Blake Bauserman - Primal Religions 2020 Blogs

Primal Religions 2020 Blogs

Class Readings

I - Orality and Literacy

While Ong indeed held the title of my least favorite reading, as well as the driest introduction, it was the most impactful of the readings. The chapters on Navajo and Aborigine tales helped reshape my idea of sounded words. While, of course, I saw them as a method of communication, I did not understand words and especially connected sentences as vehicles that carry knowledge (please reference my God's Not Dead post for more information on this). The Psycho-Dynamics chapter was also among the single most engaging pieces presented in the class.

II - Seasons of the Navajo

I had a much different experience with this film outside of the class rather than during the initial viewing. You see, just before we were booted out of campus, I ended up going on a cross-country trip to help a friend of mine bring his car to his home just outside of Las Vegas. Along the way, we ended up passing through the Navajo reservation and stopped just outside of it for gas. Seeing the land brought the film to life in a whole different way, and I got to see how it was indeed possible for there to be so many seasonal grounds in the reservation as it is quite large. Not to mention the higher elevations are prone to icy weather even in early spring. I imagine the Navajo would want to move to different grounds and lower elevations during the winter.

III - Spell of The Sensuous

This book was probably one of my favorite textbooks. Abram writes in a really engaging manner, and the first chapters on Shamanism proved essential to my understanding of this class as well as American Philosophy, which this course seemed to share a relationship with material-wise. Not to mention the passages on how written word involves such an intricate fusion of the senses of sound and sight, which reminds me of a question I keep finding myself asking: Am I seeing visually at the same time I am seeing something in my mind's eye or does my external vision turn off. It is relevant, but something I have trouble answering.

IV - Australia's Twilight of a Dream Time

While I was reading the Spell of The Sensuous, I was having a particularly hard time understanding what exactly Dream Time meant. It seemed like such a vague descriptor, but the film definitely cleared up the idea. Hearing the description from the Aborigines themself was incredibly eye-opening. It is interesting to see how the concept of stewardship permeates across cultures with their maintenance of the land via paintings and songs. The film also serves as an object that builds upon the descriptions in Spell of The Sensuous, helping to flesh out the more comprehensive existence and experiences of the Aborigines. 

V - Black Robe

Similar to the Revenant and several of the articles listed below, this movie was a crux of my term paper. Besides that, however, I personally believe it was my favorite bit of material in the class. The concepts of morality vs. literacy are made plain and bare, not to mention that Chomina is a compelling character who experiences substantial development over the course of the film rather than being a one-dimensional prop. It also shows the improving state of Native Americans in cinema over time, though it is nowhere near as positive.

Outside Readings

I - The Revenant

*Spoiler Warning*

This movie was part of much the same situation as Nash's Wilderness and American Mind. It was initially part of my coursework in American Philosophy but proved relevant due to its extensive interactions between white frontiersmen and Native Americans. It ultimately is a much better portrayal of Native Americans from the good/bad Indian and noble savage stereotypes as the Arikara end up being the ultimate bringers of justice in a surprising twist at the end of the film. It showed the progress of Native Americans in the film industry as well as provided great historical data.

II - The White Man's Indian

This piece proved to be one of the critical readings of my paper and was nearly as crucial to the entire discussion as Black Robe and The Revenant were. This piece was very enlightening as to some of the more "modern" (written in 1997) and historical stereotypes put upon Native American people. While I was familiar with the idea of Native Americans as drunks, I had no idea of the threefold stereotype of the good Indian, bad Indian, and the noble savage. The last one was absolutely new to me and is actually a reasonably common term across the literature on Native Americans in film. I was also surprised, though, should not have been, to learn about the existence of a Senatorial Subcommittee on Indian Education.

III - Examination of Native Americans and Rise of Native Filmmakers

This particular paper proved nearly as crucial to my term paper as the previous entry. Though it did not contain the deep historical narrative of The White Man's Indian, it did provide more modern-day perspectives on that state of Native American focused works, more specifically that Native American's are increasingly telling their own stories instead of white Americans which has allowed them to combat the stereotypes they face as well as the historical practice of making Native Americans prop characters used to accentuate white characters.

