ENG : Theory of American Indian Literature Office: 208 Parker Hall. Spring :40 Parker 210 1:30-2:30; TR 2:30-3:30 and by appt.

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1 ENG : Theory of American Indian Literature Office: 208 Parker Hall Professor Joyce Office Hours: MW Spring :40 Parker 210 1:30-2:30; TR 2:30-3:30 and by appt. Course Description: This course focuses on theory in general, and the development of literary criticism of American Indian literature during the last twenty-five years of the American Indian literary renaissance. Beginning with an introduction to theory itself, and continuing with a consistent return to its principles throughout the course, students will study structuralism, semiotics and postmodernism, focusing on what these theories, based in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand Saussure, offer in terms of speaking and writing about literature, and how theory is distinguished from literary criticism. The major piece of literary criticism, Catherine Rainwater s Dreams of Fiery Stars, is a semiotic analysis of many important novels in the American Indian literary canon. Since this course is also appropriate as a literature course, students will read five major novels: Tracks, The Bingo Palace, Ceremony, Ghost Singer, and The Death of Jim Loney. In the process of reading Rainwater s semiotic/postmodern analysis, as well as the novels, students will consider the most discussed topics in American Indian literature and culture today: the problems of reading American Indian literature as history; literature as participating in the marketing of Indian history and culture; the possibility of the oral tradition in written work; cultural essentialism and the questions surrounding Indian authorship and Indian identity; and literature as central to tribal survival and tribal sovereignty. In addition, students will study and practice writing about theory what that process entails beyond writing about literary criticism. The novels and nearly all of the criticism are written by Native Americans, and were chosen so that we can hear Indian voices talk about themselves and their cultural histories and beliefs, who they believe themselves to be, and their challenge to Western theory and criticism of literature. English 410 is a theory/literature course designed for English majors. All students must have taken at least one 200-level literature course (preferably ENG 247: Readings in American Indian Studies); ENG 200: Literary Analysis; at least one 300-level literature course (preferably ENG 347: Modern American Indian Literature). ENG 101 is a prerequisite for all literature courses. This course, because of the writing and reading expectations, is not suitable for fulfilling the General Education literature requirement. Students who are not familiar with American Indian history should read a background book as soon as possible. I recommend Dee Brown s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An American Indian History (readily available at bookstores, libraries -- and used on Amazon.com for just a few dollars). The relationship between individual tribes and the US government, allusions to massacres and treaties, the effects of Indian education in the US and the reservation system, and the pursuit of tribal sovereignty, as well as many issues of oppression and colonization by Euroamericans, play a crucial part in the literature. Many parts of the novels will be a mystery for a reader without some knowledge of American Indian history and politics.

2 Required Texts Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Short Introduction (Oxford 1997) Catherine Rainwater, Dreams of Fiery Stars (U of PA Press 1999) Louise Erdrich, Tracks Erdrich, The Bingo Palace James Welch, The Death of Jim Loney Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony Anna Lee Walters, Ghost Singer and MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (latest edition). In Mason Stacks: Make yourself a copy of each of the following articles: Shari Huhndorf, Literature and the Politics of Native American Studies, PMLA (2005): Nancy Peterson, History, Postmodernism and Louise Erdrich s Tracks, PMLA 109 (October 1994): Susan Perez-Castillo, Postmodernism, Native American Literature and the Real: The Silko-Erdrich Controversy, Massachusetts Review 32 (Summer 1991): (HTML full text available on line) Student Learning Outcomes for 400-level literature courses: Attendance: I take attendance regularly, and I keep track of who contributes to the discussion on a particular day. Participating in class and taking careful notes are essential for writing the required papers. After 3 absences, a letter grade will be subtracted from the final grade for the course. After 6 absences, the student must drop the course. Some ground rules for the class: Just a reminder: in college classes, as in life in general, neatness, promptness, attentiveness, kindness, and enthusiasm all play a part in your evaluation. I expect that each student will purchase the books for this class, or be asked to drop the course. You must bring the novel(s) under discussion to class, along with the Rainwater text and Culler text, because we will work with these texts each day. Theory is abstract, and no one can expect to recall concepts without a book to refer to. Students who do not bring the texts to class will earn an absence for that day. The KSC Student Handbook speaks specifically under Student Responsibilities about taking learning seriously: attending class, being prepared, participating in class discussion, and completing work on time. About I don t sit at the computer most of the time, so I may not go into my online mail at regular intervals. I m happy to respond to your , but I have some rules. You are writing to an English teacher, so edit your s as you would a paper, using Standard American English. I promise you that I won t answer s that are written in some form of the English language that seems to

