Special thanks to Layli Long Soldier and Nick Estes; in memory of Haunani Kay Trask
Intro to Indigenous Studies
Today's workshop aims to introduce you to Indigenous Studies, an interdisciplinary field of study that centers the knowledges, priorities, aspirations and lived experiences of Indigenous peoples locally, nationally and internationally (definition). Today's workshop is not comprehensive. Additional resources are available through Bard College's American and Indigenous Studies Program.
Highly recommended (not required): Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 at the Hessel Museum of Art. In the exhibition, song, dance, and music are presented as a basis for collectivity and resistance and a means to look back to a time when Native traditional ceremony and public gatherings were illegal in both the United States and Canada. In addition to artworks, the exhibition includes important archival material documenting the emergence of the New Native Theater movement in Santa Fe in 1969 as well as materials directly related to the early self-determination era. Work by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists (more).
Overview
Session #3: Rostrum Lecture
Session #1: Poetry as Political Action
Agenda
Count off by seven, create groups
Choose one poem to explore as a group (click on link below color rectangle for entire poem)
Find space outside of classroom as a group; read poem silently
Read poem aloud, taking turns. What imagery comes to mind?
Create a poem either individually or as a group, inspired by this experience
Bracket & Share
Session #2: Writing from Images
On the night of July 3, 2021, a small group of activists made their way to the Hawaiʻi State Capitol, where they projected the words “WE ARE NOT AMERICAN” onto the large metal state seal hanging from the side of the building. The photo of the projection that they posted the next day on social media foregrounded the statue of Queen Liliʻuokalani, such that she appears to also be gazing at these words. Haunani-Kay Trask first proclaimed “We are not American” on January 17, 1993, the centennial of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, in a speech before more than twenty thousand people at ʻIolani Palace. Following four generations of intensive Americanization in Hawaiʻi, Trask’s speech had a profound and immediate impact, angering those who identified as American or feared repercussions against Hawaiian communities, while inspiring others who struggled under American colonialism to organize and become more politically and culturally engaged to work toward decolonization.
Haunani-Kay Trask passed away on July 3, 2021, leaving all those who knew her and learned from her scholarship, poetry, and activism in grief. Her words, insight, and impact, however, remain with us in Hawaiʻi, with refusals of Americanness along with the insistence that Hawaiʻi is a sovereign nation, and thus separate and distinct from the US. Today, almost three decades after her speech, most if not all scholarship in Hawai'ian studies frames Hawaiʻi as an illegally occupied and / or colonized country. Yet, outside Hawaiʻi, little attention has been paid to our refusals to identify as American, or to our questioning of the legitimacy of US claims to Hawaiʻi given its violations of international (and US domestic) law to annex Hawaiʻi as a territory. (American Quarterly, ASA)
Agenda
Writing from Images
Watch: Haunani-Kay Trask speech, Jan 17, 1993. [Transcript generated via YouTube]
In groups of three, we will craft and answer three collaborative questions about this speech
Key Detail (10 min): Locate an important and singular moment in the text that seems worth further investigation; aim for the smallest possible unit. Craft a question that will help us to think more deeply about this moment in the text and begin to consider how it may fit into a bigger picture.
Formal Feature (10 min): Locate a recurring stylistic move or structure that the authore mploys throughout the text. Referring specifically to this repeating move, craft a question that will help us to think about the way the medium of the text impacts or relates to its message.
Overarching Question (10 min): Locate a larger idea the text seems to circle/explore/take up. Frame a question about that larger idea that seeks reflective understanding about the text– that is, find a few phrases that resonate with a concern of the text. It might be useful to think of this as a question that the text has for us (instead of a question we have for the text).
Exchange Questions (10 min): Groups share their three questions online via discussion forum or shared Google Docs. Students can then be invited to answer another group’s questions either in the same groups or individually. The goal is to involve students in the process of asking various levels of questions of a text, as well as working together to respond to questions posed. If students respond to these questions individually, this might be a first step towards a longer essay or assignment.
Large group share out: how did this exercise feel? What did you learn?
Boarding Schools
Special thanks to Nick Estes and The Red Nation
Watch: Nick Estes, Indian Boarding Schools Were Part of "Horrific Genocidal Process" by the U.S.
Read David A. Robertson, Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story [graphic novel excerpt]
Complete KWL Chart
Session #3: Rostrum Lecture
Layli Long Soldier: Presentation and Reading Friday, August 18 (2:00 pm - 3:30 pm)
Layli Long Soldier will give a reading and presentation that reflects upon her essay, “Now You Will Listen,” which is included in the 2023 Language and Thinking Anthology.
Layli Long Soldier earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA with honors from Bard College. She is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and the full-length collection Whereas (2017), which won the National Books Critics Circle award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has been a contributing editor to Drunken Boat and poetry editor at Kore Press; in 2012, her participatory installation, Whereas We Respond, was featured on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In 2015, Long Soldier was awarded a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. She was awarded a Whiting Writer’s Award in 2016. Layli Long Soldier is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Agenda
Layli Long Soldier, “Now You Will Listen”
We'll walk over together, please bring notebook and writing utensil (please let me know accessibility needs so I can support you / make alt arrangements as needed)
During lecture, we will practice Active Listening:
everyone is concentrating fully on the speaker
take notes of words and phrases you find compelling in your notebook
Homework: Draft #1 of Essay in Miniature due on Monday (typed and printed as hard copy before class) for feedback workshop #2
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