Studies in Native American and Indigenous Literatures (374-0-20)

Topic

Writing from Memory

Instructors

Mere Marina Taito

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-343: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Memory is an enduring and powerful source of inspiration for Indigenous storytelling. However, it can also be deeply controversial and contentious. In his creative non-fiction essay titled "Beauty & Memory & Abuse & Love", Navajo author Bojan Louis offers a cutting take on memory by an anonymous Blackfeet writer: "You never ask a Native to talk about their childhood. That's Indigenous 101. You think life on the reservation is pretty? Fuck that. Natives never talk about their childhood". From a similar place of tension and discomfort, Kanaka 'Ōiwi writer Nālani Mattox prefaces her poem "1 page per life" with this memory: "For the mainland English teacher who flunked me in English Literature in the summer of 1978 at UH. She cost me my graduation with the rest of my class in June 1980. Thank God she was only visiting". Seared in her mind and body, this memory, she writes in the last line of her poem, "haunted" her forever. In both examples, memory is unsettling; yet both Louis and Mattox have transformed these memories to create Indigenous texts and stories. This course asks: Beyond the mind and body, what are other sites of intergenerational memory accessible to Native American and Indigenous writers? How do they navigate a complex phenomenon like memory across these various sites? What types of texts do they produce within their chosen location(s) of memory?

Evaluation Method

Students will produce critical and analytical reflections of the way selected writers have reconfigured memory to create compelling Indigenous stories. Students will also select one memory site and produce a creative and critical response to their chosen site of memory, referring particularly to selected class texts.

Class Materials (Required)

This class will be organised into three sections that explore Indigenous writing from three different sites of memory: 1. Body and mind. 2. Archival texts. 3. Tangible artifacts. Each section will focus on Native American and Indigenous texts that respond to these various sites of memory.

These texts include but are not limited to Whereas Layli Long Soldier (2017), Shapes of Native Nonfiction (2019) Eds: Washuta and Warburton, Postcolonial Love Poem Natalie Diaz (2020), No Country for Eight-spot Butterflies (2022) Julian Aguon, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir (2024) Deborah Miranda, Paper Cuts (2024) Jim Terry, and An Ocean of Wonder: The Fantastic in the Pacific (2024) Eds: Bacchilega, ho‘omanawanui, and Warren.

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration -- Reserved for English students.