Decolonial Methods for Interdisciplinary Research

Catalog description

This course surveys contemporary scholarship in multiple disciplines to provide an overview of decolonial research methods and analytical frameworks. Each week, the readings will engage a different topic related to historical and contemporary ways of thinking about land, personhood, and power. Intended for students who are interested in initiating their own research projects in the future, the course is structured to enable students with little prior knowledge of archives or research methods to plan, begin, document, and revise an original project. Combining the study of theoretical readings with weekly research and reflection, students will develop critical tools for thinking, speaking, and writing about colonialism at the University and in a subject area of their choice. Theories are enabling, dynamic, and helpful tools for approaching texts, objects, situations, places, narratives. In this course, they will encounter things both familiar and unfamiliar in ways that unsettle not only their expectations but also their presumed relationship to what they know, where they are, and what might happen next.