Courses

Spring 2025

Race, Indigeneity, and the Environment (CD or SA)
Subject associations
AMS 262 / ENV 262

This course centers on the environment as a mediator for social action to understand how ecological change impacts and is impacted by structures of race and indigeneity. Using historical and present-day examples, this course will investigate the intersections of race and indigeneity in ecological change in the United States as experienced by Native people. Assignments for this course include written reflections based on weekly readings, an end-of the-term research paper, a creative collage, and a class presentation.

Instructors
Allison R. Madia
Pacific Archives and Indigenous Cosmologies (CD or LA)
Subject associations
AMS 325

How do indigenous cosmologies intersect with American literary histories and archives? This course disrupts familiar accounts of American origins on the eastern seaboard through creation stories and oral literature from the Pacific Coast of North America. Through course readings, we travel from Hawaii to Alaska. We also travel to Juneau, Alaska over spring break. We think about the Indigenous cosmologies present in American archives through a conceptual vocabulary that includes ecologies, beach crossings, oral histories, and diasporas.

Instructors
Branka Arsic-Wills
Sarah Rivett
Psychedelics, Shamanism and Plant Intelligence (CD or SA)
Subject associations
ANT 335 / LAS 355 / ENV 335

This class offers an overview of the history, pharmacology, cultural uses and changing attitudes about psychedelic and other psychoactive substances around the world. After introducing the field of ethnobotany and its role in drug 'discovery' the course surveys shamanism from various perspectives: transcultural psychiatry, altered states of consciousness, New Age spirituality and the science of 'plant intelligence.' Readings investigate the legal and scientific repercussions of the 'psychedelic revolution,' while providing a critical assessment of questions around criminalization, commodification and appropriations of Indigenous knowledge.

Instructors
Glenn H. Shepard
Anthropology of Media Forms and Practices (CD or SA)
Subject associations
ANT 424

This seminar introduces foundational works in media theory and practice. It discusses representational strategies, technologies, ideology, and the political faculties of film, television, online, and print media. Through the ethnography of analog and digital media production and circulation, the seminar also examines various techniques that shape political contestation and social reproduction of subordinated groups.

Instructors
Ikaika Ramones
Postcolonialism: Theories and Critiques (HA)
Subject associations
ANT 434 / NES 434

Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Studies showed how critiques of capitalism were based on a provincial account of western history. Postcolonial studies was based on analysis of places that were directly colonized, usually India. What are the essential elements of postcolonial theory? What are the grounds of its many critiques and what are implications for our own research problems? Readings will draw on social theory, political economy, postcolonial studies, novels, history of the Middle East, and ethnography and are appropriate for students of any region or discipline.

Instructors
Julia Elyachar
Decolonizing Indigenous Genders and Sexualities (CD or SA)
Subject associations
ANT 435 / AMS 435 / GSS 415

The seminar examines a variety of settler colonial contexts in North America and Oceania. After exploring a range of theoretical approaches to the study of colonialism, gender, and sexuality, the course will feature three main case studies: Maori, Oneida, Cherokee, Diné, and Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian). We will then assess how nationalist self-determination struggles negotiate gender and sexual decolonization, focusing on the growing body of work on gender liminality, contested masculinities, Native and Indigenous feminisms, debates regarding same-sex sexuality and marriage, as well as Two-Spirit, Mahu, LGBT, and `Indigiqueer' identities.

Instructors
J. Kehaulani Kauanui
Moroccan Daarijah Dialect
Subject associations
ARA 315

This is an introductory course in a widely spoken Arabic dialect in Morocco called Daarijah where Arabic and Indigenous Tamazight, the language of the Indigenous people of North Africa come together, making this language variety very rich and authentic. Students will learn the language of everyday life of conversation, commerce, administration, family, celebration, politics, spirituality, and literature. It is also familiar far beyond the borders of Morocco, given migration patterns from North Africa to Europe and the Americas. For these reasons, Daarijah is one component to achieving more linguistic and cultural competency in Arabic.

Instructors
Mounia Mnouer
Indigenous Literature and Culture: Not Your Mascot (CD or LA)
Subject associations
ENG 342 / AMS 349

This course will look to understand the current and historical role of Indigenous people as a trope in both Western culture and in American culture more specifically, the material effects of such representations and the longstanding resistance to them among Indigenous people, and work toward developing ways of supporting Indigenous sovereignty and futurity. It will include a cross-disciplinary program of learning that will work closely with the Indigenous holdings in Firestone Library.

Instructors
Robbie Richardson
Environmental Justice Through Literature and Film (LA)
Subject associations
ENG 379 / ENV 383

How can literature and film bring to life ideals of environmental justice and the lived experience of environmental injustice? This seminar will explore how diverse communities across the globe are unequally exposed to risks like climate change and toxicity and how communities have unequal access to the resources vital to sustaining life. Issues we will address include: climate justice, the Anthropocene, water security, deforestation, the commons, indigenous movements, the environmentalism of the poor, the gendered and racial dimensions of environmental justice, and the imaginative role of filmmakers and writer-activists.

