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Archive for January, 2006

January 23, 2006

Champagne, Duane. “American Indian Studies is for Everyone.”American Indian Quarterly. 20.1(1996), 77-82.

January 23rd 2006 Posted to Native American

In this article Champagne addresses the concerns of American Indian studies scholars who believe that only Indians are qualified to study Indian life, history and culture. As a counter to these critics’ claims, Champagne writes that, “To say that only Indians can study Indians goes too far toward excluding American Indian culture and history from the rest of human history and culture…Indian nations are human groups, part of the broad history of all humanity, and therefore can be compared with other groups in technology, cultural world views, history and adaptation to global markets and expanding state systems, etc. One does not have to be a member of a culture to understand what culture means or to interpret a culture in a meaningful way” (77). (Read the article)

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January 10, 2006

Connolly, Mark R. “What’s in a Name? A Historical Look at Native American-Related Nicknames and Symbols at Three U.S. Universities.” The Journal of Higher Education. 71.5 (2000), 515-547.

January 10th 2006 Posted to Native American, The Academy

In this article Connolly examines the arguments surrounding the use of Native American-Related nicknames and mascots at three U.S. Universities: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (the “Fighting Illini”), Miami University in Ohio (the “Redskins”) and Eastern Michigan University (the “Hurons”). After reviewing the history behind these nicknames and examining the controversies surrounding them, Connoly concludes that the attitudes many universities adopt towards Native American nicknames reflects a kind of institutional racism that must be dealt with not just by changing the university’s mascot but by implementing fundamental changes in school policy and attitudes. (Read the article)

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January 4, 2006

West, Cornel. “The New Cultural Politics of Difference.” Race, Identity and Representation in Education. Ed. Cameron McCarthy and Warren Crichlow. New York: Routledge, 1993.

January 04th 2006 Posted to Race and the Academic Institution, Race, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Globalization, African American, The Academy

In this article West announces the emergence of a new kind of cultural politics, marking “a significant shift in the sensibilities and outlooks of critics and artists” (11). West argues that previous forms of criticism can no longer account for the ethnic, gender and sexual diversity of late twentieth-century society. The new cultural politics that West promotes seeks to “trash the monolithic and homogeneous in the name of diversity, multiplicity, and heterogeneity; to reject the abstract, general, and universal in the light of the concrete, specific, and particular; to historicize, contextualize, and pluralize by highlighting the contingent, provisional, variable, tentative, shifting and changing” (11). The new cultural critic, West argues, must work to form alliances with disempowered or disenfranchised groups to enable social action and must learn to critique their immediate work contexts (the academy, museum or gallery) from within (11-12). (Read the article)