NORS600 -- Perspectives on the North
Fall 2002;
W-3:30-6:30 p.m.

Mary Ehrlander, Ph.D.
Gruening 614E 474-6556 (UAF)
Office Hours: Tues. 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. 451-8342 (h)
Thurs. 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
ffmfe@uaf.edu
Office Location: 613A Gruening

Syllabus for Perspectives on the North

This introductory course to the Northern Studies Program explores topics of interest and concern throughout the circumpolar north. The course, like the program, addresses social, historical, environmental, cultural, economic, political, and geographic issues in Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. This course exposes students to many of the topics that subsequent courses treat in depth. The required readings will provide us with the opportunity to consider as individuals and as a group an assortment of questions and themes common to the north. The research paper will allow you to examine in greater depth a topic of particular interest to you, one that may even provide the foundation for your masters thesis or project.

The required readings for the course are listed below and will be accessible on Electronic Reserve, except for the books, which are available at the bookstore. Introductory “lecture” notes will be available on Blackboard, and participation in the Blackboard discussion board is a required part of the course. It is possible that I will add an article or two to the readings later.

Week 1 -- September 11, 2002
Introduction and tour of Fairbanks area

Week 2 -- September 18, 2002
Conception of North/Aspects of Northernness

Coates, Ken, and William Morrison. “The Sub-Arctic Fringe.” Chap. in The Forgotten North: A History of Canada’s Provincial Norths. Toronto: James Lorimer and Co., 1992. (11-32)

Dacks, Gurston. “How Far North is North,” (etc.) Partial chap. in A Choice of Futures: Politics in the Canadian North. Toronto: Methuen 1981. ( 4-12)

Hamelin, Louis-Edmond. “Images of the North.” Chap. in Canadian Nordicity: It’s Your North Too. Montreal: Harvest House, 1978. (3-13)

“The North: Boundaries, Dimensions, and Variations.” Chap. in Canadian Nordicity: It’s Your North Too. Montreal: Harvest House, 1978. (15-46)

Heinimann, David. “Latitude Rising: Historical Continuity in Canadian Nordicity.” Journal of Canadian Studies ( ): 134-35.

Guest Presentation: Robyn Russell from the Rasmussen Library will make a presentation on the Alaskana Collection and the Archives. (no more than one hour)

Week 3 -- September 25, 2002
The Gold Rush

Pierre Berton. The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, Inc. 1958 (2001 reprinting).

Activity: Tour of Fort Knox Gold Mine

Week 4 -- October 2, 2002
Arctic Exploration

Jeannette Mirsky. To the Arctic! The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times to the Present. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934 (1970 edition).

Available in library – see me for extra editions.
Guest presenters: Dr. Richard Hattan and Roger Siglin with slides and tales of their trek across the Canadian Arctic (tentative)

Week 5 -- October 9, 2002
Culture -- Mythology, Religion, Missionary Impact, and Gov’t Attitudes Toward Religion

Dauenhauer, Richard. “Two Missions to Alaska.” The Pacific Historian. (Spring 1982): 29-41. (Read this before you read the Haycox article.)

Haycox, Stephen W., “Sheldon Jackson in Historical Perspective: Alaska Native Schools and Mission Contracts.” The Pacific Historian. 28 (Spring 1984): 18-27.

The Raven Myth (North American indigenous creation story)

Voluspa (The Beginning and the End) (Norse mythological creation story)

Week 6 -- October 16, 2002
Art and Music as a Reflection of Environment and Society

Graburn, Nelson H. H. “Inuit Art and the Expression of Eskimo Identity.” American Review of Canadian Studies 17 (1987): 47-65.

Jonaitis, Aldona. “Totem Poles and the Indian New Deal.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 10 (1989): 237-52.

Kremers, Carolyn. “Preface.” Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup’ik Eskimo Village. Seattle: Alaska Northwest Books, 1996.

“We are all Paddling a Kayak Through Open Tundra.” Chap. In Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup’ik Eskimo Village. Seattle: Alaska Northwest Books, 1996

Lipton, Barbara. “Arctic Vision.” American Review of Canadian Studies 17 (1987): 1-4.

