AIIS Courses

Jessica Martin (Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ/Six Nations Cayuga)

Hybrid; Fridays, 2:40PM - 4:30PM

An introduction to the language and culture of the Cayuga (Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ) people. Basic language instruction provided in an immersive learning environment, focusing on the relationship of language and culture to plants and growing.

Professor Kurt Jordan

Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:45PM - 4:00PM, plus discussion section

This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the diverse cultures, histories and contemporary situations of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Students will also be introduced to important themes in the post-1492 engagement between Indigenous and settler populations in North America and will consider the various and complex ways in which that history affected - and continues to affect - American Indian peoples and societies. Course materials draw on the humanities, social sciences, and expressive arts.

Professor Juliana Hu Pegues

Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:25AM - 12:40PM

The production of North American Indigenous literatures began long before European colonization, and persists in a variety of printed, sung, carved, painted, written, spoken, and digital media. From oral traditions transmitted through memory and mnemonics to contemporary genres and media, Native North American authors offer Indigenous perspectives on social, political, and environmental experience, through deft artistry and place-specific aesthetics. Our attention will focus on the contexts from which particular Native American literatures emerge, the ethics to consider when entering Indigenous intellectual territory, and close attention to common themes and techniques that frequently appear in contemporary Native American literature. Readings will feature a range of novels, poetry, short fiction, graphic novel/comics, and film.

Professor Eric Cheyfitz

Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:45PM - 4:00PM

The Western nation-state has failed to solve the two most pressing, indeed catastrophic, global problems: poverty and climate change. This failure is due to the inability of national policy to imagine a world beyond a boundary drawn by the formative capitalist ideas of property, production, and profit. The course will begin by discussing the historical origin and continuing force of these ideas while raising questions about their limits. Then it will look at a range of alternative ideas about how the world should work if we want to keep it socially, economically, and ecologically in balance. The alternatives we will query come from a range of Indigenous writers of fiction, poetry, and theory, who locate themselves in Native American (north and south), Aboriginal, and Maori communities.