COURSE DESCRIPTION
Native America once comprised one of the most diverse cultural areas in the world.  Today Native Americans are members of what is called the ‘Fourth World’, or the indigenous peoples living in/alongside modern nation-states. This course explores Native North Americans by looking at how Indian peoples traditionally lived, and how they have survived, struggled, and changed since the arrival of Europeans and others to the Americas.  We will examine three themes: cultural origins and diversity, Native American histories, and modern Indian identity.  The overarching idea for these topics is to understand how Native Americans live simultaneously within and outside modernity, and what we can learn from their marginal presence about how minorities live in the contemporary world.
 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
READINGS/FILMS
There are THREE BOOKS required for the course listed below.  These are available at the Hofstra Bookstore.  In addition, there are a handful of REQUIRED ARTICLES that will be available through the Hofstra library on e-reserve: http://eres.hofstra.edu/.  The e-reserve code is anth101.  The titles and due dates for these articles will be listed on the course schedule to be handed out separately.  Finally, I will be showing TWO FEATURE-LENGTH FILMS on campus in the evenings dealing with Native American topics.  These films are required for the course.  It is mandatory that you attend these showings or, otherwise, make time to see these films on your own.  I will be canceling our regular meetings the day of the showings to accommodate this out-of-class required time.

BOOKS
Native North America, by Larry J. Zimmerman and Brian Leigh Molyneaux. Little Brown & Co, 1997.
The Montaukett Indians of Eastern Long Island, by John A. Strong. Syracuse University Press, 2001.
Against Culture: Development, Politics, and Religion in Indian Alaska by Kirk Dombrowski, University of Nebraska Press, 2001.

FILMS
Last of the Mohicans, 1992, Michael Mann, dir.
Smoke Signals, 1998, Chris Eyre, dir.

MIDTERM EXAMS will be given in class (October 7 and November 4).  They will follow a short-answer format and be based on material from both the lectures and readings.  Short answers are 3-4 sentence responses that require defining and applying key terms and/or producing statements on the meanings and relations of certain ideas and arguments relevant to understanding modern Native Americans.  You will be given a choice of questions to choose from in each section.  These exams are not cumulative, and we will review for each exam in class.

The FINAL EXAM is a take-home essay exam due during our regular final exam meeting time, December 16 at 1:30 pm.  You will prepare two essay responses based on a close reading of Against Culture.  Essays will be 2-3 paragraphs in length and draw extensively from the book as well our class discussion on the problems of modern Indian identity.  The questions will refer to specific passages in the book which you will explain and elaborate in your discussion.

GROUP RESEARCH PROJECTS will be presented and turned in at the end of the semester.  These involve groups of 2 or 3 students working together to prepare a comprehensive review of a contemporary problem of modernization with which specific living Native Americans are dealing.  Papers will be 10 pages in length and are due the last day of class.  10-minute presentations are scheduled for the last week of class.  The grade assigned will apply to all members of the group.

Modernization identifies the transition from traditional to modern ways of living.  This can involve almost any aspect of life from subsistence to religion, but it almost always involves struggle as people work to define how to mitigate the influence of modernity in their lives.  The sorts of problems you will investigate will be issues defined by the legal, political, social, and economic experiences of being a modern Indian.  While the details of the problem may be basic such as a land claim dispute with local Whites or the end of traditional marriage rituals, the purpose of your assignment is to complicate the issue by articulating both the Indian and non-Indian perspectives involved.

The main purpose of this assignment is to practice putting the struggles of others into your own words.  Thus, you need to research the problem thoroughly, describe it from multiple perspectives, and do so without introducing the biases that typically lead to the very intercultural confusions and conflicts that make being Indian a problem today.

There are various due dates for this assignment.

• You need to form your group by September 28 (you will turn the names of the members of your group)
• You must have your topic picked out by October 19 (you will turn in a brief written description).
• Your group will meet with me to show me your progress by November 11.
• You will make a presentation of your findings to the class on December 7 or 9.
• The written paper is due December 9.

