Course Descriptions
ANTH 101-6-21 – First-Year Seminar: Natives Beyond Nations
No description available.
ANTH 101-6-24 – First-Year Seminar: Wrestling
No description available.
ANTH 215 – Study of Culture Through Language
No description available.
ANTH 390-0-29/LATIN_AM 391-0-20 – Pop Culture in Latin America
Popular culture is an arena in which Latin Americans make cultural offerings their own through creativity and reappropriation, and functions as a resource in the practices of everyday life. Pop culture forms can be key sites for the formation of identities, for the ways in which people make sense of the world, and understand their location within it. This course looks at a variety of pop culture forms from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, including music, dance, sport, television and film, social media, art, beauty, and consumer products. Taking an anthropological approach to this subject, we will interrogate the ways that pop culture draws from, comments upon, and at times resists political issues, notions of authenticity, social problems, and inequalities. In the context of Latin America, race, gender, and class are important conceptual frameworks from which to begin. In this course we will ask the following questions: How do understandings of gender, class, and race shape the ways they are represented and experienced in popular culture forms? Why are gender and race such frequent themes in popular culture? and How does comparison between different contexts enrich our understanding of the key concepts of this course? We will read both theoretical discussions of pop culture as well as ethnographic and historical examples, following these readings with careful discussion. Students will explore these relationships by way of individual research projects, culminating in both an academic paper as well as a creative project that translates the student's conclusions for an audience of non-academics. Students will leave the course with an increased understanding of the concepts of spectacle, popular politics, race/ethnicity, and gender/sexuality that exceed “normative” definitions, and the ways in which they articulate with discussions of popular culture representations and identifications.
ANTH 390-2-28 – Language & Sexuality
Sexuality may be understood as desire, practice, or identity. In each of these conceptions, both cultural context and language play a key role. Linguistic anthropology offers important ways of understanding the concept of sexuality as related to phenomena such as globalization, politics, normativity, violence, intersectionality, and even the ways we think of sexuality in our everyday lives. Using ethnographic examples from the United States, Latin America, Africa, Oceania, and Asia, this course looks at homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, pansexuality, queerness, kink, polyamory, and other various understandings of sexual identities, practices, and desires. Students will engage with gender and queer theory, as well as learning methods of analysis from linguistic anthropology to understand the variation and meanings of sexuality in a comparative context.
ANTH 390-0/ENVR-POL 390-0 – Land, Identity, and the Sacred: American Indian Religious and Sacred Sites
This class involves the intersection of religion, law, cultural preservation, land management, and ethnoecology. We will focus on Native American sacred sites and cultural landscapes and their relationship to land, ceremony, history, and tribal/ethnic identity. Central to the class will be a focus on the sacred aspects of tribal identity and the role that landscape plays in the creation and maintenance of these identities. The class will cover laws pertaining to religious freedoms and how they are applied to Native and non-Native contexts throughout U.S. history, along with the histories and philosophies that have, and still influences these policies.
The class will cover both Federal and Tribal management of sacred sites, ceremonial sites, and religious/spiritual traditions. Important to this discuss, will be the role of oral history in the preservation of culture and relationships to landscapes and how it has/is being utilized the U.S. legal system pertaining to Native American Tribes. The role of treaties and the conflicts that arise between Tribal/U.S. government to government relations and responsibilities will also be covered.
ANTH 390-0/ENVR-POL 390-0 – Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Literatures
This will examine the exciting range of texts created by Indigenous writers from pictographs on birchbark to small newspaper presses, to award winning novels and video games. As we revise our understanding of "writing," we will also investigate how Indigenous people used writing as a form of creative expression and anti-colonial resistance. Read award-winning novels, learn about ground breaking video games, watch genre-shaping films and orient yourself in the literary landscape of Native Chicago.
ENVR-POL 390-0 – Maple Syrup and Climate Change
Sesipâskw’pêskân is the Nehiywa (Cree) word for a maple sugar camp. It’s the time in between latewinter and early spring when families gather to collect maple sap, and to harvest fish, beavers, and early
spring plants, or at least it used to be. As the earth’s climate changes, maple trees and the subsequent
maple syrup industry in the U.S. and Canada are being affected, in both good and bad ways. To
compound this, the demand for maple syrup is rising in Asia. The class will cover these effects, their
impact on Native American and non-Native communities, the maple syrup industry, and maple species
themselves.