*You will have a cassette of northern music and commentary to review.
**Guest speaker/presenter: Jean Flannigan Carlo with northern art (tentative)

Week 7 -- October 23, 2002

Culture -- Literature and Poetry as a Reflection of Environment and Society

Haines, John. “Ice.” The Stars, the Snow, the Fire. Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 1989.

(Five poems) The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer: Collected Poems by John Haines. Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 1993.
(Introduction, “Little Cosmic Dust Poem,” and “In the Forest without Leaves,”) New Poems: 1980-88. Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 1990.

Kremers, Carolyn. “Drink Well, Spirits.” Chap. in Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup’ik Eskimo Village. Seattle: Alaska Northwest Books, 1996.

MacKay, James. “Bard of the Yukon: The Klondike in the Poetry of Robert Service.” The Northern Review 19 (Winter 1998): 93-100.

Mergler, Wayne, ed. “A Chronology: Alaska and Its Literature.” The Last New Land: Stories of Alaska, Past and Present. Seattle: Alaska Northwest Books, 1996.

Momaday, N. Scott. “The Native Voice in American Literature.” The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997.

Service, Robert. “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.”

“The Cremation of Sam McGee.”
*** Guest speaker: Carolyn Kremers

Week 8 -- October 30, 2002
Culture and Society -- Social Problems/Pathologies in the North

Berman, Matthew and Teresa Hull. “Alcohol Control by Referendum in Northern Native Communities: the Alaska Local Option Law.” Arctic 54 (March 2001): 77-83.

Billson, Janet M. “Social Change, Social Problems, and the Search for Identity: Canada’s Northern Native Peoples in Transition.” American Review of Canadian Studies 18 (1988), 295-316.

Korolenko, C. P. and N. L. Botchkareva. “A Review of the Problem of Alcoholism in Siberia.” Chap. in Addictive Disorders in Arctic Climates: Theory, Research and Practice at the Novosibirsk Institute. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press, Inc., 1990, (5-14). (Also read Review of this article by Frederick Glaser, pp. 84-87.)

Whitehead, Paul C. and Michael J. Hayes, The Insanity of Alcohol: Social Problems in CanadianFirst Nations Communities. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, Inc. 1998.

Week 9 -- November 6, 2002
Native Cultures and Relations Between Native and Non Native Peoples

Blackman, Margaret B. Sadie Brower Neakok: An Inupiaq Woman. Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 1992.

OR (you choose)

Blackman, Margaret B. In My Time: The Life of Florence Edenshaw Henderson.

AND

Wallis, Vilma. Two Old Women. Fairbanks: Epicenter Press, 1993.

Huntington, Sidney (as told to Jim Reardon). Shadows on the Koyukuk: An Alaskan Naative’s Life Along the River. Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 1993.

This week you will choose to read the story of the life of an Inupiaq woman, the story of the life of a Haida woman and a traditional Athabaskan story, or the story of the life of Sidney Huntington, an Athabaskan man. You will make group presentations on your books to the class.

Week 10 -- November 13, 2002
Economic Issues -- Resource Extraction, Development v. Preservation, and Subsistence

Arikayen, A. I. “Sustainable Development of the Soviet Arctic: Some Possibilities and Constraints.” Polar Record 27 (1991): 17-22.

Dacks, Gurston. “The Economies of the North.” Chap. in A Choice of Futures: Politics in the Canadian North, Toronto: Methuen (12-24).

Pretes, Michael, and Michael Robinson. “Beyond Boom and Bust: A Strategy for Sustainable Development in the North.” Polar Record 25 (1989): 115-20.

Pamela Stern. “Subsistence: Work and leisure,” Inuit/Studies, 24 (2000): 9-24.

Week 11 -- November 20, 2002
Native Self-Gov’t & Relationship Between Native Peoples and State and National Gov’ts

Ehrlander, Mary. “Native Sovereignty in Alaska.”

Hele, Karl. “Native People and the Socialist State: The Native Populations of Siberia and Their Experience as Part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

Canadian Journal of Native Studies 14:2 (1994).