3 be popular online. If you want me to take you seriously, write to me in an earnest and acceptable way. This also means: don t write to me saying Hey Sally, unless I have invited you to use my first name. Even my cat calls me Dr. Joyce or Professor. Preparing for class discussion: As you read each assignment, make marginal notes on passages that you wish to discuss in class. Be ready to answer questions on the reading, or to ask questions that stimulate discussion and engage others in class in critical thinking about theory, literary criticism, or the novels. Because daily participation counts for 20% of the course grade, pay special attention to this course requirement; no student will earn more than 80 points toward the course grade without attention to this component. Evaluation: 4 Shorter writing assignments, averaged 40% Major seminar paper (15 pages) 40% Participation 20% For critical papers: A=95; AB=90; B=85; BC=80; C=75; CD=70; D=65; F=below 65; Scale for final grade: A=93 and above; AB=89-92; B=83-88; BC=79-82; C=73-78; CD=69-72; D=63-68; F=below 63. All critical papers must follow MLA format. Papers that do not demonstrate knowledge of this documentation will be returned without a grade for reformatting. Please read the Paper Evaluation page of the syllabus carefully. If you have a question about your grade on written work, before you come to see me, compare your written work to these standards. All work must be submitted to complete the course. Academic Honesty: All students will be held strictly accountable for adhering to Keene State College s policies regarding academic integrity (see both the College Catalog and Student Handbook). Academic dishonesty, whether intentional or not, will result in a failing grade for the course and a formal charge reported to the Dean of Arts and Humanities. Plagiarism is taken seriously at KSC. Be sure to read the section on Honesty in Written Work in the KSC Guide to Writing, a required text for all students in English 101. Every student at the College is responsible for understanding what plagiarism is and the penalties for turning in work that is plagiarized. Be very careful that: the work that you turn in responds to the assigned question or topic for papers any internet sources and/or literary criticism that you use are correctly cited (because I do check internet sources, and I also know most of the criticism on Indian literature it s not that large a field, and scholars know one another and their work) your work does not come from papers previously submitted in this or any other course (I keep copies of many of the papers submitted to me) Internet sources: Anonymous Internet sources are not reliable, and most of the time not scholarly. Use journal articles (these are often available on line) and books, and learn to

4 evaluate your sources. If you are compelled to use the Internet, use Academic Premier (through the Mason Library website). American Indian literature poses a particular problem with Internet sources, because you often can t tell if the writer of the material is an Indian or a reputable scholar of Indian literature and history, or if the writer has even met an Indian or gone to a reservation. This point holds true for other cultures; would you trust someone writing about the culture/literature of the Congo if the person had never come in contact with Congo folks??? Had never visited the culture? Note: Students who may need classroom accommodations are encouraged to make an appointment with Jane Warner or Jessica Bigai in the Office of Disability Services (x2353). Please meet with me during my office house so that we can collaborate with the Office of Disability Services to provide the appropriate accommodations and supports to assist you in meeting the goals of the course. Syllabus contemporary Native American narrative [is] a cross-cultural site replete with lessons for the attentive reader about semiotic practices involved in the ongoing production, or regeneration, of culture in its experiential as well as its textual forms. Dreams of Fiery Stars (155) Week 1 W 1/17 Introduction to the course Week 2 M 1/22 Culler, Literary Theory (1-41) W 1/24 Culler (42-68) Bressler, Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice (76-89 & : handout) Week 3 M 1/29 Continue discussion of Bressler Ceremony W 1/31 Culler (69-81) Paper #1 due Week 4 M 2/5 Culler (82-94)) W 2/7 Culler (94-end) Week 5 M 2/12 Huhndorf, Tracks W 2/14 Rainwater, A Universe Perfused with Signs (ix-xvii)

