|
Written by Cristine Soliz Project Director csoliz@dinecollege.edu, csoliz@csoliz.com
|
|
Wednesday, 17 October 2007 |
|
 Welcome to our developing Web site for our project in Native American literature. I am co-developing the web site with Rain Silverhawk who has been a presence on the internet for several years and whom I bumped into once online on the net. My co-work on this site has been more as an apprentice and so our site is fortunate to have her for a time to guide me through Joomia and Mambo. When it is fully operational, the public will have access to annotated bibliographies and teaching strategies. In addition we are exploring something I have wanted to do called "Map My Read", which will be a web site for readers.
We are exploring the ways that culturally relevant, imaginative literature can advance critical writing and reading in English
across the disciplines and to ultimately improve the ways we teach the humanities. Our goal of
helping to build a challenging intellectual environment through Native American literature will
address several needs, one of which concerns the faculty. As a tribal college with multi-satellite
branches situated across the Navajo reservation (one main campus at Tsaile, AZ, and seven
satellite campuses), the members of our faculty maintain heavy teaching loads and have few
opportunities to interact intellectually. The problem of improving intellectual life has been
studied by other colleges (http://cndls.georgetown.edu/provostseminar/) who have generously made their documents available on the Web.
Intellectual life is a central concern of academic institutions because...
(Please click on "More" below.)
|
|
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 November 2007 )
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Written by Participants
|
|
Sunday, 14 October 2007 |
|
From Cristine Soliz -- I opened our first meeting in Farmington on Oct 12 at 4 p.m. Not everyone was on time, but this was understandable because of the meetings in Shiprock.
I spoke about the Web site going up and its development, and about Rain Silverhawk’s help with it and showed a printout of what he was designing with my input. I’m still working on the content and would appreciate input, suggestions, ideas, or questions about how it will work or what you all hope to see on the site.
Handouts included a form on syllabus builders that will work in connection with the annotated bibliography (so-called) and short summaries on 2 texts each that we were supposed to do last time – so-called because it did not get done, but I will get these up on the web site. Erik Bitsui added several categories to the range of courses our project hopes to make suggestions for in terms of literary texts for use in those classes. Developmental Reading, Poetry, History, and Creative Writing.
A handout on anthologies as culture makers from the Princeton University website was emailed in a PDF.
Another handout was a text on Orality and Literacy, which we are also to read for next time and on which I gave a short summary. It is a comparison of the cosmologies and cultural contexts for oral and literate cultures... (Please click on "Meeting Notes Continued" below.)
|
|
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 20 November 2007 )
|
|
|
Written by Participants
|
|
Saturday, 20 October 2007 |
|
 Simon Ortiz will be giving a public talk on November 29 at 6:30 pm, hosted by us. And on Friday, November 30, he will meet with us in seminar for exciting discussions about the importance of tribal colleges in the direction of Native American literature. Simon Ortiz is a noted scholar and activist intellectual. He is a writer, poet, and storyteller from the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. Simon has been a major voices in Native American literature for more than 35 years, and among the first authors in the 1960s to be published as a contemporary Native American writer of poetry and fiction. He was the author of the seminal essay published in MELUS in 1981 called "Towards a National Indian Literature: Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism” that took Native American literature and criticism to a new and important direction, which scholars now call American Indian Literary Nationalism. Simon has been active in Native American tribal issues and especially in education on reservations. He is one of Diné College’s former professors.
|
|
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 20 November 2007 )
|
|
|
|
NOTE: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Web site do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
