230260 Native American Fiction Goes Popular Culture (S) (WiSe 2020/2021)

In the roughly fifty years of their history as a recognized literary genre, Native American Literatures have for the most part been labeled, read and sold as "ethnic" and "minority" literatures. This limiting category implies a sociopolitical dimension these writings must have that also reduces their artistic value or even possible interests mainstream readers might have in them. Looking at recent publications by Native writers shows a distict move towards genres that are at the heart of popular culture, though: crime, horror, and supernatural fiction, or young adult fiction with high school settings and coming-out stories.
In this class, we aim at critically discussing roles, functions and obligations of minority writers and the notion of the political in literature. We will recognize the utter marginalization and disenfranchisement of Native Americans in US-American society, their history of resistance and the short literary history of their literatures in a Western sense. The majority of the class will be devoted to close-reading and discussion of a selection of recent fictions by Native American writers in terms of their contents, artistic choices, textual strategies and possible messages.