Instructors
Rob Nixon
Environmental Movements: Conservation to Climate Justice (SA)
Subject associations
ENV 238 / AMS 238

Foundational ENV course. Introduces students to key concepts and approaches in environmental studies from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences. Focus is on the evolving history of environmental movements, including wilderness-centered conservation and deep ecology, urban-centered environmentalism, Indigenous sovereignty and land back, and climate justice. Emphasizes US environmental movements since the 1960s, with points of comparisons to other time periods and national contexts.

Instructors
Allison Carruth
Planet Amazonia: Engaging Indigenous Ecologies of Knowledges (CD)
Subject associations
FRS 141

Amazonia is a planetary hotspot of biocultural diversity and a massive carbon sink on the brink. The seminar explores how Indigenous knowledges and the environment co-produce one another and considers the significance of forest-making practices for conservation science and climate change mobilization. Drawing from historical, ethnographic, and ecological studies, Planet Amazonia is a platform for alternative storytelling and future-making agendas based on new scholarly and activist alliances. Students will engage with Indigenous scholars and environmental activists and will craft alternative visions to safeguard this vital planetary nexus.

Instructors
Miqueias H. Mugge
Translating Mesoamerica (CD or LA)
Subject associations
FRS 152

How did Mesoamerican cultures of the Americas survive colonialism? How did they adopt European culture and writing systems? What were the linguistic and cultural barriers for both Indigenous peoples and Europeans in understanding each other? In this seminar, students dive into one of the most captivating ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, the Aztecs, to reflect on their rich history and legacy from pre-Columbian to colonial times. Based on the analysis of chronicles, códices, illustrations, and contemporary texts students will be able to understand the Nahua culture of the Aztecs in the context of Spanish transatlantic expansion.

Instructors
Nadia Cervantes Pérez
Critical Pedagogy: Teaching History in the College Classroom (Half-Term)
Subject associations
HIS 505

This class is designed to help prepare students for university teaching. The focus of this course is both practical and theoretical. In our interrogation of teaching and learning practices we cover critical scholarship on the academy and the exclusions and limitations of higher education. Students are asked to consider the purposes and challenges of teaching college courses, and to evaluate diverse approaches to university education. Some of our readings are primarily instructional and are designed to offer guidance on some "best practices" for becoming an effective history educator.

Instructors
Elizabeth Ellis
Native American Creation Narratives (HA)
Subject associations
REL 359 / LAS 388 / AMS 326

This class will concentrate on some of the earliest and most extensive religious and historical texts authored by Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, specifically by the Maya, Mexica (Aztec), Hopi, and Diné (Navajo). This set will allow for a critical and comparative study of Native rhetoric, mythic motifs, notions of space and time, morals, and engagements with non-Native peoples and Christianity.

Instructors
Garry Sparks
Spanish for a Medical Caravan (SA)
Subject associations
SPA 204

The main purpose of the course is to deepen language skills while exploring health-related topics in Latin America. The first part of the semester will focus on learning about a country (Ecuador or Colombia): its health system, main diseases, health disparities etc. Students will research the characteristics of the area as well we later visit. During Spring break, we will travel to one country and participate in some medical caravans. Upon returning from the trip, students will conduct in-depth research to present their findings to the class and subsequently produce a final paper.

Instructors
Paloma Moscardó-Vallés
Introduction to Latin American Cultures (CD or LA)
Subject associations
SPA 222 / LAS 222 / LAO 222

An introduction to modern Latin American cultures and artistic and literary traditions through a wide spectrum of materials. We will discuss relevant issues in Latin American cultural, political, and social history, including the legacies of colonialism, the African diaspora, national fictions, gender and racial politics. Materials include short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Samanta Schweblin; poems by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén and Mexican poet Sara Uribe; paintings by Mexican muralists; films by Santiago Mitre and Claudia Llosa; writings by Indigenous activist Ailton Krenak.

Instructors
Gabriela Nouzeilles
Nature and its Planetary Crisis: Perspectives from Latin America (CD or LA)
Subject associations
SPA 247 / LAS 247

This course will explore dominant ideas of "nature" that have shaped Latin America as a space of "natural frontiers" for commercial exploitation, territorial power, adventure, and exuberance. We will also become familiar with the specific histories from which these ideas emerge, their ecological and planetary impacts, and how Latin American ordinary people, creators, and intellectuals (including women, Indigenous peoples, and Afro-Latin Americans) have challenged these imaginaries by foregrounding their forms of world-making with the non-human. Ultimately, this course will explore dominant and alternative forms of inhabiting the planet.

