Representing Native America (Part 1)
Ethnic Studies 114A Ross Frank
Winter 2012 Office: SSB 227
TU, TH 11:00 AM—12:20 PM Office Hours:
WLH 2208 Wed. 1:00-3:00, Thu. 1:00-2:00
E-mail: rfrank@weber.ucsd.edu Phone: 534-6646
class materials may be viewed at: http://dss.ucsd.edu/~rfrank
This course provides an introduction to the history and theory of museum representation of American Indians in order to explore its relation to colonialism and decolonization. In addition to a wide-ranging look at the complex foundations of systems of representing Indians and Indianness, a study of Plains Indian drawings from 1860-1890 will allow the class to create new approaches to designing a museum exhibition.
Course evaluation will be based on a midterm essay and classroom presentation, a written final research project and classroom presentation, in-class discussions throughout the quarter, and some guiding assignments along the way. Final grade will be based on the following: 25% - attendance and participation during in-class activities; 25% - midterm essay and presentation; 25% research project presentation; 25% - final project report.
All students must attend all class meetings and read the assigned materials in order to complete this course. You have a responsibility to create an environment conducive to learning during class meetings and discussion, and to abide by the UCSD Principles of Community. Attendance and participation in discussions held throughout the quarter will count for part of your class grade. These in-class discussions cannot be made up.
Assignments are listed in the syllabus for the day that they are due: January 19, February 9, February 15. The Midterm Examination consists of a written essay (5 pages) and an in-class presentation. The Final Examination will consist of an individual or team research project, presented in class, and the written component due during the scheduled exam period.
The following required book has been ordered for the course and is available at the Bookstore. It has also been placed on reserve in the Geisel Library:
Janet Berlo, and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford History of Art. Oxford University Press, 1998.
Other readings assigned are available at: http://dss.ucsd.edu/~rfrank or in Roger.
SYLLABUS
The reading(s) that follow each date should be completed before that class meeting. Please come to class prepared to discuss these assigned readings.
PART I The Colonial Roots of Representation
WEEK 1 JANUARY 10 Introduction and Course Organization
JANUARY 12 The Problem of Art
Catherine King, ed. Views of Difference: Different Views of Art, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, (Introduction) 7-22.
Janet Catherine Berlo and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford History of Art. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, (Chapter 1) 1-35.
SUGGESTED READING: Eric Venbrux, Pamela Sheffield Rosi and Robert L. Welsch, eds. Exploring World Art. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2006, (Introduction) 1-37.
Susan Vogel. Art/Artifact New York: Museum for African Art, 1988, 10-17. Also available on Google Books.
WEEK 2 JANUARY 17 Collecting, Museums, and the Nation State
Shelly Errington. The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998, 49-136. (Available online through Roger)
JANUARY 19 Museum of the American Indian Roots
Ann McMullen. ÒReinventing George G. Heye: Nationalizing the Museum of the American Indian and its Collections,Ó in Sleeper-Smith, Susan. Contesting Knowledge : Museums and Indigenous Perspectives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009, 65-105.
ASSIGNMENT: Familiarize yourself with ArtStor
(http://libraries.ucsd.edu/locations/arts/resources/find-image-collections/index.html) and its Native American image holdings. ArtStor must be accessed the first time from campus. After that you may logon remotely using UCSDÕs VPN
(http://blink.ucsd.edu/technology/network/connections/off-campus/VPN/).
WEEK 3 JANUARY 24 Disruptive Histories
Angela Cavender Wilson. "American Indian History or Non-Indian Perceptions of American Indian History?" American Indian Quarterly 20:1 (1996): 3-5.
Glen Coulthard, ÒPlace Against Empire: Understanding Indigenous Anti-Colonialism,Ó Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action, 4:2 (2010): 79-83.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Decolonizing Methodologies : Research and Indigenous Peoples. St Martin's Press, 1999, 42-77.
JANUARY 26 Alternative Epistemologies
Angela Cavender Wison. "Grandmother to Granddaughter: Generations of Oral History in a Dakota Family." American Indian Quarterly 20:1 (1996): 7-13.
Waziyatawin Angela Wilson. ÒDecolonizing the 1862 Death MarchesÓ, in Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, ed. In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors : The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century. St. Paul, MN: Living Justice Press, 2006, 43-66.
MIDTERM ASSIGNMENT DISTRUBUTED
WEEK 4 JANUARY 31 Reading Absences
Audra Simpson. "On Ethnographic Refusal: Indigeneity, 'Voice,' and Colonial Citizenship." Junctures 9 (2007): 67-80.
Laura L. Terrance. "Resisting Colonial Education: Zitkala-Sa and Native Feminist Archival Refusal." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 24:5 (2011): 621-626.
FEBRUARY 2 Midterm Reports
Eve Tuck. "Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities." Harvard Educational Review 79:3 (2009): 409-428.
WEEK 5 FEBRUARY 7 Thinking About Tribal Museums
James Clifford. ÒFour Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections,Ó in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. ed. Ivan Karp, and Steven D. Levine. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, 212-254.
Janine Bowechop and Patricia Pierce Erikson. "Review: Forging Indigenous Methodologies on Cape Flattery: The Makah Museum as a Center of Collaborative Research." American Indian Quarterly 29:1/2 (2005): 263-273.
FEBRUARY 9 NMAI - Take I
Allison Arieff. "A Different Sort of (P)Reservation: Some Thoughts of the National Museum of the American Indian`." Museum Anthropology 19:2 (1995): 78-90.
Richard W. West and Amanda J. Cobb. "Interview with W. Richard West, Director, National Museum of the American Indian." American Indian Quarterly 29:3/4 (2005): 517-37.
