HSS2002: Introduction to Indigenous People's Politics and History
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts
This Intermediate level History and Society class is an Introduction to the study of the politics and history of Indigenous peoples. The class will focus mostly on the United States and Canada – two countries created through settler colonial conquest, genocide, and dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their territories. The course will offer opportunities for looking globally at Indigenous people’s experiences, histories and politics. To understand Indigenous people’s history and politics, one must learn about the intertwined history of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy and heteropatriarchy, and their oppressive impacts upon Indigenous peoples. For example, what we call the “gender binary” is not natural but was imposed, in part, through colonial processes such as Indian Boarding/Residential Schools that brutally compelled children to conform to Euro-centric norms. Recently, in Canada on the grounds of old residential schools, unmarked graves have been discovered that contain the remains of children that went to these schools. This is just one of the difficult issues we will explore and grapple with in this class to understand Indigenous people’s history and the colonial oppression they have and continue to face. We will spend a great deal of time on Indigenous political movements that resist and refuse these oppressive systems. The course materials will include scholarly studies, historical narratives, fiction, poetry, first person narratives, films, documentaries, podcasts and other media that help students understand the historical and contemporary reality of Indigenous peoples, colonialism, political movements and so on. Students will be expected to develop a strong and precise understanding of the fundamental elements of Native American and Indigenous studies and will have the opportunity to explore their own topics of interest in project-oriented assignments. This will be a highly participatory class that will require close attention to materials and active and consistent engagement to succeed.
Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)