First Year Seminar: Dispossessions and Resistance in the Americas

Catalog description

Across the Americas, deep inequalities have their roots in the historical and institutionalized dispossessions of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, among others. Since European colonization, dispossessions of territories, bodies, and cultures have helped colonial empires, nation-states, and market economies grow. What forms have such dispossessions taken? How have Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations resisted them? In this reading-intensive and book-centered first-year seminar, we will study recent social science scholarship that addresses these questions. The main goals of the seminar are to help you develop the skills to read and analyze social science research and to think critically about complex social and political issues.