AFAM 303-0-1 Black Studies, Native Studies, and Asian Settler, Advanced Topics in Social and Cultural Analysis
This course examines the conversations between, within, and across Ethnic Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies. What are the central paradigms of Black Studies, Native Studies, and Asian American Studies and how do they conceptualize relationships among race, indigeneity, diaspora, immigration, White supremacy, and settler colonialism? This course prioritizes writing that addresses these questions relationally through sections on Black and Native histories of exchange in the US, theories of Asian/Indigenous relationships and land, race and indigeneity in the Pacific, and current debates across Black and Native Studies and on the question of slavery, settler colonialism, and non-Black people of color in North America.
ANTHRO 390-0-23 Ancient Cities of the Americas, Topics In Anthropology
"When colonial empires invaded the Americas in the 16th century, Europeans marveled at the Indigenous cities distributed across the continent. This course examines the ancient cities of the Americas: their origins, their configurations, their operations, and their representations. It considers how archaeologists define urbanism among ancient societies, and why not every human settlement qualifies as a city. We will begin this course by studying the earliest experiments with settlement nucleation in the world. Then, we will review scholarship on ancient cities in North, Central, and South America. Topics will include urban configurations, everyday life in ancient cities, how inequality was built into urban space, and providing for city dwellers. We will discuss the characteristics of ancient Indigenous cities such as Cahokia in Illinois, Tenochtitlan in Mexico, Tikal in Guatemala, and Machu Pichu in Peru, among others. This class will provide you a general understanding of the ancient civilizations of the Americas through the characteristics of their major cities."
ANTHRO 390-0-23 Indigenous Resilience in Latin America after 1492, Topics In Anthropology
When Columbus' first expedition to Asia fortuitously reached the Americas in 1492, various native peoples with different cultures and languages, started to be called with the blanket term "Indians." In this course, you will learn about the diverse and complex experiences of Latin American Indigenous groups since the European invasions that started in the 16th century. Through readings and seminar-style discussions, we will trace the long history of conflicts between Indigenous peoples and the groups that have attempted to dominate, assimilate, and "modernize" them in the past five centuries. Through case studies, we will examine issues of race, ethnicity, and identity that have been crucial to these struggles. In this course we will focus on Indigenous agency, and how it is expressed through Indigenous resurgence, revitalization, resistance, and activism in Latin America. This course will highlight that, while Indigenous peoples in the Americas have endured marginalization, domination, and exploitation since the 16th century, being Indigenous in Latin America after Columbus is defined by a remarkable resilience against these forces.
GLB HLTH 390-0-24 Native Nations, Healthcare Systems, and U.S. Policy, Special Topics in Global Health
In the territory currently called the United States of America, healthcare for Native populations is often experienced as a tension between settler colonial domination and activism among Native nations to uphold Indigenous sovereignty. This reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar will provide students with a complex and in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary policies and systems created for, by, and in collaboration with Native nations. In order to understand the U.S. government's role and responsibility towards Native nations, we will delve into legal foundations of the trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation of the federal government as outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. To understand how Native nations have worked within colonial settler systems to maintain or expand their sovereignty, students will examine notable federal and state policies that affect Native health, wellbeing, and (lack of) access to meaningful care.
HIST 292-0-25 Settler Colonialism on Campus, Introduction to Topics in History
This seminar explores histories of the "campus" as a central geography of US settler colonialism. We will study the historical construction and histories of anticolonial movements on many forms of the campus - educational institutions (PWIs, HBCUs, Tribal colleges, boarding schools), military bases, religious institutes, museums, and corporate landholdings. By engaging with Indigenous Studies, Black Studies, Asian American Studies, and Queer theoretical scholarship, we will study how structures of power and possibility are embedded in the landscape. Students will be encouraged to create a research project based on a campus of their choice, producing either a traditional paper, a digital project, a performance, or a public event. Class meetings will center on discussions of texts, films, and other documentary material but will also include trips to sites around Evanston and Chicago, collaborative research sessions, and project workshops.
