Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies
Graduate Student Summer Institute at the Newberry Library
July 26-August 20, 2010
“Teasing Indian Agency, Tribal Voice, and Persistence from the Record”
Professor Cary Miller, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Department of History
Professor David Beck, University of Montana, Department of Native American Studies
This institute will examine Indian responses to federal Indian policy in the 19th and 20th centuries
with a focus on the roles that tribal leaders and tribes played in shaping that policy. Despite the
handicap of working from positions of weakness through much of this time period, tribal leaders
worked hard, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to proactively and reactively shape the futures
of their communities in political, social and economic terms. Teasing Indian agency and voice from
the record can be difficult, but is not only possible, but increasingly central to studies of tribal
communities and individuals. Students will be encouraged to find ways to incorporate Indian agency,
tribal voice, and tribal persistence into their own work, no matter the subject or time period.
This intensive four-week seminar will begin with two weeks of common readings, tapering gradually
as research takes a larger proportion of time towards the end of the second week. Students will use
the Newberry collections to respond to issues raised by readings in the first half of the course.
Throughout the Institute films germane to our theme will be screened at the Newberry in the late
afternoon or early evening as scheduling allows. These are required viewing for discussions.
The instructors intend for the workload to be equivalent to a semester’s, enabling students to
arrange independent study credit through their campus faculty. A research essay of 20-30 pages will
be required.
*N.B. Readings should be copied by the student and brought to seminar for discussion. Because the
Newberry does not have the copying resources for an entire Institute participants are asked print out
copies of articles accessed through JSTOR and other online databases, and the pdf files we will send
to you via email. In some cases websites are listed in the syllabus. You are required to purchase (or
check out from your university library) the following books:
Frederick Hoxie’s Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices in the Progressive Era;
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, The State of the Native Nations;
John W. Hall Uncommon Defense,
Jackson, Donald, ed. Black Hawk: An Autobiography,
Brenda Child, Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families 1900-1940,
Daniel Cobb, Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty,
Warren Metcalf, Termination’s Legacy: The Discarded Indians of Utah,
David Wilkins, American Indian Sovereignty and the US Supreme Court: The Making of Justice
REQUIREMENTS:
•Attendance and active participation in discussions
•20-30 page research paper (Working bibliography of primary and secondary sources due August 2)
Pre-circulated discussion questions: Each member of the seminar is required to prepare up to
three questions about that week’s readings and to circulate them to that week’s discussion instigator
and to the instructors by 8:00 pm the night before our seminar meeting. Your questions should
address ideas, themes, and/or issues that emerged for you in that week’s readings that you would
like to see the group discuss. Your questions should focus on what you find interesting,
provocative, difficult, or intriguing. Questions that seek to connect themes across the readings are
especially welcome.
Discussion instigation: Each member of the seminar will be responsible for “instigating” one of
our discussions. “Instigators” will collate the questions submitted by seminar participants, select
(anonymously) a set of questions that promise to guide our discussions in fruitful directions, and
circulate them to the group the day of our meeting. The role of the instigator is to provide a starting
point for our conversations and to provide questions that will keep our discussions on track, rather
than to lead a discussion from start to finish.
Meetings: Meetings with Instructions are required. The intent of these meetings is to give you
guidance on your independent projects. The meetings on the 4th will focus on your working
bibliography and the meetings on the 16th and 17th will be with both instructors where we will
workshop your rough draft with you individually.
GRADING:
Attendance/participation: 15%
Working bibliography: 10%
Pre-circulated questions/discussion instigation: 10%
Draft of paper 10%
Preliminary Presentation 5%
Final Presentation 10%
Research paper: 40%
WEEK ONE
July 26: 9:00 – 12:00: Discussion: What is American Indian Studies?
2:00 – 3:00: Newberry library protocol and overview of collections
3:00-4:00: Introduction to the Ayer Collection
Readings:
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, “Who Stole American Indian Studies?” Wicazo Sa Review, 12.1 (1997) 9-28.
Philip J. Deloria, “Historiography,” in Deloria and Neal Salisbury, eds., A Companion to American
Indian History, (London & New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), 6-24.
Peter Nabokov, “Introduction: Short History of American Indian Historicity,” and Chapter One,
“Some Dynamics of American Indian Historicity,” A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of
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History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1-57.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. New York: Zed
Books, 1999. Introduction, pp. 1-18. Google Books http://tinyurl.com/23233wl
Clifton, James A. “The Tribal History – an Obsolete Paradigm” American Indian Culture and Research
Journal 3:4 (1979): 81-100.
Allen, Charlotte. “Spies Like Us: When Sociologists Ignore Their Subjects,” Lingua Franca, the
Reivew of Academic Life (November, 1997), 31-39.
July 27: 9:00 – 12:00: Discussion: History without Text & the Place of the Artifact
2:00pm
Library Tour
3:00pm
Wifi setup
Readings:
Janet D. Spector, “Archaeology and Empathy,” in What this Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a
Wahpeton Dakota Village (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1993), 1-18.
Scott Manning Stevens, “Cultural Mediations: Or How to Listen to Lewis and Clark’s Indian
Artifacts,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 31.7 (2007) 181-202.
Amanda Cobb, “The National Museum of the American Indian as Cultural Sovereignty,” American
Quarterly 57.2 (2005) 485-506.
Amy Lonetree, “Missed Opportunities: Reflections on the NMAI,” The American Indian Quarterly
30:3&4 (2006) 632-645.
