Courses Offered
7. First-Year Seminars in Native American Studies
Consult special listings
8. Perspectives in Native American Studies
07F, 08F: 11
The growing field of Native American Studies is concerned with topics and
discourse found in a range of academic disciplines. However, the field itself
is not defined by or limited to one discrete area of study. This course
provides an overview of the diverse ways that Native American Studies engages
the relevant intellectual and cultural questions of tribal expression,
identity, traditional thought, continuity, and sovereignty. We will explore
readings in the areas of: literature and literary theory, philosophy, visual
arts, anthropology, philosophy of history, cultural production and criticism,
and political discourse. The unifying purpose of the course is to gain
familiarity with the languages of several disciplines, and to examine how their
discourses are used to promote or inhibit the ongoing project of
colonialism.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Palmer.
10. Peoples and Cultures of Native North America (Identical to Anthropology
4)
08W: 2 08W: 10
The course provides an introduction to the peoples and cultures of Native
North America. Several indigenous groups (nations) from different “culture
areas” are highlighted to emphasize particular forms of economy, social
organization, and spirituality. The course focuses on the more traditional
American Indian cultures that existed before the establishment of Western
domination, as well as on the more recent native culture history and modern-day
economic, sociopolitical and cultural continuity, change, and revitalization.
The readings include works by anthropologists (Native and non-Native), American
Indian academic and tribal historians and autobiographies. Lectures are
combined with films and slides.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Kan.
11. Ancient Native Americans (Identical to Anthropology 11)
07F: 10A 08F: 12
This course provides an introduction to the pre-Columbian societies of North
America. Discussion begins with a consideration of the wider social context of
archaeological views of Native Americans and how these have changed over time.
We briefly review the enormous diversity in language; economic, social, and
political organization; and religion of Native American societies at the time
of European contact. The course moves back in time to examine the populating of
the Americas and related controversies. We then concentrate on the subsequent
development of diverse pre-Columbian societies that included hunter-gatherer
bands in the Great Basin, the Arctic, and the sub-Arctic; Northwest Coast
chiefdoms; agricultural societies of the Southwest, such as Chaco Canyon and
the desert Hohokam; and the mound-building societies of the Eastern
Woodlands.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Nichols.
14. The Invasion of America: American Indian History Pre-Contact to 1830
(Identical to History 14)
07F, 08F: 10
This course surveys the history of the American Indians from contact with
Europeans to c. 1830. It provides an overview of the major themes and trends in
Indian history, supplemented by case studies from a number of regions and
readings that illuminate particular issues. The overall context of the course
is the conflict generated by the colonial drive of European nations and the
U.S. and their citizens, but the primary focus is the historical experience of
Indian peoples and their struggles to retain their cultures and autonomy while
adapting to great changes in the conditions of their lives.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Calloway.
15. American Indian History: 1830 to Present (Identical to History 15)
08S, 09S: 10
This course surveys the history of the American Indians from the year 1830
to the present day. It provides an overview of the major themes and trends in
Indian history, supplemented by case studies from a number of regions and
readings that illuminate particular issues. The overall context of the course
is the expansion of the U.S., the ‘Indian policies’ adopted by the U.S.
government, but the primary focus is the historical experience of Indian
peoples and their struggles to retain their cultures and autonomy while
adapting to great changes in the conditions of their lives.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Calloway.
22. Native American Lives
07F: 11
In the past, American Indian history was usually taught through the lens of
the dominant culture, while ignoring the story that Indian people have
presented in their own words. This course will examine some key issues in
American Indian history and culture by reading the biographies and
autobiographies of individual American Indians. These life stories will help us
understand the historical forces that affected their world, and how they shaped
their own lives in response. In addition to reading and discussing the assigned
texts, students will answer essay questions about the readings, and identify an
individual whose life will serve as the subject of a biographical study
research paper of 10-15 pages.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Runnels.
