move to the IUPUI OnCourse system. On the site you’ll find the class announcements with shifts in the schedule, a course syllabus with hot links, pages with additional bibliographic materials, Quick Links pages of annotated web sites in support of particular class topics, and assorted other materials. The web site is meant to assist your learning in the class. Use it as much or as little as you choose.
This class will use a variety of approaches to help you to learn about, assess, and understand issues surrounding Native American representation. These include traditional lectures and discussions, a range of videos, and student presentation of readings, projects, and activities. The class format that I expect to use each week is listed in the schedule. I reserve the right to change the approach depending on my assessment of class needs.
Grading
In a small enrollment class we have a great deal more flexibility in grading than when there are lots of students. To earn your grade, you will do four (4) of the following six (6) activities. Everyone will do Activity 1 (Projects), and you may choose your other three (3) from Activities 2-6. Each Activity will be worth 25% of your grade. Please note that the requirements in each activity may be different for graduate students enrolled in the course than for undergraduates. For more guidance on each of these activities, go to the Activities page on the class web site. My hope is that you will choose activities 1, 2, 5, & 6 instead of the more traditional approaches in 3 & 4, but I realize that there are different learning styles and comfort levels with evaluation. Understand that all of these activities require subjectivity in my grading. The best activities will be well organized and written, reflect some of IUPUI’s Principles of Undergraduate Learning, and demonstrate some level of creativity and insight to the subject.
Activity 1: Projects You will complete five (5) brief projects related to the topics in the schedule below. You will write a brief report on the project and should be prepared to discuss it in class. Your grade will be based equally on the quality of the written report and your participation in discussion. Each project report will count equally toward your grade (that is, the average of the five grades on your projects will be your activity grade). Submission dates: As noted in the schedule
Activity 2: Book Reviews & Presentations Undergraduates will select two (2) books from the list below; graduate students will select three (3). You will prepare a review of the book no longer that 750 words (about 3 double-spaced pages) and give a brief report on the book to the class (10-15 minutes at most). Submission dates: During the topic most clearly associated with the subject of the book.
Activity 3: Term Paper In consultation with the instructor, you will select a topic related to the topics in the schedule, conduct research on the topic, and write a paper (10 pages undergrads, 15 pages grads*). You should use in-text citations to reference your sources and have a references cited section. These should follow American Anthropologist style (check a current issue or go to the style guide online). Go to the Papers section of the class web site for more information. Submission dates: You must inform me of the general topic of your paper by October 5, submit a short (5-10 sources) bibliography by October 26, and an outline by November 23. Final copy is due on or before December 7.
*Length is not the primary concern; they can be slightly shorter or longer if the content is good.
Activity 4: Final Exam You will complete a final exam consisting of six (6) essay questions that you will receive no later than the last regular class period. You will answer four of them.
Activity 5: Watching Movies Select and watch three movies from the following list: Smoke Signals; The Doe Boy; Skins; Naturally Native; The Business of Fancy-Dancing; Dance Me Outside; Grand Avenue (based on the Greg Saris novel, not the old version); Medicine River; or another contemporary (post 1985) film with substantial American Indian content. Prepare a short review of each film and be prepared to discuss them in class. Grades will be based equally on the written report and quality of discussion.
Activity 6: Museum Exhibition Critique Your task will be to do a detailed critique of the Mihtohseenionki (The People's Place) exhibit
at the
No book adequately covers this subject, so there will be no required texts for the course. However, you will receive reading assignments from articles, book chapters, and web sites each week. These will be available in the Anthropology Office and/or will be made available online. See the Grading section above use of the books in Activity 2.
The list of books below also will serve as a reading list for those of you who would like more information on any of the subjects discussed in class. Listed by each book is the date of the class period to which the book is most closely related. If you choose the book review Activity (2), the due date of your selected book will be the date of the related class period, as noted below.
Schedule and Topics
This schedule is considered to be tentative. I reserve the right to make changes in dates or topics based on class needs or opportunities for learning experiences as might arise. You will be given at least a week’s notice if changes affect timing of submissions of graded materials. You will find with each class date a topic or topics, the class format, any videos we might be seeing, audios from the Native America Calling (there is intro and break material to get by so be patient!), and any projects that might be associated with it. Where videos have links, you will find a study guide to use in considering what you see.