IV - Wilderness and the American Mind

While I originally read this for Dr. Joe Balay's American Philosophy class, it proved highly relevant to my term paper in establishing historical stereotypes against Native Americans. The passages I read led me to formulate my own theory. In the book, it mentions different types of forest creatures in European Folklore, specifically the Wild Man and Woman. These beings were described as hideous ogrish beasts who ate children. My thought is combined with another passage that said wilderness was the back door to Native Americans is that old European folklore helped, at least in part, to establish the image of Native Americans as savages.

V - God's Not Dead

Give me the chance to explain this one. My original term paper, before I cut down the subject to just Native Americans in film, also included the portrayal of Christians to serve as a comparison point. Mainly between oral/literate cultures/religions. So I figured what better movie to use in an academic paper than the one Christian movie which decries academia as a secular cesspit. All memes aside, I did leave with an interesting insight on the transmission of ideas in literate religions.

In the movie, there were several passages referenced in the Bible by the typical book, chapter, and verse citation. Looking at that in the light of the dynamics of orality got me thinking about how oral cultures stored knowledge in their words. Instead of utter proverbs to one another for encouragement or speaking the entire grand story of Genesis one, what if the citations served as an oral shorthand? 

What if they act as relics from times of oral cultures that pass along bits of knowledge? If someone references John 3:16, the guarantee is most religious people would understand it and be able to recall the knowledge-based on the oral shorthand. It is a working thought, but an interesting one nonetheless

Unassigned Topics

I - The Primal Religions and American Philosophy Relationship

Since I had only a few minutes between Dr. Balay and Dr. Redick's classes, my mind was always fresh to make connections between them. But I was not prepared for just how often the two classes connected, whether flowing in one way or another. I remembered the specific incident of hearing the Campfire story. I had heard it at Tuesday Tea the morning before Dr. Redick mentioned it, then a week or two later, it ended up appearing in a unit on National Parks in American Philosophy. The two classes I thought would have had nothing in common, but they were really like cousin courses.

II - Stewardship

Earlier in this blog, I mentioned the cross-cultural ideas of stewardship. This was another point that connects profoundly with American Philosophy as we were often asking what it meant to be good stewards. In the sense of the Aborigines, it meant participating in the Dream Time. In the sense of early Christianity, it meant subduing nature, but what does it mean now? Has our destruction of nature caused us to lose a chance to commune with it? Is that communion of greater worth now? What makes a good steward in the modern era? These were all questions that came to me over the course of the two classes.

III - Language as a Vehicle of Knowledge

Written language store knowledge, but what about oral language? It can be hard as literate people to consider this fact beyond maybe the idea of a lecture. But what about Aborigine tales that tell of rich-livered fish or Navajo stories that tell the importance of community? Can a joke store the knowledge that forces people to laugh? Are riddles a piece of knowledge that can stall a person's mind for a few minutes to hours? These are good questions to think about when trying to explore just how useful oral language can be in storing knowledge.

IV - The Power of Film

Film is a powerful yet understated medium that can work to spread ideas like wildfire. Given the racially insensitive history of the United States, it is no wonder myths of white superiority persisted so long, especially well into the 20th century. Film could expose millions of people to the same idea in the exact same form, unlike writing, which could differ very locally with newspapers. People would go on talking to one another about the film, and the ideas would circulate permeating a wide portion of the population. The film industry is a powerhouse for spreading opinions.

V - Oral vs. Literate Religion

At the beginning of the semester, I would not have been able to articulate much of the differences between Oral and Literate religions. Now at the end, I would like to point out what I believe to be one of the biggest ones, each religion's life-world. The life-world of an oral religion is situated in the immediate physical surroundings. It possesses a living and breathing history and function, one that may also continue to repeat, much like the Dream Time. Literate religions, on the other hand, have a much more abstract life-world. Their history is definite in form and, in the case of western religion, at least contains non-physical, metaphysical, or even allegorical forces, most of which have little if any direct influence on reality. One is a rich tapestry lived out before the eyes, and the other situates itself within the mind of the believer, experienced from them outwards and not outwards-in.