SUGGESTED READING: Ira Jacknis. "A New Thing? The NMAI in Historical and Institutional Perspective." American Indian Quarterly 30:3/4 (2006): 511-542.
ASSIGNMENT: Familiarize yourself with the Plains Indian Ledger Art Digital Publishing Project (PILA) @ plainsledgerart.org. Register for an account and begin to try out the various capabilities of the web site.
WEEK 6 FEBRUARY 14 NMAI - Take II
Kuckkahn, Tina. "Celebrating the Indian Way of Life." American Indian Quarterly 29:3/4 (2005): 505-509.
Berry, Susan. "Voices and Objects at the National Museum of the American Indian." The Public Historian 28:2 (2006): 63-68.
Conn, Steven. "Heritage Vs. History at the National Museum of the American Indian." The Public Historian 28:2 (2006): 69-74.
Ruth B. Phillips. "Disrupting Past Paradigms: The National Museum of the American Indian and the First Peoples Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization." The Public Historian 28:2 (2006): 75-80.
Amy Lonetree. "Missed Opportunities: Reflections on the NMAI." American Indian Quarterly 30:3/4 (2006): 632-645.
FEBRUARY 16 NMAI - Take III
Jolene Rickard. "Absorbing or Obscuring the Absence of a Critical Space in the Americas for Indigeneity: The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian." RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 52 (2007): 85-92.
Gwyneira Issac. "What Are Our Expectations Telling Us? Encounters with the NMAI" American Indian Quarterly 30:3/4 (2006): 574-596.
Sonya Atalay. "No Sense of the Struggle: Creating a Context for Survivance at the NMAI." American Indian Quarterly 30:3/4 (2006): 597-618.
SUGGESTED READING: Amanda J. Cobb. "The National Museum of the American Indian: Sharing the Gift." American Indian Quarterly 29:3/4 (2005): 361-383.
Carpio, Myla Vicenti. "(Un)Disturbing Exhibitions: Indigenous Historical Memory at the NMAI" American Indian Quarterly 30:3/4 (2006): 619-631.
ASSIGNMENT: Using the PILA (plainsledgerart.org) research bench, enter personal research notes and public comments, upload images to personal and public galleries, and create a slideshow.
PART IV What To Do With Plains Indian Ledger Art
WEEK 7 FEBRUARY 21 Narrative and Meaning: Art and the Plains Indian World View
Raymond J. DeMallie. ÔThese Have No Ears:Õ Narrative and the Ethnohistorical Method.Ó Ethnohistory 40:4 (1993): 516-538.
Imre Nagy. ÒCheyenne Shields and Their Cosmological BackgroundÓ. American Indian Art 19:3 (1994): 38-47, 104.
Ledger Art Press Articles folder: _#1_ _ _#2_ _ _#3_ - _#4_
Images for articles #3: _Sheridan Mcknight_ _ _Todd Bordeaux_ _ _Terrance Guardapee_
_Donald Montileaux_ _ _Dolores Purdy Cochoran #1_ _ _Dolores Purdy Cochoran #2_
FEBRUARY 23 An Art Historical View
Janet Catherine Berlo, and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford History of Art. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998,
(Chapter 4: The West) 106-137.
(Chapter 7: The Twentieth Century) 208-239.SUGGESTED READING: Janet Catherine Berlo, and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford History of Art. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, (Chapter 5: The East) 71-136.
ASSIGNMENT: Assemble Final Project Teams and begin to define areas of research.
Hertha D. Wong. "Pictographs as Autobiography: Plains Indian Sketchbooks of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries." American Literary History 1:2 (1989): 295-316.
Denise Low. "Composite Indigenous Genre: Cheyenne Ledger Art as Literature." SAIL 18:2 (2006): 83-104. NOTE: look at the folder of images referred to in the article: _Black Horse #48-49_ _ _Black Horse #48_
_Black Horse #49_ _ _Black Horse #113_ _ _Mahtotopa_
MARCH 1 Ledger Art as History
Joyce M. Szabo. "Shields and Lodges, Warriors and Chiefs: Kiowa Drawings as Historical Records." Ethnohistory 41:1 (1993): 1-24.
Candace S. Greene. The Tepee With Battle Pictures. Natural History, 102:10 (1992), 68-76.
William K. Powers ÒDrawing on Cultural Memory: Self and Other in Native American Ledger Art.Ó American Anthropology 102.2 (2002): 663-666.
WEEK 9 MARCH 6 The Tourist and the Captive
Marsha C. Bol. ÒDefining Lakota Tourist Art, 1880-1915, in Phillips, Ruth B., and Christopher Burghard Steiner. Unpacking Culture : Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, 214-228. (Available online through Roger)
Candace S. Greene, and Thomas D. Drescher. ÒThe Tipi With Battle Pictures: The Kiowa Tradition of Intangible Property Rights.Ó The Trademark Report; 84:42 (1994), 418-433. (images in folder: _#1_ _ _#2_)
MARCH 8 Arts of Survivance
Hertha D. Sweet Wong. "Native American Visual Autobiography: Figuring Place, Subjectivity, and History." The Iowa Review 30:3 (2000): 145-156.
Becca Gercken. "Manifest Meanings: The Selling (Not Telling) of American Indian History and the Case of ÔThe Black Horse Ledger." American Indian Quarterly 34:4 (2010): 521-539.
PART V PART V What To Do With Plains Indian Ledger Art
WEEK 10 MARCH 13 Class Presentations and Discussions I
MARCH 15 Class Presentations and Discussions II
FINAL PROJECT DUE Thursday, MARCH 22, 2:30PM
