NAIS 31 Indians in American Literature
Indians are uncanny absences in the American narrative and yet persistent fixtures in our national literature from its origins to the present day. This course examines the pervasive appearance of the seductive, strange, and evolving Indian figure in works by prominent American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, and Toni Morrison. We will explore the shifting and ideological role of the Indian as tragic emblem, savage defender, spiritual ally, and modern foil. We will explore the complicated ways that the literary Indian has served to both authenticate and trouble the nation's founding narratives and desires, and more recently, to stand as a mythical antidote to postmodern crises of value, economics, ecology, and spirituality. We will consider the appeal of such tropes in particular regional and historical contexts, such as the Reconstruction South, as well as racial or ethnic ones, such as the African American appropriation of Indian resistance, nobility, and genealogies.