GBL-HLTH 390-21 – Native American Health
This course introduces students to the social determinants of health influencing the broader health status and access to health care for Native American populations in the United States. Students will engage in a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar, drawing upon research and scholarship from a variety of disciplines including public health, Native American and Indigenous Studies, anthropology, sociology, history, nursing, and medicine. Seminar topics will include infectious diseases and the Columbian Exchange, federal obligations to Native American people, community-based participatory research, and Indigenous health globally.
GBL-HLTH 390-0 – Community Based Participatory Research
This course is an introduction to community-based participatory research (CBPR). The W.K. Kellogg Foundation states CBPR is a collaborative research approach that “begins with a research topic of importance to the community and has the aim of combining knowledge with action and achieving social change to improve health outcomes and eliminate health disparities.” We will explore the historical and theoretical foundations, and the key principles of CBPR. Students will be introduced to methodological approaches to building community partnerships; community assessment; research planning; and data sharing. Real-world applications of CBPR in health will be studied to illustrate issues and challenges. Further, this course will address culturally appropriate interventions; working with diverse communities; and ethical considerations in CBPR.
History/Latino Studies 218 – History of Latinas/os in the United States
Latina and Latino History History of Latinas/os in the United States and in the context of US–Latin American relations from the 18th century to the present. Taught with HISTORY 218; may not receive credit for both courses.
HISTORY 393-0-20 – Indigenous Resistance to U.S. Colonialism
No description available.
HISTORY 492-0-20 – Native American History
No description available.
HUM 210-0 – Genocide, Resistance, Resurgence: Native Peoples
Note: This course is only open to first-year students accepted into the Kaplan Humanities Scholars Program.
In this course, we will traverse the Americas to ask a series of big questions that resonate across national boundaries: What does it mean to be Indigenous? What is genocide, and can Native American communities recover from such trauma and loss? What role might tradition, literature, and art play in healing? Can Indigenous and settler-colonial societies ever reconcile? What does it mean to be an "American," and how have Native people, past and present, shaped that identity? To answer these questions, we will move from the ancient past to present-day political struggles. We will draw upon a variety of tools, ranging from archaeology to literature and law. Throughout the course, we will analyze persistent myths, reframe colonialism as a set of ongoing processes, account for differing outcomes, and reflect upon our interrelationships with the forces that have shaped nations and communities throughout North and South America, including here at Northwestern. Finally, our work will extend beyond the classroom, including field trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Newberry Library, and the American Indian Center of Chicago.
HUM 370 ASAM 303/AFAM 380 – Race and Indigeneity in the Pacific
Note: applications and registration for this course have closed
Since the so-called Age of Discovery, the Pacific has been conceptualized as a crossroads between the East and the West. By the twentieth century, places like Hawaiʻi came to be idealized as a harmonious multicultural society. This class examines how race and indigeneity are constructed within the Pacific using an interdisciplinary approach. Drawing from works within indigenous studies, ethnic studies, and critical race studies, students will address themes of sovereignty, settler colonialism, diaspora, and migration in order to interrogate and problematize the concept of the multicultural ‘melting pot’ across time. We focus on the impacts of U.S. plantation economies, militarism, and tourism in shaping the triangulation of indigenous, Black, and Asian groups in Hawai‘i and across the Pacific.
Intl-St 290 – Introduction to International Development: Issues and Practice
This course introduces students to historical, critical, and practical perspectives on international development. Through a combination of readings, lectures, speakers, case studies, written assignments, and presentations, students will learn about the history and practice of international development from its colonial foundations to its present dynamics. In addition, students will explore important issues such as the ethical dilemmas involved in doing development work, the challenges of measuring development, and the relationship between sustainability and development. To complement the historical and theoretical perspectives, students will examine mechanisms of economic, political, social, and cultural development, such as multilateral institutions, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector. This course offers students the unique opportunity to hear from thought leaders and practitioners working in various sectors of international development. Throughout the term, lunchtime receptions will be hosted immediately following class, allowing students to engage informally with class visitors.
