HUM 221: More research paper ideas

One thing I want to encourage you in your papers is to do a reader (or listener or viewer) response. Here's a tip sheet on writing one about literature and one on writing a listener response to music. Both are linked to my faculty page, and both are absolutely brilliant -- right? -- because I wrote them. Both tell you when you engage, or respond to, a work of art, you ask yourself three questions:

1. What stands out here? What's my main impression? What do I get out of this work? What speaks to me? It may be the main theme of the work, or it may be something else that's particularly relevant to your experience.

2. What in my background makes me feel that way? Especially if you're responding to something from another culture, what is there in my culture, my world view, etc., that enables me to reach across cultures and respond to it?

3. What, specificually, in the work do I respond to? This is where you get into your analysis. Especially when you're responding to it across cultures, you may want to get into its meaning in its original culture (a healing chant, for example) and its meaning in ours (perhaps an aesthetic statement).

Here are some more writers that would lend themselves to a reader response:

Joy Harjo. She's of Creek/Muscogee heritage, writes poetry and plays tenor sax in what has been described as a "tribal, jazz, reggae, and rock" style. Often she strikes a note of self-discovery and reconciliation.

Simon Ortiz. A Pueblo Indian from New Mexico, a lot of Ortiz' poetry on line. For what it's worth, he's my favorite poet. Also the only poet I know of who has published a poem that is also a chili recipe. Maybe the two facts are connected.

Sherman Alexie. A Spokane and Coeur d'Alene novelist, poet, filmmaker and satirist of . Very funny, with a sharp edge to his humor. If you can't laugh at yourself, you may not enjoy him. But if you keep reading (or watching), you'll learn to laugh at yourself. And that's a skill we all need to develop!

Tony Hillerman. He isn't an Indian, but he writes mystery novels about the Navajo Tribal Police in northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona. Some Native writers think he expropriates their culture and doesn't give back enough. (Alexie is one of his critics.) But his novels are critically acclaimed, and they're based on careful research into contemporary Navajo culture.

Navajo Blessingway. This is a traditional Navajo (Dine) song that brought blessings to those for whom it was sung. It has influenced many writers (including Joy Harjo and Tony Hillerman), and is often found in translation as a poem. It has also been expropriated as sort of a New Age baby shower, especially in northern California, but without the approval of traditional Navajo people. The traditional blessingway is deeply grounded in Navajo spirituality, as Sr. Pamela Clare CSF points out in Franciscan magazine.