5 Paper #2 due Week 6 M 2/19 Rainwater, Acts of Deliverance: Narration and Power (1-17) W 2/21 Rainwater (17-35) Week 7 M 2/26 Perez-Castillo, Ghost Singer W 2/28 Peterson, Paper #3 due Week 8 M 3/5 Rainwater, Imagining the Stories: Narrativity and Solidarity (36-50) W 3/7 Rainwater (50-64) Week 9 Spring Break Week 10 M 3/19 Rainwater, Re-Signing the Self: Models of Identity And Community (65-82) The Bingo Palace Paper #4 due W 3/21 Rainwater (82-103) Week 11 M 3/26 Rainwater, They All Sang as One: Refiguring Space- Time ( ) W 3/28 Rainwater ( )

6 Week 12 M 4/2 The Death of Jim Loney W 4/4 Rainwater, All the Stories Fit Together: Intertextual Medicine Bundles and Twins ( ) Week 13 M 4/9 Rainwater (142-54) W 4/11 Week 14 M 4/16 Rainwater, All We Have Are Stories: Semiosis and Regeneration ( ) W 4/18 Week 15 M 4/23 W 4/25 Week 16 Exam Week Seminar Paper due Tuesday, May 1, between 10 and 2PM, in my office.

7 ENG 410: Theory Making Sense of Chapter 3 in Culler s Literary Theory: Literature and Cultural Studies (the underlining is mine, so don t quote from this handout; use the text) Understanding the question what is literature is deeply involved in understanding the nature of cultural studies, because cultural studies is deeply involved in debates about meaning, identity and representation (43), the 3 areas that literature has always focused on. Now, according to current thought and according to Culler, literature is one of the many signifying practices that comprise cultural studies, and is part of a broader concept, not something separate from other disciplines in terms of analysis. He says, cultural studies includes and encompasses literary studies, examining literature as a particular cultural practice (43). (In terms of how college/university departments are organized, we can ask very interesting academic/political questions...such as: will cultural studies further colonize American Indian studies, which is typically housed under either English or American Studies?) The history of cultural studies shows us what we focus on in cultural studies in other words, cultural studies has its own history: 1. from French structuralism: culture (including literature) [is] a series of practices whose rules and conventions can be described (43). 2. from Marxism: culture [including literature is] an expression of the people and an imposition on the people (44]. Literature, then, plays a part in upholding state power [meaning the oppressive actions of the government and capitalism in a Marxist sense]. Central question, then: are we manipulated by literature? Do we manipulate others when we read and teach literature? Of course, he argues. Culler says: Work in cultural studies has been particularly attuned to the problematical character of identity and to the multiple ways in which identities are formed, experienced, and transmitted (45), even through literature. As you can imagine, this issue is central to the study of American Indian literature, where the definition of American identity is challenged. But Culler goes on to say more; he argues that since literature never had just one approach anyway [making cultural studies different how?], the relationship between this new thing called cultural studies and literature must be described. Here s how he sees that relationship today. First, the relationship between cultural studies and the literary canon: 1. Cultural studies affects what we call the literary canon, reinvigorating the study of literature more readings of texts that have always been the big ones. At the same time, minor pieces haven t received the attention that they formerly did in courses such as surveys of literature of a time period.

