UNDERSTANDING NATIVE AMERICAN ART

The Course


Welcome to Understanding Native American Art. This colloquium is designed to explore issues in the problems of multiculturalism with examples taken from experiences of American Indians artists. While this course is ideally suited to the interests of students with majors in Art, Education, the Humanities, and Sociology, any student with concerns for the problems in the cultural patterns in contemporary life is welcome and should find the course to be of value. The course will foster a non-judgmental clarification of the issues involved as well as give the student an introduction to the broad patterns of Native American cultural development. Since the core of this course is the arts, the basis of discussions will be the examination of the arts, crafts and architecture of American Indians. Among the works considered (but we will not be limited to these) will be the traditional European based expressions such as painting and sculpture but will also include the design and ornamentation of costume, functional and ritual objects, the forms of ceremonies and rituals.

This course is experimental in its format. Fairly narrow guidelines have been set to facilitate the maximum value to the student. Students will be required to be respond to the material in each lesson.

The course is divided into 12 lessons. Generally, each one of these will be the basis of thought  for one segment. Examinations will be separate from the lessons. When there is an assigned examination, the students need not prepare for the next lesson until after the exam.

OUTLINE

 
Assignments and Calendar.
How to Devise a Question.
Lesson  1.   Dilemmas of Multiculturalism
Lesson  2.   Art as Art and Ethnic Expression
Lesson  3.   Theory of Cause and Correspondence Theories
Lesson  4.   Regionalism and the Renaissance Syndrome
Lesson  5.   Impact of Cultural Absorption and Suppression
Lesson  6.   Tradition versus Historicity
Lesson  7.   Changing Perceptions: From Craftsman to Artist
Lesson  8.    The Museum, Gallery System, and Tourism
Lesson  9.   Traditional Materials and Materials Before European Contact
Lesson 10.    Native American Dance and the Indian Renaissance in Music
Lesson 11.   The Arcadian Myth and the Codification of Indian Myth
Lesson 12.   Experience as Art and Indian Ritual as Art
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