RFLA 100H 06 - Native American Media/Culture (CRN 10599)

Through critical analysis of representation and the ways Native- and non-Native-created texts (film, digital video, television, radio, print media, art, literature) have contributed to the construction of racial and ethnic identities, this course specifically addresses how contemporary Indigenous peoples reclaim textual production to (in)form identity, reconstruct the past, revitalize culture, and assert sovereignty and treaty rights. Course foundations address American Indian prehistory, the European colonial period, and the American period of American Indian history and experience. The course broadly confronts how a variety of media texts and traditions intersect with questions of race, ethnicity, and other identity categories, how such texts have engaged with diversity and marginalization, class and inequality, and how they may affect identity formations and relations. Assignments address the demonstration of information and media literacies and written competencies. Students will also create short video diaries-expressive autobiographical pieces exploring some aspect of their own identities and/or experiences.