25. Indian Country Today
07F, 08F: 12
This course introduces students to Indian Country by way of exploring
contemporary issues of importance to American Indians. Students will begin by
examining briefly the concept of “tribal sovereignty” and the role it has, and
continues to have, in driving tribal politics. Students will then broaden their
understanding of Indian Country by exploring practical issues such as: American
Indian political activism, repatriation of sacred objects and remains, American
Indian water rights, hunting and fishing rights, gaming in Indian Country,
education, and contemporary American Indian arts.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Turner.
28. Native Americans: Film and Television (Identical to Film Studies
42)
07F: 10A
This course surveys the historical and contemporary imagining of American
Indian people and assesses the impact on the Native people of America.
Stereotyping of American Indians in Hollywood film and television programming
has created a symbolic view that has dominated American pop culture—a view that
continues today. A lack of cultural understanding of Indian people has
perpetuated an unrealistic portrayal. Only by reviewing the reality of
history—rather than the myth—can individual students have a view of Native
American societies and people. This course looks at how symbolic imagining of
American Indians in film and television has produced negative consequences, and
how important it is to overcome such stereotypes, to insure a more realistic
portrayal of Indian people in the future.
Dist: ART; WCult: W. Goeman.
30. Special Topics in Native American Studies
Not offered in the period from 07F through 08W
34. Native American Oral Traditional Literature (Identical to English 60,
section 3)
08W: 11
Native American oral literatures constitute a little-known but rich and
complex dimension of the American literary heritage. This course will examine
the range of oral genres in several tribes. Since scholars from around the
world are studying oral literatures as sources of information about the nature
of human creativity, the course will involve examining major theoretical
approaches to oral texts.
Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. Runnels.
35. Native American Literature (Identical to English 45)
08S, 09S: 11
Published Native American writing has always incorporated a cross-cultural
perspective that mediates among traditions. The novels, short stories, and
essays that constitute the Native American contribution to the American
literary tradition reveal the literary potential of diverse aesthetic
traditions. This course will study representative authors with particular
emphasis on contemporary writers.
Open to all classes. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. Goeman.
36. Indigenous Nationalism: Native Rights and Sovereignty (Identical to
Government 60)
08W, 09W: 12
This course focuses on the legal and political relationship between the
indigenous peoples of Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand and
their respective colonial governments. Students will examine contemporary
indigenous demands for self-government, especially territorial claims, within
the context of the legislative and political practices of their colonial
governments. The course will begin with an examination of the notion of
Aboriginal self-government in Canada and develop it in light of the policy
recommendations found in the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples (1996). Using the Canadian experience as a benchmark, students will
then compare these developments to indigenous peoples’ experiences in the
United States, Australia and New Zealand. An important theme of the course will
be to develop an international approach to the issue of indigenous rights and
to explore how colonial governments are responding to indigenous demands for
justice.
Not open to first-year students without permission of instructor. Dist: SOC
or INT; WCult: NW. Turner.
39. American Indian Tribal Governance
08S, 09S: 12
This course will examine the roles of tribal governments in the formation of
internal and external policies affecting the lives of Native American people,
the basis for their political power historically and in contemporary society,
and their structure and functions. Particularly, the course will focus on the
cultural and legal dilemmas posed by tribal governments: how they maintain
cultural legitimacy in the face of colonial cultural imposition, how they
articulate retained rights in a system of shared sovereignty, and the problems
Native Americans face in building stronger political systems as they struggle
to maintain and retain sovereignty.
Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Ranco.
40. Introductory Native American Language (Identical to Linguistics
40)
Not offered in the period from 07F through 09S
This language course is intended to introduce beginning students to the
fundamentals of the various families of Indian languages of North America. This
panoramic course may serve as an introduction to the study of a specific Indian
language, to the study of the relationship between language and culture, or to
the study of linguistics itself. In addition it will provide a general
description of the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic domains, and grammar
of Indian languages. Each student will choose one out of twelve grammatical
sketches of particular Indian languages for closer analysis. Furthermore, we
shall examine the history of the study of Indian languages and their
classification by family, the dynamics of linguistic contact, discourse
analysis, linguistic anthropology, and the issues of language extinction and
preservation.
Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Runnels.
42. Gender Issues in Native American Life (Identical to Women’s and Gender
Studies 40)
09W: 11
We will address issues of gender in indigenous communities as it relates to
culture, policy, history, and social life. Indigenous in the context of this
class will focus on the diversity of Native people within/across
settler-colonial nation-states. The project based assignments will tackle
common misperceptions, the complexity of changing gender patterns, the methods
Native communities develop to balance out gender inequities, and various
organizing of Native women’s activism. The aim of this class is to create an
understanding of how gender issues are a vital component in the process of
decolonization
Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Goeman.
44. Native Land, Literatures, and Identities (Identical to English 67,
pending approval)
Not offered in the period from 07F through 09S
This course will address various issues of particular importance to
indigenous communities reflected in twentieth-century creative works. We will
examine Native conceptions of space and settler-colonialism’s organizing of
space by learning to read Native texts. The relationship between race, gender,
and nation will be explicated through examination of films, visual work, short
stories, poems, and novels. Important to this class is an open and thoughtful
discussion about the active struggle for decolonization and healing that takes
place in Native communities.
Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. Goeman.
45. American Indian Intellectuals
08S, 09S: 12
This course surveys some of the prominent voices in American Indian
intellectual culture from the 1960s to the present. The course will examine
four “kinds” of American Indian intellectuals in order to make better sense of
what an American Indian intellectual is, and more importantly, what does it
mean to be part of an American Indian “intellectual culture”? The course will
explore the work of tribal leaders, American Indian scholars, artists and
writers, and Native women.
Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. Dist: TMV; WCult: NW. Turner.
49. The Land of the Totem Poles: Native Peoples of the NorthWest Coast
(Identical to Anthropology 25)
08S, 09S: 2
With their complex social organization, elaborate ceremonies, fascinating
mythology, and flamboyant “art,” the indigenous peoples of the Pacific
Northwest Coast represent a truly unique “culture area” of Native North
America. The course surveys several cultures of this region (from the coast of
Oregon to southeastern Alaska), drawing upon early travelers’ accounts,
anthropological works, native testimony, artifacts from the Hood Museum of Art,
and films. Lectures, class discussions, and student presentations will deal
with the “classic” Northwest Coast cultures of the eighteenth and the
nineteenth centuries as well as their modern versions. Open to all classes.
Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Kan.
50. Native Americans and the Law (Identical to Government 69)
08X: 10A
This course will focus on the constitutional, statutory and jurisprudential
rules of law that make up the field of Federal Indian Law. Attention will be
given to the historical framework from which the rules were derived. After
tracing the development of the underlying legal doctrines that are prominent
today, the course will turn to a consideration of subject-specified areas of
Indian law, including hunting and fishing rights, water rights, and
preservation of religious and cultural rights.
Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Duthu.
52. Environmental Issues in Indian Country (Identical to Environmental
Studies 52)
08W, 09W: 10A
This course will explore a variety of approaches to studying environmental
issues in Indian Country (in both the United States and Canada). While a number
of academic disciplines will be investigated over the semester, students should
form a synthetic understanding of the issues scholars face when taking on
“Indian” and “environmental” issues in their studies. We will focus on three
key issues: (1) The impact of the ‘invented’ Indian on understandings of
Indigenous environmental practices, (2) The differences between Native and
non-Native approaches to Indigenous environmental knowledge; (3) Resistances to
colonialism and the maintenance of Indigenous knowledge within contemporary
political and legal contexts.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Ranco.