POLI-SCI 101-6 – First-Year Seminar: Global Environmental Politics
Environmental problems like deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and ocean and marine resource degradation have emerged as some of the most intractable problems that society faces. They transcend international borders, are scientifically complex, and generally involve large sets of diverse actors and power dynamics from global to local scales. In this first year seminar we will examine how policies, actions, and behaviors impact the environment and how these politics of the environment play out on a global scale. This collaborative seminar will introduce students to the diverse ways in which different social science disciplines, epistemologies, and methodologies shape the ways in which we understand global environmental problems and solutions. While our primary assigned reading materials approach the topics through a political science lens, through individual research assignments and integrated peer assessments, students will be exposed to variety of approaches that will help us think about other ways of understanding a problem. By the end of the course, students will have a broad understanding of the nature of global environmental politics as well as specific knowledge related to a topic of their choosing.
POLI-SCI 349 – International Environmental Politics
No description available.
POLI-SCI 395 – Global Environmental Justice
Note: cap 15
REL 260 – Introduction to Native American Religion
No description available.
REL 379-23 – Native American Religious Freedom
This course examines Native American religious freedom in U.S. history. We will examine treaty rights, federal Indian policies, court cases, and acts meant to protect American Indian religions. The course will attend to the definitions of "religion" and "religious freedom" and consider historical and contemporary case studies related to the regulation of Indigenous
cultures and ceremonies. Counts toward Religion, Law, & Politics (RLP) Religious Studies concentration.
SOCIOL 201 – Social Inequality: Race, Class, and Power
This course examines inequality in American society with an emphasis on race, class, and gender. Lectures emphasize the mechanisms through which inequality develops and comes to be seen as legitimate, natural, and desirable. We will also examine the economic, social, and political consequences of rising inequality. We will place special focus on poverty and inequality in Native North America.
SOCIOL 277-0 – Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies
The Native American experience is complex and diverse. This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Native American Studies, focusing on indigenous peoples north of Mexico, their traditional cultures, histories and their present day status and conditions. Students will become familiar with the economic, political and legal structures of modern Native tribes, as well as the current economic and social experience of Indians.SOCIOL 345-0 – Class and Culture
The role that culture plays in the formation and reproduction of social classes. Class socialization, culture and class boundaries, class identities and class consciousness, culture and class action.
SOCIOL 476 – Designing Survey Questionnaires
No description available.
SPANISH 105-6 – Spanish: First-Year Seminar
No description available.
SPANISH 220-0 – Introduction to Literary Analysis
No description available.
SPANISH 361-0 – Latin America: Studies in Culture and Society
No description available.
SPANISH 395 – "Representaciones del Indio y de la Indigeneidad en" - Topics in Latin American, Latina and Latino, and/or Iberian Cultures
This course explores the forms and development of representations of indigenous peoples and of indigeneity in a wide array of modern Latin American literature. We will read mostly narrative and criticism, but also attend to visual and popular cultural production, and in particular we will be attentive to the ways in which these representations significantly structure and are structured by conceptualizations of the race, gender, nature, region, nation and city. We will delve into the prominent literary and cultural movement of indigenismo, which sought to vindicate indigenous peoples' cultural, social and political standing. We will also explore related cultural production, such as testimonio, photography, and film.SPANPORT 570-0 – Teaching Assistantship and Methodologies
TBA.
Courses Primarily for Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Students
JOUR 301-0 – Connecting with Immigrants, Refugees and Multi-ethnic Communities
See Caesar for course description.JOUR 370-0 – Media Law and Ethics
The legal and ethical framework defining media freedoms and constraints in the US, including copyright and trademark issues. Historical context and focus on the evolution of constitutional, statutory, judicial and ethical standards.JOUR 390-0 – Media History and the Native American Experience
Northwestern University has identified diversity and inclusion as one of its teaching and learning objectives. In this class, we will generate multimedia content for an "Indigenous Tour of Northwestern." Students will research Native American people, places, policies and historical social movements that intersect with locations on the Northwestern campus. They will collect and digitize historical records, maps, newspaper and magazine accounts and generate new content in the form of video and audio interviews for use in a virtual reality tour (VR) and augmented reality (AR) walking tour of the Evanston campus. This unique digital humanities resource is intended to become a teaching and learning tool for faculty, staff, students, visitors and members of the Evanston community.