HIST-LIT 90DJ: From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: Native America in the Twentieth Century

Instructor: Chris Clements
Meeting time: Monday, 9:45 - 11:45

This course will explore various forms of Native American cultural and political production in the twentieth century. Drawing on fiction, film, historical documents, documentaries, photographs, nonfiction, and memoirs, this class will explore the ways in which Indigenous people have articulated both belonging and separateness from the United States. In addition to its focus on key aspects of modern indigenous culture and politics—sovereignty, self-determination, decolonization, anti-racism, gender equality, and land claims, to name a few—we will also consider broader conceptual questions. What, for example, is the relationship between indigeneity and modernity? Does the twentieth century mark a distinct break from the first four hundred years of Native-settler history? How does settler colonialism intersect with other forms of oppression? And, why have events like Wounded Knee II and Standing Rock gained support from wider, non-indigenous publics while issues like police brutality against Native people and the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) have not?

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