Dear Sandy, I understand what you are saying about being an indigenous person not meaning you must or should academically speak for all indigenous people; youcould change this to woman, race, etc, and the truth you speak would still stand. Nevertheless, In essence, it is abominant to think (as many U.S. universities do) that while it takes maybe 10 courses a semester to even to begin to represent American literature, for example, it only takes one to cover all the history, literature, philosophy, science, etc. of some "other" culture adequately enough. And while they may require 3 courses in "american" or other western country studies, one or two to cover the whole rest of the world is adequate for a general studies requirement. It gets down to a hiring issue, in a sense, as all academics know. no one person should be asked to "represent" their ethnicity; EVERY class that teaches anything should include women authors (50%+ of the world). I think the reason these obvious things don't "fly" may be because the Byronic Park professors of academia are tired, and don't want to learn anything new, and just want to teach what they already have a grip on. Begging forgiveness for this diatribe, Jane