8 2. Given the Marxist emphasis in cultural studies on oppression and marginalization, marginalized groups are included in literary studies in ways that they never were before. Now, the emphasis is on choosing works to represent a range of cultural experiences as well as a range of literary forms (49). This is still a literary canon issue. Second, he describes the issue under literature and cultural studies having to do with ways we analyze literature: 1. Many people worry that under cultural studies, the focus of the text is sociological rather than literary, and that analysis of literature becomes analysis of social concerns (current or past) rather than, say, metaphor. You can easily see how this would fit with American Indian literature with its deep emphasis on history. 2. Many people worry that people will use literature to explore some idea of a whole society some sort of totality where there isn t one (50). There really isn t a way to represent a complete social/ideological construct in any text. Finally, he tackles the issue of the goal of literature. Under cultural studies, does literature aim to reform readers in some way? Does it make a difference? (51) and eventually relate somehow to what a society or culture will become? Can literature somehow change the ongoing colonization of American Indians? (to relate the question to the literature we re reading). To answer this question, one has to develop some idea of what literature is it s part of theory and of philosophy, whether it s the general philosophy of reading or a more specific philosophy of teaching. Why teach literature and how to teach literature are central ideas in the discipline of literary study.

9 ENG 410: Theory Chapter 5: Rhetoric, Poetics and Poetry (69-81) Since the reification of rhetoric in the twentieth century, theorists have been very interested in rhetoric because of the way rhetoric studies the structuring powers of discourse (61). Culler discusses the possibility that there is a difference between figural language and what rhetoric calls tropes, saying that tropes and figures are essentially the same because they are fundamental structures of language, and as such they structure our ways of thinking about the world (71). Roman Jacobson, someone that many of you have heard of before as a person who has done a lot of work on language theory, says that metaphor and metonymy are the two basic structures of language: 1. metaphor: a structure that links through similarity 2. metonymy: a structure that links through contiguity metonymy links things in spatial and temporal series this should seem familiar to you, since Ceremony is an American Indian novel that has everything to do with space and time The basic structures through which we experience the world are metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony. These are the master tropes, although it s clear that he doesn t try to avoid sexist language; he says, there are basic structures of language which underlie and make possible the meanings produced in a wide variety of discourses (72). The Scandal of the Lyric (scandal: gossip; to scan: to observe closely) When the lyric rose to prominence as a genre between the 18 th and 20 th centuries, it was thought to be an expression giving concrete expression to the inward feelings of the individual subject (73). Well, maybe. But more currently, theorists prefer to talk about the lyric as about language and poetry itself than about a subjects inner feelings alone; it s more an experimenting with linguistic connections and formulations that makes poetry a disruption of culture (because of the experimenting with traditional linguistic forms and ideas) rather than the main repository of its values (73). Scandalous (in the other sense of the word: going against accepted codes, of morality, for example). What does that mean for American Indian literature? Culler insists on the separation of the speaker of the lyric from the poet, saying it is crucial to begin with a distinction between the voice that speaks and the poet who made the poem, thus creating this figure of voice (74). Here, of course, Culler is speaking in the same way as above, talking about a figure that can structure our experience of the world.

10 There are many poems that make us wonder what kind of speaker would speak in the way she/he does in the poem, however. Culler wonders what non-poetic act [would she] be performing (75). If poems are, he says, imitating some speech act, it must be that of imitating poetry (75). Culler says that a major problem for the theory of poetry is the relation between the poem as a structure of words and the poem as an event (77). What does he mean? Apostrophes, or any trope/figure of speech do 2 things: they try to make something happen in a poem and, at the same time, expose that the happening is a verbal device. So a lyric is the most literary of all forms. It shows us the hypothetical core of literature, narrative and meaning in their literal aspect as word-order and word-pattern lyric shows us meaning or story emerging from verbal patterning (77). The paragraph on 79, which I m not going to type here, is the key. It explains the connection of all the foregoing material to the theory of semiotics: the relation between the signifier and the signified. This paragraph shows the arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified, so make a note in your book to remember this paragraph!