August 31 Introduction of the course; Topic: What’s in a name? The power of words and stereotypes; Video: In whose honor?; Listen: Tribal Names & Misnomers (Listen in RealAudio...) Format: Lecture/Discussion
Project 1: Using the Web, find at least five Web sites that discuss the use of Native American icons as sports mascots. Prepare an annotated list of the sites you visited and your evaluation of each site. Be prepared to discuss the web sites you found. For additional information about how to evaluate web sites with Native American materials, go to http://larryjzimmerman.com/narep/webeval.html. Due: start of class on September 7.
September 7 Topic: The Biggest Stereotype of Them
All: All Indians are alike. The nature of Native American
Diversity. Format: Lecture,
discussion of Sports Mascots web materials Listen: Interview and
call in show with Michael Haney and others on the Chief Illiniwek
(Listen in
RealAudio...) http://nativecalling.org/archives/list.html
- 10071999 at the U of Illinois. Readings
September 14 Topic: Eurocentrism
and the Indians Format: Discussion
Video: Savagery and the American Indian (2 segments)
by Deirdre A. Almeida
September 21 Topic: Ecological Indians? Format:
Lecture/Discussion Listen: An
interview and call in with Shepard Krech about his
book The Ecological Indian on Indians and Ecology (Listen in
RealAudio...). and "A Peoples
Ecology" (Listen in
RealAudio...)
September 28 Topic 1: Playing Indian Format: Lecture/Discussion Readings: Philip Deloria Playing Indian, pp. 1-9, 181-192. Mark Rolo, review of Playing Indian
Topic 2: Dealing with Stereoypes Format: Discussion Listen: School Textbooks (Listen in RealAudio...) ; Rewriting America's History Books (Listen in RealAudio…) Readings: Unbiased Teaching about American Indians and Alaska Natives in Elementary Schools by Fly C. Pepper; Native Americans in U. S. History Textbooks: From Blood Savages to Heroic by Jesus Garcia, 1978 Journal of American Indian Education 17(2);
Twentieth-Century Indian History: Achievements, Needs, and Problems by
Donald Parman
1994 OAH Magazine of History 9; Native
Americans in Picture Books: Old Images Die Hard by
Project 2: Kiddie Lit and Indians. Go
to a public library or a bookstore. Find and read 5 children’s books on Native
Americans. Do a 3-5 page report discussing what you read and any key images or
stereotypes you notice in them. Who is the author? If illustrated, who is the
illustrator? Be prepared to discuss what you read in class. Due start of
class on October 19.
October 5 Topic: Who owns Native
culture? Format:
Lecture/Discussion Video: Return of the Sacred Pole
Listen: Protecting Tribal Logos and Intellectual
Property (Listen
in RealAudio...) Readings
October 12 Topic: Repatriation: Whose past is it anyway? Format: Lecture/Discussion Videos: Bones of Contention, 60 Minutes Kennewick segment Listen: Protecting Native Gravesites (Listen in RealAudio…) ; Return of Our Ancestors (Part 1) (Listen in RealAudio...) ; Return of Our Ancestors (Part 2) (Listen in RealAudio...) and six other programs on repatriation Readings: Debating NAGPRAS's Effects: Clement Meighan, Larry Zimmerman, Archaeology Magazine 1994
October 19 Topic: Sacred places Format: Lecture/Discussion Video: In the Light of Reverence Readings: Chapters 2, Sacredness Among Native Americans & 3, Kinds of Sacred Sites in Native American Sacred Sites and the Department of Defense, edited by Vine Deloria, Jr. and Richard Stoffle.
October 26 Topic: Indians and the Academy; Format:
Lecture/Discussion. Listen: The Success of Tribal Colleges (Listen in
RealAudio…) ; Native
Americans and College (Listen in
RealAudio...)
November 2 Topic 1:
Indians for
Project 3 At the Gift Shop Visit a gift shop that sells items advertised to be Native American (perhaps, White River Trader in the Eiteljorg Museum, but there are others in the area). What sorts of items do they sell? Is any of it geared toward children? What kinds of things? Are there obvious stereotypes in any of the items? Any New Age items? Then, pay attention to advertising that uses Indians or Indian related materials. What is the nature of the ads? Make a list of items you think are interesting and write a 3-5 page brief essay on what you observe. Due at the start of class on November 16.
