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The English Department's main office is in Muenzinger D110.

ENGL 4697: Special Topics in Multicultural and Ethnic American Literature

Movie theater seats

This course explores contemporary Native American film by directors from an extensive range of tribal nations, geographies, and genders across time and space.  We鈥檒l look at early films of the silent era by the first Native director like James Young Deer (Delaware), including White Fawn鈥檚 Devotion (1910), consider American Indian filmmaking and presence in TV and film of the 1950s and 1960s, and then move to the mainstream splash Smoke Signals (1998) by Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapahoe), which first put Native American directors on the figurative 鈥渕ap.鈥  From there we鈥檒l move to a host of independent and experimental films by Indigenous directors on both sides of the U.S./Canadian border, from films like Jeff Barnaby鈥檚 horror creations like Rhymes with Ghouls (2013) and Shelley Niro鈥檚 experimental works like The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw (2019) to speculative film such as Helen Haig-Brown鈥檚 ?E?ANX/The Cave (2009) (Tsilqot鈥檌n) and documentaries by Terry Jones (Seneca) and others, including a guest lecture with Iroquois corn soup by Jones.  The semester wraps up with a student film project, utilizing skills of editing, montage, and narratology, in order to develop a full appreciation for the work that directors perform.

Provides advanced in-depth study of literatures written by ethnic American authors. Texts may be drawn from a range of African-American, Chicano/a, Latino/a, Asian American, Native American or Indigenous literature traditions. Topics vary each semester.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: 
Requisites: Restricted to students with 57-180 credits (Juniors or Seniors).
Additional Information:Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities
Arts Sci Gen Ed: Diversity-U.S. Perspective
Departmental Category: Multicultural and Gender Studies

Taught by Penny Kelsey.