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October 15, 2009

ĆŪ½ŪÖ±²„ history professor presents work at national conference

Roger Carpenter, assistant professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, presented a paper titled ā€œStriving for Authenticity: ā€˜Realā€™ Indians, Scalping, and The Last of the Mohicansā€ at the American Society for Ethnohistoryā€™s Annual Meeting, held from Sept. 30 - Oct. 4 in New Orleans.

Carpenterā€™s paper examined the 1936 film Last of the Mohicans and the effort made by the filmā€™s producers to find ā€œreal Indiansā€ for the film, as well as to accurately portray 18th century North American warfare. His paper discussed how these efforts proved to be a problem for the filmā€™s producers, as ā€œscalpingā€ proved to be too difficult to portray.

Carpenter also chaired a session titled ā€œImages: Literary, Motion Picture, and ā€˜Scientificā€™ Perspectives on North American Indians,ā€ which examined native stereotypes in film, the tendency of European travel writers to refer to native leaders as ā€œkingsā€ and native authors in the 1890s critiquing US actions in Cuba and the Philippines.

The ASE was founded in 1954 to promote investigation of the Native Peoples of the Americasā€™ histories. This involves developing histories informed by ethnography, linguistics, archaeology and ecology.

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