November 9 Topic: Sacredness and New Age Indians; Format: Lecture/Demonstration; Video: White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men Listen: Plastic Shamans (Listen in RealAudio...) Reading: Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality by Lisa Aldred, The American Indian Quarterly 24.3 (2000) 329-352 (IUPUI Library online); Plastic-Shaman- Busters.com
November 16 Topic 1: Cyberspace Smoke Signals: Indians and the Web; Format: Lecture/Demonstration; Listen: E-Commerce & Native America (Listen in RealAudio…) Readings: Larry Zimmerman, Karen Zimmerman, & Leonard Bruguier, Cyberspace Smoke Signals, in Indigenous Cultures in and Interconnected World, Claire Smith and Graeme Ward, eds., Sydney: Allen & Unwin, pp. 69-88. (use the online version, which is an earlier draft at http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/fulbright/abstracts/csmoke.html).
Topic 2: Telling our own story: Native American Publishing Format: Lecture/Demonstration; Listen: Wanted: Native Journalists (Listen in RealAudio…); Native Americans in the Media (Listen in RealAudio…)
Project 4 Native Newspapers For one week, look either in hard copy or online at several mainstream newspapers (New York Times, Indianapolis Star, Washington Post, and the like) and see out any stories dealing with Native Americans. What is the nature of the stories? Are they favorable, unfavorable, or neutral? Do they contain any obvious stereotypes? Then go online (see One World-Nations On Line about halfway down the page where you will find a whole list of Indian papers, both local and national. Be sure to look at Indian Country Today, a national paper, but also look at the way stories are covered in some tribal papers. Can you see any differences between the ways dominant society and tribal papers cover issues? Prepare a 3-5 page report on what you looked at and any observations you have. Due start of class on November 30.
November 23 Topic: Museum Literacy and American Indians Format: Lecture/Discussion Listen:
Indian In the Spotlight: Richard West (Listen in
RealAudio…) Reading: Introduction: A New Idea
of Ourselves: The Changing Presentation of the American Indian by W. Richard
West in W. Richard, Jr., ed.1999 The
Changing Presentation of the American Indian Museums
and Native Cultures.
Project 5 What do museum staff members think? Arrange to interview a museum specialist or a museum docent or guide about concerns they have regarding Native American Representation in their museum or in museums generally. These need not be long interviews, but you will need to acquaint yourself with their museum before you can ask intelligent questions or know what they are talking about if they refer to a specific exhibit or concern about their museum. Write a 3-5 page essay documenting theinterview and be ready to discuss it in class. Note: I will provide you with a list of willing interviewees before this project. If you choose to interview someone outside the city, you will need to make your own arrangements. Due at the start of class on December 7.
November 30 Topic 1: Native Americans and the Arts Format: Lecture/Discussion Listen: What's in Store for Indian Arts (Listen in RealAudio...); The Business of Indian Art (Listen in RealAudio…); First Americans in the Arts Awards (Listen in RealAudio…) Video: Dances for the New Generation
Topic 2: American Indians in Film Format:
Lecture/Discussion;
December 7 Topic: Indian Humor; Format: Lecture/discussion Video: On and Off the Rez with Charlie Hill Listen: April Fool's (Listen in RealAudio...) and five other programs on Indian humor Readings: Examine the National Museum of the American Indians’ Indian Humor exhibition web site at http://www.conexus.si.edu/humor/toc/
December 14 Final (for those taking it), 5:45-7:45
All work in the course is conducted in accordance with the University’s academic misconduct policy. Cheating includes dishonesty of any kind with respect to exams or assignments. Plagiarism is the offering of someone else’s work as your own: this includes taking material from books, web pages, or other students, turning in the same or substantially similar work as other students, or failing to properly cite other research. Please consult the University Bulletin’s academic misconduct policy if you have any questions about what constitutes academic dishonesty. If academic misconduct is discovered, you will lose all credit for that Activity.
Attendance Policy
As Woody Allen says, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up!” This class is the same: to do well, you have to be there. Because we only have 15 class meetings, there is a great deal to accomplish. Also, because the class is small, your absence will be obvious. Thus, three (3) unexcused absences will result in a grade reduction of one letter grade, no matter the grade you earn in activities, papers or exams (think about it: three absences is 20% of the class periods!). Each additional two (2) absences will result in an additional grade reduction. Excused absences are the usual: illness, emergencies, participation in sanctioned university events, extreme weather that would endanger you. If at all possible, please send me an e-mail or phone if you know you won’t be attending. Note well: the one major attendance sin is not to show up when you have a presentation due in class. Better to show up and not have it done that just not to show up.
