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Spring 2002
This information effective
for Spring 2002.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Spring 2002
Instructor: James Clifford
MWF 9:30-10:10
This course analyzes how images of "exotic" peoples have been constructed—focusing on the perennial figure of "the primitive." Using films, photographs, novels, ethnographies, and museum-displays, it will show how persistent stereotypes have been articulated, challenged, complicated, and reinvented during the course of the twentieth century. The struggle to control, and sometimes to subvert, images of themselves by Native peoples will be discussed throughout.
The course focuses on representations of indigenous peoples in the USA and Canada, beginning with the classic film "Nanook of the North," discussing the photography of Edward Curtis, and tracing the creation of the Plains archetype of the romantic Indian. We will consider attempts by both Indians and non-Indians to offer complex versions of individual personalities and particular histories. The largest portion of the course will be devoted to Native Californians, their supposed disappearance, and actual survival. The story of "Ishi," thought to be North America's last "wild Indian," will offer a starting point for changing images of and by our state's native inhabitants. Readings will touch on Native Californian languages, cultures, arts, histories, and ongoing relations with the land.
A major goal of this course is to help us become more critical and informed interpreters of stories and images, particularly those associated with tribal groups during a century of violent conflict, disruption, and change. We will work to sharpen our viewing skills, paying attention to image, sound, framing, montage, narration. And we will work to become more aware of the historical relationships that make knowledge of different peoples necessary and difficult: messy, unequal relationships that implicate us as different readers and viewers.
Requirements: Attendance at lectures and evening screenings (probably two evenings, time to be arranged); active participation in weekly discussion sections; three short mid-term exams, several writing exercises; critical viewing notes on films, a take-home final (two 5-7 page essays). The final will include a choice of topics, drawing together issues and materials from the class. Students in good standing, in consultation with their TA or the instructor, may propose a topic for one of the essays and begin writing before the last week of classes when the final will be available. (No incompletes will be given except for a documented medical emergency.)
Texts: (on order at the Literary Guillotine Bookstore, downtown):
Required films and videos: