“Four Classics: First Novels of Native America” is a five-week school teacher seminar for sixteen participants focusing on four contemporary Native American novels in their cultural contexts. The core readings for this seminar, previously offered in 1993, 1995, and 2002, are first novels by D’Arcy McNickle (The Surrounded), N. Scott Momaday (House Made of Dawn), James Welch (Winter in the Blood), and Leslie Marmon Silko (Ceremony). As the project director argues, these novels “reflect a moment when Native fiction received its first major successes.” Close reading of these texts is supplemented by ethnographic, critical, and other contextual materials. In addition to the study of the four novels, the seminar also considers later works by the four authors, as well as film adaptations and documentaries. The participants lead discussions, keep journals, post on the seminar blog, and, with guidance from the director, engage in research and writing projects tailored to their own interests. Discussions are enriched by field trips to the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum, and by opportunities to visit the Lummi and Tulalip reservations. The project hosts visits by Native American scholars and writer Sharon Kinley, director of the Coast Salish Institute at Northwest Indian College; Angelica Lawson, an expert on Native American film from the University of Montana; Gordon Henry, a novelist and director of the Native American Institute at Michigan State University; and D. L. Birchfield, a novelist and professor of Native American studies from the University of Lethbridge, Alberta.
