AIIS 210 - American Indian Film Studies

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Explores the construction of American Indian identity in Hollywood films from the silent film era through the 20th century. The “Reel” Indians produced by Hollywood say very little about Real Native peoples who not only refuse to vanish but who consistently reject their prescribed roles in the U.S. national imaginary, insisting instead on rights to rhetorical and representational sovereignty. Special attention will be paid to American Indian writers, directors and producers in the latter part of the 20th and into the 21st century who contest representational constructions of “the white man’s Indian” on the way to imagining more complex possibilities for “Real Indians” in the twenty-first century. Every year.