The 2013 Summer Seminar in the History of the Book in American Culture at AAS is titled "Indigenous Cultures of Print in Early America."
The seminar will be led by Philip Round, who is Professor of English at the University of Iowa. His book "Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663-1880" (North Carolina, 2010), was awarded the Modern Language Association's James Russell Lowell Prize in 2011. The seminar is motivated by a simple question: Where does American Indian Literature come from? When they hear the category "Native American Writers" most readers think immediately of best-selling contemporary authors like N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Such authors are often praised for their "authentic" connection to an oral tradition, rendering it legible for outsiders to view. But what is the printed legacy of Native American literature? This year's summer seminar will shed light on the long history of tribal literary traditions that are made up
of a whole range of textual practices, from oral storytelling to written alphabetic and syllabary texts, from individual authorship to corporate and collaborative composition. Drawing on the extensive collection of American Indian print and manuscript materials housed at the AAS, the seminar will give teachers and scholars hands-on experience with the textual cultures of Native peoples from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries.
The tuition for the seminar is $750, which includes lunch and coffee breaks every day. The tuition does not include housing. Some financial aid is available.
Applications are welcome from graduate students, public and tribal historians, librarians,
Application deadline is March 29, 2013.
Further details and application materials can be found at: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/sumsem13.htm
For further information, please contact: Paul Erickson, Director of Academic Programs at AAS at