Kvist, Roger. “The Racist Legacy in Modern Swedish Saami Policy.” Canadian Journal of Native Studies 14:2 (1994).

Lyck, Lise. Greenland: Ten Years of Home Rule. Polar Record 25 (1989): 343-46.

Week 12 -- November 27, 2002
Native Land Claims

Berger, Thomas R. “Introduction.” Chap. In Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission. New York: Hill and Wang, 1985.

“The Promise of the Land Claims Act.” In Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission. New York: Hill and Wang, 1985.

Legare, Andre. “The Process Leading to a Land Claims Agreement and its Implementation: The Case of the Nunavut Land Claims Settlement.” The Candian Journal of Native Studies 16 (1996): 139-63.

Morehouse, Thomas. “Sovereignty, Tribal Government and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Amendments of 1987.” Polar Record 25 (1989): 197-206.

“Our Land, Our Future”.

Week 13 -- December 4, 2002
International Relations/ Strategic Position of North

Department of Defense. The Ballistic Missile Defense System. (Statement from the DoD’s website)

Gorbachev, Mikhail. “Speech in Murmansk at the Ceremonial Meeting on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star to the City of Murmansk.

Ostreng, Willy. “National Security and the Evolving Issues of Arctic Environment and Cooperation.” Chap. in National Security and Internatinal Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic – the Case of the Northern Sea Route. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001.

Union of Concerned Scientists. “Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluatin of the Operatinal Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System.” (executive summary)

Wolfowitz, Paul. “Prepared Statement on Missile Defense.” Speech delivered to the Combined Procurement and R&D Subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee, June 27, 2002.

Week 14 -- December 11, 2001
Student presentations of papers

Week 15 – December 18, 2002
Student presentations of papers

NORS600 -- Perspectives on the North
Course Requirements

Attendance and participation are essential to your doing well in the class. Each week we will discuss the readings, and in order to have a fruitful discussion that is mutually beneficial, everyone must participate. Therefore, attendance and participation will account for 10% of your grade. If you will not be able to attend a class or if you have a logistical problem that will cause you have to arrive late or leave early, please let me know in advance.
Blackboard = 10% (20% for distance students, 5% for undergrads)

Each graduate student (distance and in-class) will lead the Blackboard discussion one week. The leader will begin the discussion by starting about four threads and then will monitor the discussion, responding or adding threads as appropriate.

Week 9 – Native Cultures presentation – 15% (Distance grads will do their presentations on Blackboard and must have some visuals.)

Three times you will write and submit a 3-5 page (2-3 pages for undergrads) (computer generated, double-spaced) critique or response to the readings for the week. Each paper must be submitted in class the day we discuss that topic. You do not need to respond to every selection for the week. You may compare and contrast 2-4 pieces, for example. If you choose to respond to a book, please write a précis, or focus on a few themes (please, no “book reports”!) of that book. Feel free to bring in other literature for comparison. Please cite properly (parentheticals or footnotes) any quotes or specific reference points. Together these papers will account for 30% (35% for undergrads) of your grade.

Finally, for 35% (30% for undergrads) of your grade, you will research a topic of your choice (please discuss your topic with me in advance) and write a 15-20 page paper (10 pages for undergrads), which you will present in class. Undergrads will submit drafts of their papers to me by November 20 and schedule conferences that week for reviewing the paper with me and discussing revisions. Five percent of the class grade (20 % of the paper grade) will be allotted to the draft and revision process. The paper will be due on or before December 11 in class for all students. Presentations will be December 4, 11, and 18, depending on how many we have. (Distance grads will place a two page summary of their papers on Blackboard.) Your presentation will account for 5%. Thus, the written paper = 30% (20 +5 for undergrads) + presentation = 5% for a total of 35% (30% for undergrads).

Thus, grades will be assigned according to the following formula:

	Undergrads	Grads	Distance Grads
In class participation	10%	10%	0%
Blackboard participation	5%	10%	20%
Native Cultures presentation	15%	15%	15%
Reading responses	40%	30%	30%
Research paper	30%	35%	35%
Total	100%	100%	100%

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Site last modified October 13, 2006
by Courtney Pagh