Instructors
Catalina Arango

Fall 2024

Native American Literature (CD or LA)
Subject associations
AMS 322 / ENG 242

A survey of Native American Literature. In place of US origins stories, we consider the dispossession of land and waters and the impact on the environment. We reflect on the United States' attempts to eliminate Indigenous people and correspondent modes of survival and resistance. Our goal is to attend to individual and tribal experiences of life under settler colonialism, and consider the political, social, and psychological conditions that this structure produces. In this class, we aim for a more holistic understanding of the past and present in America, such that we can imagine alternative futures.

Instructors
Sarah Rivett
Visible/Invisible Worlds: Anthropology in Film and Data (SA)
Subject associations
ANT 252

In this entrée to anthropology's visual modes, we explore documentary film as a way to represent experience, identity, and conflict through the senses, and we study data and visualizations to reveal the imperceptible, unexpected, and abstract structures of social life. We assess their realist truth claims and learn to see the world from indigenous media makers whose projects point beyond decolonization and toward knowing visible and invisible ties among people and with more than human species and natural forces. Our aim is to enlarge the material and cultural possibilities for making legible the complexities of critical social issues.

Instructors
Jeffrey D. Himpele
Justice (CD or SA)
Subject associations
ANT 263 / HUM 263

What does "Justice" mean? What do efforts to achieve "Justice" tell us about injury, retribution, and peace? This class will explore how justice is defined and sought by looking at criminality, fights for indigenous and women's rights, post-conflict transitions, environmental catastrophe, debates about reparations, and intimate forms of repair. We will combine a global perspective with engaged local work to think about what struggles for justice look like in theory and on the ground. These debates will illuminate about how the past is apprehended, and how visions of possible utopias and dystopias are produced in the present.

Instructors
Staff
Indigenous Futures: Health and Wellbeing within Native Nations (CD or HA)
Subject associations
ANT 333 / HIS 233 / AMS 432

This course uses historical and anthropological methods to examine the health of Native communities. By investigating the history, social structures, and colonial forces that have shaped and continue to shape contemporary Indigenous nations, we investigate both the causes of contemporary challenges and the ways that Native peoples have ensured the vibrancy, wellness, and survival of their peoples. We will treat health as a holistic category and critically examine the myriad factors that can hinder or enable the wellbeing of Native nations.

Instructors
Elizabeth Ellis
Ikaika Ramones
Co-seminar in Anthropology (Full-Term): Literary Anthropology
Subject associations
ANT 503

This seminar introduces students to the theoretical and methodological concerns of different professors in the department. It hones their craft as writers, thinkers and field workers, to critically reflect on social worlds and their assumptions about them, and to gain new insights into what constitutes the project of literary anthropology. It considers literary ethnography as a distinctive genre of writing, knowing, and relation.

Instructors
Lucas Bessire
Laurence Ralph
Introduction to African Art (CD or LA)
Subject associations
ART 260 / AAS 260 / AFS 260

An introduction to African art and architecture from prehistory to the 20th century. Beginning with Paleolithic rock art of northern and southern Africa, we will cover ancient Nubia and Meroe; Neolithic cultures such as Nok, Djenne and Ife; African kingdoms, including Benin, Asante, Bamun, Kongo, Kuba, Great Zimbabwe, and the Zulu; Christian Ethiopia and the Islamic Swahili coast; and other societies, such as the Sherbro, Igbo, and the Maasai. By combining Africa's cultural history and developments in artistic forms we establish a long historical view of the stunning diversity of the continent's indigenous arts and architecture.

Instructors
Chika O. Okeke-Agulu
Collecting and Exhibiting Art of the Ancient Americas (HA)
Subject associations
ART 485 / LAS 485

How have collecting practices shaped the perception of Indigenous cultures in the Americas? The recognition and reception of native art and architecture reflects the evolving intellectual preoccupations of collectors over 500 years. Charting this history, topics will include the role of archaeological illustrations; the invocation of national identities; issues of appropriation in modern and contemporary art; the faking and restoration of objects; the ethical considerations of museum display; the reconstruction of ruins into tourist destinations; and misrepresentations in New Age religiosity, conspiracy theories, and popular entertainment.

Instructors
Alanna Radlo-Dzur
Coming to Our Senses: Climate Justice - Climate Change in Film, Photography and Popular Culture (EM)
Subject associations
ENV 251 / GSS 251 / ENG 243

This immersive, multimedia course invites us to come to our senses in creative ways, exploring climate crises like melting ice, rising oceans, deforestation and displacements. We will come alive to hidden worlds, kayaking the Millstone and trips to Manhattan, engaging animal and environmental studies. Through film, images and writing, we explore the vital ways environmental issues intersect with gender, race and sexualities. Themes include: wilderness; national parks; violent settler colonialism; masculinities; militarization; Indigenous knowledges; animal intelligence and emotions; slow violence; the commons; and strategies for change.

