ENGL 4665 - [Indigenous Fantasy and Futurisms]

(CA-AS)

Fall or Spring. Next Offered: 2020-2021. 4 credits. Student option grading.

C. Warrior.

Radically subverting the “Vanishing Indian” myth, Indigenous authors depict Indigenous peoples thriving in many possible futures. Although Indigenous speculative fiction is nothing new, we’re currently seeing a new flush of Indigenous fantasy and futurism that combines Native conceptions of the universe and non-linear space-time with Indigenous and western technologies. Through revising generic conventions, Native authors overturn the closure of western conquest narratives while drawing on ancient beliefs and practices to ensure balanced, inter-relational survival—not only of human beings, but other-than-human persons, too. We will examine how these texts, hypertexts, films, games, and multimedia projects disavow the long-established sci-fi and fantasy tropes that place Indigenous peoples in the role of the “alien” that invades domestic space, or, conversely, the “alien” objects of “discovery” and invasion.