NAIS 22 Native American Lives
In the past, American Indian history and experience have usually been taught through the lens of the dominant culture, while ignoring the accounts that Indian people have presented in their own words. This course will examine some key issues in Native American history and culture reflected in the biographies and autobiographies of individual American Indians. Their life stories, some contemporary and some historical, will help us understand the forces affecting the world of Native people, and how they shaped their own lives in response. Many early (auto)biographies are "as-told-to" narratives. Consequently, as a point of methodology, we will take time to consider the role, motives, and the effect of the amanuensis (the recorder of an oral narrative) on the story, and as a non-Native mediator of Native experience. Open to all classes.