Shannon Epplett (Instructional Assistant Professor, School of Theatre and Dance, Illinois State University)
November 21, 2023
Native Americans are nearly invisible in K–12 and higher education curricula, but popular media offers a way to center Native America in the present and teach what anthropology and history cannot: how it feels to be Native in the present. This is a case study of efforts to increase Native representation and decolonize the curriculum by leveraging student interest and engagement in pop culture and new media.
This webinar will explore using TV series like Reservation Dogs and books such as Angeline Boulley’s The Firekeeper’s Daughter in the classroom to teach contemporary Native American culture within predominantly white institutions. Through social media, rock music, comic books, visual art, film and television students learn about Native cultures, history, and current events, as well as come to understand more complex and nuanced issues of identity, sovereignty, survivance, and futurity through the lens of popular art and culture, and new media (…that they also happen to enjoy).
By focusing on the storytelling and creative output of contemporary Native people, rather than clinical, historicizing, and often settler-authored and Eurocentric pedagogies, this approach builds empathy and understanding in students who frequently have no previous engagement or encounter with Native cultures.
Webinar Resources
The resources below provide supporting research for the webinar theme.
Required Resources
- Schilling, Vincent. “The True Story of Pocahontas: Historical Myths Versus Sad Reality.” Indian Country Today, September 8, 2018. This sets up the myth vs. reality of how Native people are portrayed in popular media. The true story behind Pocahontas is awful.
- “INAATE/SE/.” 2016. I will go through a lesson plan that is based in Anishinaabe myth and culture, and show how contemporary filmmakers used the source material to create the film Inaate/Se.
- Vox. “How the US Stole Thousands of Native American Children.” October 14, 2019. I will cover a lesson plan focused on boarding schools using the film and novel Indian Horse. This is some background on boarding schools in the US.
- LaPier, Rosalyn. “Canada’s Oka Crisis Marked a Change in How Police Use Force.” High Country News, July 21, 2020. I will cover a lesson on indigenous sovereignty and identity using the 2021 film Beans, which takes place during the Oka crisis in Quebec in 1990. This is background on the incident.
- CBC News: The National. “OKA Crisis: How It Started.” September 24, 2015. This is more background on the Oka crisis.
- TVO Today, The Agenda. “Tracey Deer: Telling Indigenous Narratives through Film.” June 21, 2021. This is an interview with filmmaker Tracey Deer on her experiences during the Oka crisis.
Additional Resources
Consult this mini-syllabus for additional suggestions of further reading and resources on topics discussed in this webinar.
Subjects
Education Studies / Film and Media / Indigenous Americans / Indigenous Cultures of the Americas / Mass Media / Popular Culture / Survivance / Decolonization / Reservation Dogs / Firekeeper's Daughter / United Kingdom /
Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.