ENVR POL 390-0-23 International Environmental Politics, Special Topics in Environmental Policy and Culture
Environmental problems that transcend national borders are amongst the most intractable challenges facing our global community. Collective action problems are pervasive in negotiations and attempts to address, monitor, and enforce international environmental agreements are often weak. Yet, despite these constraints, international actors have designed and secured agreement in a variety of policy arenas, aiming to improve global environmental governance. Through a team-based approach to learning, we will explore how, why, and when the international community is able to overcome collective action problems and effectively address global environmental challenges. The course is divided into three parts. In the first part of the course, we will focus on the problems, institutions, and politics in global environmental governance. The second part of the course focuses on key concepts or themes in global environmental politics that shape our understanding of international cooperation in solving environmental problems, such as science, justice, markets, and security. In the third part of the course, students will participate in an extended negotiation simulation to examine the diverse actors and modes of engagement that define the politics around a particular issue.
JOUR 367-0-20 Native American Environmental Issues and the Media
Native American Environmental Issues and the Media introduces students to indigenous issues, such as treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights; air and water quality issues; mining; land-to-trust issues; and sacred sites. These issues have contributed to tension between Native and non-Native communities and have become the subject of news reports, in both mainstream and tribal media. We will focus on how the media cover these issues and how that coverage contributes to the formation of public opinion and public policy. Students will read and analyze newspaper and on-line news reports and view and critique broadcast news stories and documentaries about Native environmental topics.
SESP 251-0-20 Community Research Methods: Educational Justice, Special Topics
In this course, Evanston Township High School students, Northwestern students, and local Evanston youth workers will collectively study educational injustice as well as historical, current, and future struggles for justice. This space will be one of healing, dreaming, and imagining, as we continue to navigate our world. We will also engage in critical reading and writing, community-based research and design, artmaking, outdoor activities, and collective care in ways that nourish our minds and well-being in this time.
The course will be co-taught by Professor Megan Bang, Learning Sciences PhD students Alejandra Frausto, Miguel Ovies-Bocanegra, and Corey Winchester (also an ETHS History Teacher); ETHS Teachers, Paula Katrina Camaya (History/SS), Ilma Lodhi (Math) and TaRhonda Woods (Science); and Samuel Carroll (McGaw YMCA). The course meets during NU's Spring Quarter Every Wednesday from 5PM-8PM with dinner served at 4:30PM.
Contact Dr. Bang if you have questions: megan.bang@northwestern.edu To apply, complete the questionnaire by Thursday Feb. 9th at 9pm: https://bit.ly/edjustice2023
This course focuses on colonial Latin America in the late 16th and early 17th century. Within this period, we will examine narrative and poetic works by Indigenous and European authors in which the nature and implications of the recent history of the "New World" (in particular, the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese) is contested, rewritten, and reimagined. We will be especially interested in the different ways that these works engage with both local and transatlantic influences. Key terms and questions to be explored include polemics, prophecy, hybridity, plurality, extirpation, preservation, and translation. While the primary language of the class will be Spanish, sources will include texts originally written in multiple Indigenous and European languages (provided in translation in Spanish or English).
ENVR POL 390-0-22 U.S. Environmental Politics, Special Topics in Environmental Policy and Culture
This course explores the ongoing socio-political challenges of addressing environmental problems. Drawing primarily on research in political science and political ecology, we will analyze the diverse types of social dilemmas that produce environmental problems and the social effects of environmental politics. We focus on contemporary environmental politics to consider emerging frontiers in US environmental politics. We will examine the nature of environmental problems through different theoretical frameworks, including collective action, distributive, and ideational explanations of environmental problems. We will explore core debates in environmental politics that interrogate the role of science, ethics, and economics in shaping environmental policy. We will also consider different approaches and institutions for addressing environmental problems. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to the values conflicts that constitute environmental politics, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous and underrepresented communities. The course is designed to give students an understanding of important conceptual issues in environmental politics.