Other Matters
- Note Well: For any written assignment you may turn in drafts to me so long as they are ahead of the due date. At your request, I will quickly read the draft and make suggestions regarding content, organization, or writing. You can then take my suggestions and rewrite if you wish. You can turn drafts in any number of times so long as it is before the due date. Plan ahead, however, in that if I am deluged by many papers at one time, I won’t have time to get through them before the due date.
- Contact me
as soon as possible if you cannot complete an assignment on time. E-mail
is a good way to do this. I check my email several times, almost
everyday.
- Please do NOT wait until after a deadline to talk to me. Do NOT postpone talking to me if you are having any difficulty completing an assignment or if you are having difficulty with the class.
- There will be no extra credit in the class.
- Late assignments will be penalized a letter grade for every class they are late if you do not negotiate an extension with me beforehand or discuss the delay immediately afterward.
- Where appropriate, you may email assignments to me as attachments, or you can leave assignments in my mailbox in 413 Cavanaugh Hall. In fact, I prefer e-mailed assignments. However, do not erase your assignment until you have a response from me that I have received and can read it.
- This syllabus includes deadlines for all assignments and test dates: it is your responsibility to know when exercises are due and tests are scheduled.
- If you have learning problems that might require special accommodation for completion of class assignments, please notify of these matters within the first two or three class periods. We’ll make every effort to make things work for you.
Books/Reading List
(Book annotations and descriptions can be found on the class web site to help you make your selections.)
Basso, Keith
1996 Wisdom Sites in
Places.
Basso, an
anthropologist who has done fieldwork among the Western Apache of Arizona for
over 30 years, provides an award-winning scholarly study of the meaning and
significance of the Apache place names found in the area surrounding the
community of
Brown, Michael
2003 Who Owns Native
Culture?
Harvard University Press summarizes the book this way: The practical and artistic creations of native peoples permeate everyday life in settler nations, from the design elements on our clothing to the plot-lines of books we read to our children. Rarely, however, do native communities benefit materially from this use of their heritage, a situation that drives growing resistance to what some denounce as "cultural theft." "Who Owns Native Culture?" documents the efforts of indigenous peoples to redefine heritage as a proprietary resource. By focusing on the complexity of actual cases, Brown casts light on indigenous claims in diverse fields--religion, art, sacred places, and botanical knowledge. He finds both genuine injustice and, among advocates for native peoples, a troubling tendency to mimic the privatizing logic of major corporations. The author proposes alternative strategies for defending the heritage of vulnerable native communities without blocking the open communication essential to the life of pluralist democracies. "Who Owns Native Culture?" is a lively, accessible introduction to questions of cultural ownership, group privacy, intellectual property, and the recovery of indigenous identities.
Churchill, Ward
1998 Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema, and the
Colonization of American Indians.
This collection of essays deals with the distortions of Native American ethnography within mainstream literature and movies. Churchill provides examples of how Euroamericans have played fast and loose with dates, and more currently with the spiritual nature of Native Americans. He theorizes that the attempt to understand the culture of Native Americans has led to the dispossession of that culture. Churchill provides no answers on how to redeem or fix the current situation, but his ideas will force readers to acknowledge the stereotyping and demise of various cultures. His book provides an understanding about the effects of a system of internal colonization, and the consumption of the rights and resources of indigenous peoples.
Collins, Peter and John O’Connor
1999
Offering both in-depth
analyses of specific films and overviews of the industry's output,
Deloria, Philip
1999 Playing Indian.
Deloria explores the way non-Indian Americans have appropriated Indian dress and acted out Indian roles since the Boston Tea Party-and the reactions of Indian people to these imitations of their native dress, language, and ritual. The author shows that white ideas about Indians have shaped national identity at different times in American history, and that Indians have been both idealized and villainized, humiliated and empowered, by these imaginings.
Deloria, Vine Jr.
1997 Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. ISBN: 1-5559-1388-1 October 12
Vine Deloria,
Jr., addresses the conflict between mainstream scientific theory about the
world and the ancestral worldview of Native Americans. Claiming that science
has created a largely fictional scenario for American Indians in prehistoric
Erikson, Patricia, Helma Ward, and Kirk Wachendorf
2002 Voices of a Thousand
People: The Makah Cultural and
Voices of a Thousand
People is the story of one Native
community's struggle to regain control of its past and preserve their heritage
for generations to come. The remote northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula
in
Kilpatrick, Jacquelyn
1999 Celluloid Indians:
Native Americans and Film.