54. Who Owns Native Culture? (Identical to Anthropology 60)
07F, 08F: 2A
One of the key goals of Native American Studies is to re-center the
representation of Indians from the perspective of Native American peoples and
communities. This course will examine the structural and disciplinary
constraints that prevent this goal from being realized, as well as the
potential intellectual downfalls of this goal. In particular, the course will
explore the critiques of academic representation and research practices offered
by contemporary Native American scholars and place them in dialogue with
scholars from the ‘dominant’ disciplines that study Indians—anthropology,
history, and literature.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Ranco.
58. Environmental Justice Movements in the United States (Identical to
Environmental Studies 58)
07F: 10
This class will explore how communities of color have responded to the
incidence, causes, and effects of environmental racism. Special attention will
be given to how the critiques offered by these communities challenge the
knowledge and procedural forms of justice embedded in environmental policy in
the United States. Case studies will be drawn from readings on
African-Americans, European-Americans, Chicano and Latino Americans, and Native
Americans.
Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Ranco.
80. Advanced Seminars in Native American Studies
Not offered in the period from 07F through 09S
81. Senior Seminars in Native American Studies
08W: 2A 08S: 10
In 08W, American Odysseys: Lewis and Clark, Native Americans and the New
Nation (Identical to History 96, Section 1). From 2004-2006, the United States
commemorated the Lewis and Clark Expedition, in which the “Corps of Discovery”
led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark completed a remarkable
odyssey, journeying from St. Louis across the “new” American West, to the
Pacific Ocean, and back. Like the Columbian Quincentennial of 1992, this
anniversary needs to be considered from a variety of perspectives, to try and
understand the different experiences and meanings of the event for the various
people involved. The expedition ushered in a new world for both the young
United States and the Indian peoples of the American West. This seminar will
examine the context, experiences, and repercussions of the expedition. We will
focus on the journals Lewis and Clark recorded.
Open to Juniors and Seniors with written permission of the instructor. Dist:
SOC; WCult: W. Calloway.
08S, Bear Clan Texts. In Athabascan homelands, in Iroquoia, or in
Siberia—wherever Ursidae (order: Carnivora) finds a natural habitat, the
indigenous peoples of these geographical regions honor and acknowledge the
Bear’s powers of healing, strength, and protection. This course engages various
textual forms that feature Bear imagery in traditional stories, songs, ritual
representations, and in various textual vehicles that transmit sacred and
practical knowledge. The texts we will consider appear in genres of
ethnopoetics, performative narratives, nature writing, some early ethnographic
accounts and recordings, recent environmental literature, and in the
contemporary poetry and prose of several Native American authors.
Open to Juniors and Seniors with written permission of the instructor. Dist:
LIT; WCult: NW. Palmer.
85. Independent Study in Native American Studies
All Terms: Arrange
This course is designed for students who wish to pursue in depth some
subject in Native American Studies not currently offered at the College.
Students may not register for independent study until they have discussed their
topic with the instructor, and have a course permission card signed by the
Chair. Please consult the rules and regulations for NAS 85 in the Program
office.
Prerequisite: at least two Native American Studies courses. The Chair.
86. Independent Research in Native American Studies
All Terms: Arrange
This course is designed for a student who wishes to research a particular
problem in greater depth than is possible in an Independent Study course (NAS
85). The Chair must give approval, and a faculty advisor will be assigned to
each student to supervise the work through regular class meetings. Usually a
formal paper embodying the results of the research is required. A student
wishing to enroll in this course must first discuss the topic with a faculty
member, who will serve as research advisor, and then submit a formal research
proposal to the Program.
Prerequisite: at least three Native American Studies courses. The Chair.
87. Native American Studies Honors
All Terms: Arrange
This course is open only to majors and double majors by arrangement with the
Chair. The course requires the completion of a formal thesis. Please consult
the rules for this course in the Native American Studies Program office.
Prerequisite: Native American Studies 85, 86, and permission of the Chair of
the program and the faculty member who will be advising the student. The
Chair.
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