Native American Studies
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/51
The Department of Native American Studies was established to provide and advance quality education for and about American Indians of Montana, the region, and the nation. In fulfilling this mission, the Department is committed to meet the changing needs of Montana's Indian tribes and all Montana citizens through excellence in teaching, research, and service. In its academic program, the department provides concentrated study through an undergraduate minor, the first online graduate certificate in Native American Studies offered, and a Master of Arts degree in Native American Studies. Students in any major can also gain a multicultural perspective through NAS offerings in the University's core curriculum. The Department, through its research and other creative efforts, actively pursues interdisciplinary scholarship in the field of Native American Studies.
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Item The voice of a generation : an exploration of Lena Dunham's multi-modal personae(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2016) Lynch, Torrey Rae; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Linda KarellLena Dunham has been coined as the voice of the Millennial generation. Her multi-modal career, varying from her HBO sitcom Girls, best-selling memoir Not That Kind of Girl, to her online website/e-newsletter Lenny, has provided Dunham a platform to discuss her opinions on political, economic, and social issues, specifically pertaining to the feminist discourse. What becomes problematic in positioning a figure to represent an entire generation is it, consequently, silences and continues to marginalize the voices she is intended to represent. Particularly focusing on her memoir Not That Kind of Girl, and her website/e-newsletter Lenny, I view Dunham's personae as a microcosm for the larger issues I find in third-wave feminism and the Millennial generation.Item A pedagogoy of stewardship : discourse, theory, and emotion in teaching literature(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2002) Lagerwey, Sandra JeanItem The Power to Speak and Listen: Democratic Pedagogies for American Literature Classrooms(2005-05) Petrone, Robert; Gibney, R.Item Composition and aleche : Native American education, scholarship and the pedagogy of John Dewey(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2005) Jenkins, Nathan Joseph; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Kirk BranchThis thesis approaches the historical and contemporary education of Native Americans in order to analyze and combat the American academic system's failure to educate Native students. The chapters cover 1) boarding schools aims and student resistance, 2) problems still faced by Native American students, and 3) possible solutions to these problems. Chapters 1 and 2 give an overview of history and research done by educators and scholars. Chapter 3 is a combination of suggestions by educators of Native students and John Dewey. The first sections demonstrate problems and voids in academia, and the final section attempts to show practical and realistic methods for correcting institutional mistakes and/or ignorance which result in high attrition rates. Dewey's pedagogy succinctly breaks down and challenges academic ideology, while at the same time challenging educators with progressive methods. The thesis challenges not only the error of conventional education, but also how education gets defined and placed upon Native students. Also recognized in this thesis, are those areas where an academic self-examination demonstrates difficult, or problematic, areas and situations, where the black and white, or binaries, of education, are not easily noticed, nor navigated by the student or the teacher. In general, the aim of the discussion is to further democratic methods in Native American education by literally bringing those students into consideration, and to look at what we do in academia in light of the past, present, and future, within an unbroken link of time and pedagogy.Item Exercising influence, hoping for change : Sara Orne Jewett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Zitkala-Sa negotiate feminism at the turn of the century(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2007) Feusahrens, Ellen Teresa; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Amy ThomasBy the mid 1800s, American feminism began gaining momentum. Politicians, scientists, and clergymen all responded to the evolving call for reforms. More and more people adopted the view that women were oppressed by a male-centered society, and most women were isolated within the home. Women writers belonged to a small group of women whose voices had cultural weight and they had to negotiate between the demands of their writing and audience and their involvement and interest in the women's movement. At the turn of the century, Sarah Orne Jewett, Zitkala-Ša, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman each had their respective audiences and expectations, and each woman had to balance her writing and her interest in the debate over women's role in society.Item Teaching for social justice in the writing classroom : exploring possibilities(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2011) Bullard, Lisa Marie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Lisa EckertThis project attempts to answer one tiny part of a life-long question: how do people influence others to care about social justice? To narrow this question down, I focused on the classroom as a potential site for change, and researched pedagogical practices and classroom materials that could help teachers achieve a goal of teaching for social justice. Using Action Research, I examined the effect of using learner-centered teaching methods and relevant social justice themed content with my Writing 101 students, to assess if they would be influenced to care about a specific social justice issue. Students examined the dominant use of "Standard English" in the classroom, and the effect that can have on students who do not speak "Standard English" as their home language. I asked students to question whose language is allowed in the classroom, whose is not allowed, and who decides whose language gets to be spoken. I administered a pre and post survey, collected student writing, and used my observations to assess results. I found that many students in the course did shift their opinions. It appeared that using "adult learning centers" along with a variety of other teaching methods contributed to students' shifting opinions. This study adds to the small body of knowledge about teaching practices and materials that work towards social justice, but also points to the need for more qualitative research in this area.Item The place of story and the story of place : how the convergence of text and image marks the opening of a new literary frontier(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2007) Lynn, Marie Elizabeth; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Susan KollinWhile certain scholars are lamenting that literature has become less relevant in these postmodern times, I have found that this is not at all the case. What is actually happening is that literature is the process of change, due in no small part to our blossoming visual culture. Interweaving Native American and dominant culture literatures, this document explores the ways narrative has historically played a critical role, not only in constructing human identity, but also in defining our relationship with place. More recently, new literary hybrids, with various degrees of intertwining text with image, are proliferating. These literatures of image are propelling us beyond postmodernism into a new era.Item Lolita last star : a theoretically informed narrative of survivance(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2010) Young, Micaela Marie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Greg Keeler; Susan Kollin (co-chair)Common missteps by non-Native writers lead to literary representations of Native Americans as tragic figures slumping towards inevitable annihilation, as museum Indians and simulations of the real, mystical and noble "savages," (yes, this still occurs in contemporary film and literature), or simply as inactive members of contemporary life. Authors also attempt to unveil and profit from sensitive spiritual and personal secrets, and offer explanations that do not match reality, leading to grave offenses, and the continuation of harmful stereotypes. In this respect, Lolita Last Star intentionally avoids discussions of spiritual and cultural traditions, or the actual personal lives of "real life" people, because these areas are guarded for good reasons, and instead focuses on native presence in contemporary American life, in the surprisingly complex, globalized space of the Rocky Mountain West. In other words, the final product is a narrative of Survivance; a concept first explored academically by Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor, in his book Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance. Survivance, I would argue along with many others, may not be as theoretically complex as it first appears. At its most basic level, "Survivance is a practice, not an ideology, dissimulation, or a theory." The concept of Survivance only becomes difficult when we look to the spectrum of responses to conditions that inspire the need to do more than survive. Survivance is coping, but it is also subversion, creation, amusement, ingenuity, reimagining, the provision of new explanations, and recapturing one's own destiny. The characters and their actions in Lolita Last Star respond in illustrations of full human vibrancy that transcend space and time, definitions, borders, accusations of authenticity, oppression, domination, petty moralities, victimry, and they move us all one step closer to self-sovereignty and human dignity. They show that if anything westerners contain cultural universes and are better for it. The only frauds are the people too scared to step out of their narrow focus of what a westerner, an Indian, a firefighter, or a cowboy is. They are never afraid to ask, "Where the hell are we supposed to go from here?"