ISBN: 0803277903 November 30
Celluloid Indians analyzes representations of Native Americans by the dominant culture. Kilpatrick considers the misrepresentations and the use of popular stereotypes to rewrite history. She posits that popular images of Indians speak more importantly to the Euro-American agenda and history of conquest.
King, C. Richard, Charles Fruehling Springwood and Vine Deloria, Jr.
2001 Team Spirits
Lincoln:
A growing controversy in
recent years has arisen around the use and abuse of Native American team
mascots. This practice, a troubling legacy of Native–Euro-American relations in
the
King, Thomas
2003 Places That Count,
Traditional Cultural Properties in Cultural Resource Management.
Places That Count offers professionals within the field of cultural resource management (CRM) valuable practical advice on dealing with traditional cultural properties (TCPs). Responsible for coining the term to describe places of community-based cultural importance, Thomas King now revisits this subject to instruct readers in TCP site identification, documentation, and management. With more than 30 years of experience at working with communities on such sites, he identifies common issues of contention and methods of resolving them through consultation and other means. Through the extensive use of examples, from urban ghettos to Polynesian ponds to Mount Shasta, TCPs are shown not to be limited simply to American Indian burial and religious sites, but include a wide array of valued locations and landscapes--the United States and worldwide. This is a must-read for anyone involved in historical preservation, cultural resource management, or community development.
Krech, Shepard III
2000 The Ecological
Indian: Myth and History.
A popular question of debate
has centered on the Native American relationship to the environment. Were they
the first environmentalists, conservationists who neither wasted nor altered
their natural resources? Krech addresses this
cherished American myth by reviewing archaeological, oral, and written records
and applying them to a few specific cases. The Native Americans, like all
peoples, altered their environments, responded to climatic changes, adjusted to
times of feast and famine, and adapted to the new economic forces introduced by
Europeans. They were not Noble Savages, nor was North America the
Lincoln, Kenneth
1993 Indi’n
Humor: Bicultural Word Play in Native
Drawing upon history, psychology, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and the arts, this book challenges "wooden Indian" stereotypes to redefine negative attitudes and humorless approaches to Native American peoples. Moving from tribal culture to interethnic literature, Lincoln covers the traditional Trickster of origin myths, historical ironies, Euroamericans "playing Indian," feminist Indian humor at home, contemporary painters and playwrights reinventing Coyote, popular mixed-blood music and Red English, and three Native American novelists, Louise Erdrich, James Welch, and N. Scott Momaday. Indi'n Humor documents and interprets the contexts of laughter among Native Americans, as they see and are seen by the rest of the world. The study comes to focus comically on the poets, visual artists, playwrights, and novelists who make up the cultural renaissance of the past twenty years.
Leuthold, Steven
1998 Indigenous
Aesthetics: Native Art, Media, and Identity.
What happens when a Native or indigenous person turns a video camera on his or her own culture? Are the resulting images different from what a Westernized filmmaker would create, and, if so, in what ways? How does the use of a non-Native art-making medium, specifically video or film, affect the aesthetics of the Native culture? These are some of the questions that underlie this study of Native American aesthetics, art, media, and identity. Leuthold opens with a theoretically informed discussion of the core concepts of aesthetics and indigenous culture and then turns to detailed examination of the work of American Indian documentary filmmakers, including George Burdeau and Victor Masayesva, Jr. He shows how Native filmmaking incorporates traditional concepts such as the connection to place, to the sacred, and to the cycles of nature. While these concepts now find expression through Westernized media, they also maintain continuity with earlier aesthetic productions. In this way, Native filmmaking serves to create and preserve a sense of identity for indigenous people.
Meyer, Carter Jones and Diana Royer, eds.
2001 Selling the Indian:
Commercializing and Appropriating American Indian Cultures.
Eight original range in topic from "white shamanism" to Cherokee basketry and tourist economies The contributions consider the selling of American Indian culture and how it affects the Native community. These articles show that the commercialization and appropriation of American Indian cultures have been persistent practices of American society over the last century, constituting a form of cultural imperialism that could contribute to the destruction of American Indian culture and identity.
Mihesuah,
1998 Natives and
Academics: Researching and Writing About American Indians.
All too frequently, Native Americans have little control over how they and their ancestors are researched and depicted in scholarly writings. The relationship between Native peoples and the academic community has become especially rocky in recent years. Both groups are grappling with troubling questions about research ethics, methodology, and theory in the field and in the classroom. In this timely and illuminating anthology, ten leading Native scholars examine the state of scholarly research and writing on Native Americans. They offer distinctive, frequently self-critical perspectives on several important issues: the representativeness of Native informants, the merits of various methods of data collection, the veracity and role of oral histories, the suitability of certain genres of scholarly writing for the study of Native Americans, the marketing of Native culture and history, and debates about cultural essentialism.