Part 1. Cultural Origins and Diversity (September 7 – October 7)
To understand modern Indians the first step is to recognize the vast cultural diversity that the term Native American encompasses.  There are over 2 million Native Americans living as members of hundreds of recognized and unrecognized Indian Nations or Tribes, each with their own distinct histories, practices, beliefs, and goals.  This section will consider this diversity most specifically through a set of case studies devoted to some of the more well-known Indian groups in North America.

• The peopling of the Americas
• The study of diversity and culture
• Examples of Indian cultural groups

o The Inuit
o The Lakota
o The Kwakiutl
o The Hopi

Part 2. Native American Histories (October 12 to November 4)
In this section we will look at how Native Americans have survived one of the most brutal onslaughts of cultural domination in history.  Through disease, warfare, deception, and other forms of violence, the first Americans were almost completely eradicated by European settlers and their descendants. We will be reading the case study of the Montaukett Indians who have lived through this history at the far east end of Long Island.  We will supplement this with examples of other histories of Indian-White relations.

• Colonization and trade
• Missionaries and government agents
• Dispossession: Wars, Treaties, and Reservations
• Claims for Identity

Part 3. Indian Identities (November 9 to December 2)
One of the most pressing issues for Native Americans today is the struggle for recognition as people living in the same world as the dominant cultures that surround them and impose on their ways of life.  This struggle has promoted a great deal of work for anthropologists who have realized that they are in fact part of the problem.  In order to define their research anthropologists typically treat Indians as an other, a group separate from the world where the anthropologist resides.  Against Culture is an ethnographic case study based on research done in Alaska among the Tlingit-Haida peoples framed in a new light.  This book defines how to see Indians living in the modern world as people simultaneously within and against what the modern world has to offer.

• Wannabes and anthropologists
• Labor and politics
• The problem of culture for Indian people
• Religions: ancient and modern
• Culture and history

I want you to succeed in my class. To do so, you need to stay current with the readings, come to class, and make sure you understand what I am talking about.  To help you avoid simple mistakes, the following provides my policy on the basic issues.

ATTENDANCE
You are responsible for the material both in the readings and the lectures.  While it is your choice to perform or not, if you are not in class I cannot do my job for you as a teacher.  Coming to class allows you to consider and discuss the material and see how I am thinking about it.  Missing class will leave you short-handed when it comes time for exams and the research project and ultimately will affect my assessment of your grade.

I will take role every class and record your absences.  If you miss class for any reason, please produce a written excuse so that I can keep it with my records.  I allow only 3 unexcused absences before I take points off your final grade.

MISSED EXAMS
If for any reason you need to miss a scheduled exam I require written notification in advance.  If an unforeseen problem arises you must contact me in person, by phone, or email within 24 hours of the exam and provide documentation of the problem by the next class.  I will be very selective about giving make-ups.  You have the class schedule, so check your schedule now. Conflicts that could have been avoided will be disregarded.

LATE PAPERS
The biggest problem with late papers is that it is unfair to the other students who turn theirs in on time.  Why should you get extra time?  As a rule late papers will lose 10% of the grade for each day they are late.  It is possible to fail by being late.  If you need extra time please clear it with me.  As with other issues, the excuses need documented support and worthiness.  You have the schedule, don’t caught unprepared.
 

• GROUP PROJECTS
One point of doing the research projects in groups is to allow you to share the load and the responsibility of finding, researching, and presenting your topic.  I expect that you will be fair to your partners and not shirk your responsibilities to the group.  If I sense that you are not doing your fair share I will deduct points from your grade, despite the overall quality of the project as a whole.

• PLAGIARISM
You need to be very careful that you turn in your own work.  You are free to use any sources for your research, but you must cite your sources completely and accurately.   I will circulate referencing guidelines separately.  If there is any evidence that you have turned in work that is not your own you will fail the assignment, no questions asked.