Instructors
Anne McClintock
Native American History (CD or HA)
Subject associations
HIS 271 / AMS 271

This course is designed to introduce students to the historical processes and issues that have shaped the lives if Indigenous Americans over the past five centuries. We will explore the ways that the diverse peoples who lived in the Americas constructed different kinds of societies and how their goals and political decisions shaped the lives of all those who would come to inhabit the North American continent. The course requires students to read and analyze historical documents and contemporary literature, and includes a visit to the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

Instructors
Elizabeth Ellis
Colonial Latin America to 1810 (HA)
Subject associations
HIS 303 / LAS 305

What is colonization? How does it work? What kind of societies does it create? Come find out through the lens of the Latin America. First we study how the Aztec and Inca empires subdued other peoples, and how Muslim Iberia fell to the Christians. Then, we learn about Spanish and Portuguese conquests and how indigenous resistance, adaptation, and racial mixing shaped the continent. You will see gods clash and meld, cities rise and decline, and insurrections fail or win. Silver mines will boom and bust, slaves will toil and rebel; peasants will fight capitalist encroachments. This is a comprehensive view of how Latin America became what it is.

Instructors
Vera S. Candiani
History of the American West, 1500-1999 (CD or HA)
Subject associations
HIS 430 / AMS 430

This course will examine the U.S. West's place, process, idea, cultural memory, conquest, and legacies throughout American history. The American West has been a shifting region, where diverse individuals, languages, cultures, environments, and competing nations came together. We will examine the West's contested rule, economic production, and mythmaking under Native American Empires, Spain, France, England, individual filibusters, Mexico, Canada, and United States.

Instructors
Rhae Lynn Barnes
Carceral Politics and Intimacy Across Central America (CD or SA)
Subject associations
LAS 384 / ANT 284

Central America resurfaced with El Salvador's war on gangs, arresting over 75,000 people in the past two years. This course will examine the history and politics of carceral logics around crime and race in Central America through an intersectional and ethnographic perspective. Starting with a historical excavation, we'll focus on Central America's war on gangs from a transnational perspective, including the role of the U.S. in the making of a "gang crisis", and we will examine the policing of black and indigenous populations. Throughout the course, we will discuss how carceral politics shape forms of intimacy, especially in the family realm.

Instructors
Grazzia Grimaldi
Indigenous North Africa: Amazigh Communities (CD or HA)
Subject associations
NES 251 / AFS 251 / ANT 374

This course exposes students to the historical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural factors that have shaped Indigenous Amazigh communities in Tamazgha (North Africa) and its diasporas. It examines the role that Amazigh communities have played in revitalizing their cultures in contemporary Tamazgha and makes visible the acknowledgement the Amazighity of lands in North Africa and complexities of language, cultural identity, and colonialism in the region. Many resources in the source will be taken from the instructor's talks with family members, other Indigenous scholars, and activists in the community.

Instructors
Mounia Mnouer
Literatures from the Forest: Amazonian Storytelling, Activism, and Art (LA)
Subject associations
POR 270 / LAS 270

The ancestral home of millions of dwellers, the symbolic space of the Amazon rainforest and its cities has been dominated by colonial thought for almost 500 years. Fortunately, the last few decades have witnessed the emergence of critically engaged Indigenous artists, whose productions provide a decolonizing perspective and create a broader and deeper artistic imagination. This course will critically examine how writers, travelers, and visual artists have imagined and re-imagined Amazonia.

Instructors
Rodrigo Simon de Moraes
Readings in Religion in the Americas: Religions of Indigenous America
Subject associations
REL 516

This course provides an introduction for graduate students to significant literature on key themes, approaches, shifts, and concerns in the study of religion in the Americas focused on a particular topic across historical periods and locales. Readings may consist of critical reappraisal of primary sources, secondary scholarship that contributed to shaping the field and debates, and recent scholarship that exemplifies current and future trajectories. Examples of such topics may be religions of Indigenous peoples, religion and post-colonialism, migration of religions, religion and fiction literature, etc.

Additional description

Within only a couple of decades after first-contact Indigenous authors began drawing from their antiquity to write accounts, in their own languages, about their peoples’ cosmogonic emergence. This course will consist of key texts of this Native American religious literature beginning with the earliest and most influential, such as by the Maya, Mexica/Aztec, and Quechua/Inka as well as later in the wider Americas. Through such readings, related critical issues will be examined regarding how and by whom Indigenous religions are rendered and the ethnohistorical engagements with Christianities, ethnographers, editors and translators, and activist movements.

Instructors
Garry Sparks