Advanced Readings in Native American History

Catalog description

This course surveys current research on Native American history covering a variety of topics from early contact with Europeans in the 16th century to modern Indigenous social and political movements of the 20th century within the modern United States. We will supplement these works with key articles and classic studies in order to assess scholarly trends that have shaped the field, particularly in the last decade. Students will consider how Native Americans experienced enormous economic, demographic, cultural and political challenges, and what kinds of strategies for survival they employed. This course will examine interactions between sovereign Native American nations, European empires, and the United States from Indigenous perspectives. This includes a recognition that Native America was a diverse place with many cultures constructed with distinct racial, gender, religious, and economic class structures, which will be given significant attention in this course. In addition to these themes, we will consider methodology, conceptual frameworks, and research challenges and strategies that inform the researching and writing of Native American history. These include expanding the "archive", "decolonizing" our choice of terms and frameworks, reconsidering borders (national, colonial, historical), discussing new best practices about engagement with Indigenous subjects/communities as part of scholarship, looking beyond the gender assumptions of those who created documents at the base of much documentary evidence. Offered as HSTY 357 and HSTY 457 . Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course. Counts as a Understanding Global Perspectives course.