Lewis, G. Malcolm. “Maps, Mapmaking and Map Use by Native Americans.” In The History of
Cartography, vol. 2, book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic,
Australian and Pacific Societies, ed. J. B. Harley and David Woodward. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1998. 51-93.
July 28: 9:00 – 12:00 Discussion: Missionaries – Instigators of cultural change or early
ethnographers?
2:00 – 4:00 Field Museum field trip
Readings:
Salisbury, Neal. “Embracing Ambiguity: Native Peoples and Christianity in Seventeenth-Century
North America.” Ethnohistory 50:2 (2003), 247-259.
Kugel, Rebecca, “Religion Mixed with Politics: The 1836 Conversion of Mang’osid of Fond du Lac”
Ethnohistory 37:2, 126-157.
Baraga, Frederick. Chippewa Indians as recorded by Rev. Frederick Baraga in 1847. New York: Studia
Slovenica, 1976.
Thwaites, ed. Jesuit Relations vol 10 p. 210-235 and 254-261.
ABCFM TBA
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July 29: 2:00 – 5:00pm in B-81 Discussion: Tribes and Early America – Negotiating new
status
Readings:
Hall, John W. Uncommon Defense: Indian Allies in the Black Hawk War. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press. 2009.
Jackson, Donald, ed. Black Hawk: An Autobiography. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1955.
Younker, Jason T. "Weaving Strong Ropes: Oral Tradition and Understanding the Great Tide."
Oregon Historical Quarterly 108:2 (Summer 2007): 193-201.
July 30: 1:30 – 2:00: Show and Tell in 2 West
2:00-5:00 Discussion – Preparation for and Response to Treaties
Readings:
Selections from ABCFM papers TBA
Patty Loew, “Hidden Transcripts in the Chippewa Treaty Rights Struggle: a twice told story race,
resistance, and the politics of power,” American Indian Quarterly Fall 1997, 21:4. 713-29.
Schwartz, E. A. "Sick Hearts: Indian Removal on the Oregon Coast, 1875-1881." Oregon Historical
Quarterly 92:3 (Fall 1991): 229-63.
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, Narrative Journal of Travels Through the Northwestern Regions of the United States,
ed. Mentor L. Williams (East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1953) 94-100, 317-319,
369-372, 457-459, 468-469, 505-508.
WEEK TWO
August 2: 9:00 – 12:00: Discussion: Progressive Era and Indian Voices
Readings:
Hoxie, Frederick, ed. Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices in the Progressive Era. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s Press. 2001. 36 – 102 and 139-175.
Child, Brenda J. Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2000.
Meyer, Melissa. “’We Can Not Get a Living as We Used To: ‘ Dispossession and the White Earth
Anishinaabeg, 1889-1920.” American Historical Review, 96(2), 1991, p. 368-394.
Peacock, Thomas and Marlene Wisuri. “Gikinoo’amaadiwin, We Gain Knowledge.” in
Ojibwe Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions. Afton, MN: Afton Historical Society Press,
2002. 65-74.
Preliminary Bibliography Due
August 3:
2:00 – 5:00: Indian Commentary of the 1930s
Readings:
Satz, “’Tell Those Grey Haired Men What they Should Know:’ The Hayward Indian Congress of 1934.”
Wisconsin Magazine of History 77(3), 1994, pgs. 196-224.
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Savagian, John C. “The Tribal Reorganization of the Stockbridge-Munsee: Essential Conditions in the ReCreation of a Native American Community 1930-1942.” Wisconsin Magazine of History, 77:1 1993. 3962.
Booth, Peter M. “’If the Cattle are Going to Die, Let Them Die’: Tohono O’odham and New Deal
Conservatism.” In Richmond L. Clow and Imre Sutton eds. Trusteeship in Change: Toward Tribal
Autonomy in Resource Management. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. 2001. 115-44.
August 4: Archives and reading day. Meetings with the instructors, by appointment.
*If you have resources to use from the Special Collections, please request them in
the morning.
August 5: 2:00 – 5:00: Discussion: Termination, Restoration and urbanization
Readings:
Beck, David R.M. "Developing a Voice: The Evolution of Self- Determination in an Urban Indian
Community." Wicazo Sa Review 17:2 (2002): 117-141.
Cobb, Daniel M. Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty. Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 2008.
Metcalf, R. Warren. Termination's Legacy: The Discarded Indians of Utah. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2002.
August 6-7: NCAIS Graduate Conference
WEEK THREE
August 9: 9:00 – 12:00: Discussion: Native Nations and Future Directions
Readings:
Harvard Project on Ameircan Indian Economics. The State of the Native Nations. Cambridge: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
Wilkins, David E. American Indian Sovereignty and the US Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1997.
Rubin, Paul. “Indian Givers.” Phoenix New Times (May 27, 2004)
August 10: Research and writing
August 11: Research and writing. Meetings with the instructors, by appointment
August 12: 9:00 – 12:00, and 1:30 – 4:30: Individual presentations of student work in
progress, 20 minutes each
August 13: Research and writing Rough Draft due
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WEEK FOUR
August 16: Research and writing. Meetings with the instructors, by appointment.
August 17: Research and writing. Meetings with the instructors
August 18: Research and writing
August 19: Research and writing
August 20: 9:00 – 12:00 and 1:30 – 4:30: Final presentations (20 minutes each). Papers due!
Towner Fellows Lounge, 2nd floor
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