NASX 340 Indigenous Humanities

Fall 2024 semester: in-person

3 credits, undergraduate level-300, Indigenous Humanities

Instructor: Dr. Matthew Herman

Course Description

This Core Inquiry Humanities course surveys Native American literatures across period, genre, tribe/nation, and theme.  We'll also approach these literatures from different interpretive angles.  We will examine American Indian (and First Nations) literary texts through close readings.  We will consider cultural, historical, and social factors that bear on Native literary texts and how they have been produced, distributed, and received and read over time.  But first off, we will catalog our own intial outlooks on Native American literature, which will set the stage for another line of inquiry—one into the status and value of the Native literary text.  Through these various approaches—as a Core Inquiry Humanities course—NASX 340IH brings students into direct engagement with leading theories and methods in the discipline of Native American literary studies in to discover how and why knowledge is produced and to determine which ways work best for us as a community of readers.

Readings for this course may include, but are not limited to:

*Resource and materials list subject to change. Check with the instructor before purchasing books!*

  • Callahan, S. Alice. (1997). Wynema, A Child of the Forest. University of Nebraska Press.
  • Erdrich, Louise. (2004). Tracks. Harper Perennial.
  • Harjo, Joy, et al. (2020). When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. W.W. Norton & Company.
  • Highway, Tomson. (1992). The Rez Sisters. Fifth House Publishers.
  • Orange, Tommy. (2019). There There. Vintage.
  • Silk, Leslie Marmon. (2006). Ceremony. Penguin Books.
  • Van Camp, Richard. (2016 ed.) The Lesser Blessed. Douglas & McIntyre.

Instructor

Dr. Matt Herman

Matthew Herman earned his Ph.D. in English and a certificate in cultural studies from SUNY Stony Brook. He came to MSU from Stone Child Tribal College on the Rocky Boys Reservation in northwest Montana, where he taught in the Liberal Arts Program, and coordinated the Rocky Boy Tribal History Project. He has published in the areas of contemporary Native American literature, American cultural studies, composition pedagogy, and Indigenous political theory.His first book, Politics and Aesthetics in Contemporary Native American Literature: Across Every Border, was published in 2009 by Routledge.

Tuition and Fees

If you are accepted into a qualified online program, see the appropriate MSU Tuition and Fee table below:

For more information, view MSU Fee Schedules.

How to Register

You must be accepted as a student to Montana State University to take this course. Learn how to apply.

Students register for courses via MSU's online registration system, MyInfo.

Registration requires a PIN number. Learn how to find your PIN.

Once you have your PIN, learn how to register through MyInfo.

 

For course information: 

Please contact Erika Ross at [email protected] or Matt Herman at [email protected].