In the Illinois State University course catalogue, the 271-level course that instructional assistant professor Shannon Epplett teaches has an official seven-word title.
But the easiest way to think of the course — formally Studies of Non-Western Film and Theater — is the way that Epplett said he does: As a class focused on "Native American pop culture."
It started as an eight-week seminar course that Epplett designed for honors students; after finding that students were really engaged with the material and the course itself really popular, Epplett pitched it as a full semester course in the theater department. The pitch was successful; Epplett has been teaching the course since the spring 2022 semester.
The emphasis on pop culture is intentional. While still a chance to learn about performance art of various types, Epplett's class is also designed to teach students that Native American art and culture is alive and well — not something relegated to the past.
"We're still here. We're still alive and telling our stories. Most of what you learn about Natives puts us in the past — that's how we're often represented," Epplett said in an interview with WGLT. "It's historicizing. It's erasure. We're still here. We're still making art and it's all around you — you kind of how to learn how to look for it, is the thing."
Epplett, who is also an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, spoke with WGLT about the course (one of multiple he teaches), its goals, Native pop culture and more.
WGLT: Can you talk about to what extent your own identity factors into how and what you teach?
Epplett: I'm an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians; they're in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. I became an enrolled member when I was in college.
We call ourselves the Anishinaabe. We're today throughout Ontario, northern Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and throughout Canada, so we're one of the biggest tribes.
We were not removed; we weren't like a Trail of Tears tribe. But we were the test case: In Michigan in the 1830s, they had this idea of getting the Indians to sign a treaty and in exchange get put on reservations. Well, the way that happened was that they gave allotments of land to families and said, 'This is your land, stay on it and farm it.' The rest of the land became the state of Michigan.
Northern Michigan is not a great place to farm and we were not agricultural people to begin with, so they lived more by hunting and gathering and land got sold off. By the 1950s, in Sault Ste. Marie, the Native Americans were living in a slum — I mean it was an impoverished community on the edge of town.
That was not my family story; they were not poor in that way. The legacy of boarding schools in my own family ... my grandfather ... his grandmother still had some of the traditional ways and they were sort of embarrassed about that. This is the boarding school era. It's like, 'That's embarrassing — we don't want to be Indians.' I think there was a time where we claimed not to be Indians because it was advantageous not to be. My grandparents lived in a nice little house and their neighbors... were Indians. And my grandfather always referred to them as "those damn Indians." You didn't want to be those people.
When my tribe got recognized (in the 1970s) and started to organize, my grandfather got his card first — and I think he had some ambivalence about it. I think he had to be persuaded.
Did you have your own reckoning with your identity?
It's not just me that has this. There's a feeling that you're not Indian enough, or you're not Indian the right way. I think I've chosen to learn as much as I can about it. There's parts of the culture really like — the traditional teachings and learning the language. Those are the things that are meaningful to me and resonate with me. If I don't keep those going, I don't know who will. I hope somebody will; I don't want to feel like it's all up to me, but I'm trying to speak some Ojibwe. That's important, I think, and I try to share that in the classroom.
Your class is about pop culture and that's very intentional on your part because it's about the present. Can you talk more about the importance of 'now'?
One of the things that's become really clear the longer I live in Central Illinois ... is that this area was cleared of Indians. There are no reservations in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio. I lived for a long time in Chicago and there's a Native community in Chicago; I was not deeply involved but I was aware of it. I moved down here and it's like, there's nothing, there's nobody, there's very few Native students. I'm one of two Native faculty.
It's conspicuous by its absence to me because I know it could be there. I feel like it needs to be made more present and more visible. By focusing on the present, instead of the 19th century or the history or the anthropology — it's like we're still here and it's cool and exciting.
"By focusing on the present, instead of the 19th century or the history or the anthropology — it's like we're still here and it's cool and exciting."Shannon Epplett, ISU instructional assistant professor
Do you find that students come into the class at like a ground zero or do they have some pop culture references that they already know?
They're usually at ground zero. Once in a while, they've read something, or they know the show "Reservation Dogs" now that it's been out for awhileand kind of grown, but it's very few. They're curious about it, though, and they're interested, but they don't know where to look. A lot of them do already follow people that are indigenous — I just gave a classroom activity where I said whatever platform you're on the most, search 'Native American' or 'indigenous' and a lot of them are like, 'Oh I follow...' and I'm like, 'That's great! You're already doing this.'
As someone who's been involved with various aspects of theater, you know how connective art can be. Is that part of the reason you focus on these mediums?
What I like about focusing on pop culture is a lot of the music, (and) "Reservation Dogs," and a lot of the films — they give some insight or background or knowledge about things that are going on, like pipeline protests, missing and murdered indigenous women, issues in Indian country and things like boarding schools. It's one thing to read the report or read the history or see a news report on, like, pipeline protests. But it's another thing to engage in a narrative, a piece of art about it. You can read the facts. But theater, movies, TV shows, art — it gives you a sense of how it feels. I think that's important. It's missing from a history class; it's 'This is what happened.' Art tells you, 'This is how it felt.'