Mihesuah,
2004 Indigenizing the
Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities.
Continuing the thought-provoking dialogue launched in the acclaimed anthology Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians, leading Native scholars from diverse disciplines and communities offer uncompromising assessments of current scholarship on and by Indigenous peoples and the opportunities awaiting them in the Ivory Tower.
The issues covered are vital and extensive, including how activism shapes the careers of Native academics; the response of academe and Native scholars to current issues and needs in Indian Country; and the problems of racism, territoriality, and ethnic fraud in academic hiring. The contributors offer innovative approaches to incorporating Indigenous values and perspectives into the research methodologies and interpretive theories of scholarly disciplines such as psychology, political science, archaeology, and history and suggest ways to educate and train Indigenous students. They provide examples of misunderstanding and sometimes hostility from both non-Natives and Natives that threaten or circumscribe the careers of Native scholars in higher education. They also propose ways to effect meaningful change through building networks of support inside and outside the Native academic community.
Ridington, Robin and Dennis Hastings (In’aska)
1997 Blessing for a Long
Time: The Sacred Pole of the
For centuries the life of
the
Singer, Beverly
2001 Wiping the War Paint
off the Lens: Native American Film and Video.
Wiping the War Paint off the Lens traces the history of Native experiences as subjects, actors, and creators, and develops a critical framework for approaching Native work. Singer positions Native media as part of a larger struggle for "cultural sovereignty"-the right to maintain and protect cultures and traditions. Taking it out of a European-American context, she reframes the discourse of filmmaking, exploring oral histories and ancient lifeways inform Native filmmaking and how it seeks to heal the devastation of the past. Singer's approach is both cultural and personal, providing both historical views and close textual readings.
Spindel, Carol
2001 Dancing at Halftime:
Sports and the Controversy over American Indian Mascots.
Dancing at
Halftime takes a journey through the American imagination where our
thinking about American Indians has been, and is still being, shaped. Dancing
at Halftime is the story of Carol Spindel's determination to understand why her
adopted town is so passionately attached to Chief Illiniwek,
the American Indian mascot of the
Thomas David Hurst
2001 Skull Wars:
In Skull Wars, archaeologist David Hurst Thomas traces the five-hundred-year roots of the Kennewick Man controversy. From Thomas Jefferson's invention of scientific archaeology to the brutal massacres in which skulls of Indian warriors were sent east to build museum collections; from the strange fates of Ishi and Qisuk to the power of oral tradition in preserving centuries-old memories, this book tells what really went on between archaeologists and Indians-and shows how the two groups can work together in the future.
Tweedie, Ann M.
2002 Drawing Back
Culture: The Makah Struggle for Repatriation.
Although tribal and museum
repatriation programs must be developed for specific communities and cultures,
other tribes and museums will find much of value in this history and case
study, as will all those with an interest in tribal affairs and material
culture. The Makah Indians of Washington State,
briefly in the national spotlight when they resumed their ancient whaling
traditions in 1999, have begun a process that will eventually lead to the
repatriation of objects held by museums and federal agencies nationwide.
"Drawing Back Culture" describes the early stages of the tribe's implementation
of what some consider to be the most important piece of cultural policy
legislation in the history of the
West, W.
Richard, Jr., ed.
1999 The Changing
Presentation of the
Museums-along with books, newspapers, and Wild West shows in the 19th century, movies and television in the 20th-have shaped our perceptions of American Indians. This book brings together six prominent museum professionals-Native and non-Native-to examine the ways in which Indians and their cultures have been represented by museums in North America and to present new directions museums are already taking. Traditional museum exhibitions of Native American art and culture often represented only the past, ignoring the living Native voice. Today, museums have begun to incorporate Native perspectives in their displays. Even more dramatic is the growth in the number of Indian-run museums. These essays explore the relationships being forged between museums and Native communities to create new techniques for presenting Native American culture. This publication will serve to stimulate the discussions and analyses that can lead to new partnerships and collaborations.
Weston, Mary Ann
1996 Native Americans in
the News : Images of Indians in the Twentieth Century Press.
Pivoting
on a major public policy issue or event involving Native Americans during each
decade or two from the 1920s to the 1990s, Weston (journalism,