Sacred Knowledge: Finding Common Ground Between Native American Traditions and Western Science

Catalog description

This course will examine how Native American Traditions inform and ground our sense of nature, democracy, psychology, spirituality and sustainability. In the process we will raise important questions about Euro-American relationships to the natural world. Our goal is to provide students with an understanding of the relevance of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge for the 21st Century. Stories have power in our lives. We should be mindful of this throughout the semester as we read a variety of contemporary Native authors who tell their stories in novels, short stories, poetry and nonfiction. Through a series of writing assignments and oral presentation, students will learn how to summarize, analyze, question their assumptions and find their own voices.