Spring 2023 Course List

• Instructor: Dr. Mandy Suhr-Sytsma
• Meeting Days/Time: Mondays & Wednesdays; 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is among the most prolific and highly acclaimed authors of our time. This course focuses on her fiction, especially her novels Tracks, The Round House, and The Night Watchman, along with her children's novel The Birchbark House. We will also engage some of Erdrich's poetry and non-fiction prose, interviews with her, and scholarship about her work. Erdrich depicts Indigenous people's experiences with boarding schools, sexual violence, land theft, anti-colonial resistance, Indigenous feminisms, and Anishinaabe teachings. We will discuss these topics and consider how Erdrich's craft contributes to her portrayal of them. We will also explore the impact of Erdrich's work for law, politics, pop culture, and education.

• Instructor: Dr. Loren Michael Mortimer
• Meeting Days/Time: Monday & Wednesday; 4:00 PM- 5:15 PM

Investigating Indigenous environments and societies of a vast continent before partition by international borders, this hemispheric history spans the land’s geological origins as narrated in Indigenous "deep time" stories to the rise of industrial capitalism during the mid nineteenth century. This interdisciplinary course introduces students to environmental history and Indigenous political ecology by considering how diverse Native American societies and cultures developed with and co-produced dynamic ecosystems in present-day North America. We will interpret Native American sources with careful attention to “original instructions” for living on the land, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), adaptations to climate change, Euro- American ecological imperialism, and the ways ecosystems constituted Indigenous governance systems.

This interdisciplinary course welcomes history majors as well as beginners from other academic majors. Final grades will be calculated based on participation and a portfolio project rather than high-stakes exams. Students have no out-of-pocket costs to participate in this class. All required texts and media are available in digital form through the Emory University Libraries.

• Instructor: Heidi Senungetuk 
• Meeting Days/Time: Mondays & Wednesdays; 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM

Studies music and dance of Indigenous peoples of the Arctic and how they reflect languages, social structures, philosophies, and the geography and history of each region. Examines changing historical and social dynamics and cultural traditions. Introduces ethnomusicology theory and research methods. 

HIST 190-4/LACS 190-1: Indigenous Activism in Latin America

• Instructor: Yanna Yannakakis 
• Meeting Day/Time: Mondays; 2:30 - 5:15

This freshman seminar explores Indigenous social movements in Latin America to protect land and cultural autonomy. Our focus will be on the recent past, with an emphasis on the case of Mexico and the Andean nations of South America. We will read historical and scholarly texts alongside poetry, literature, and film produced by and about Native peoples. Our aim is to better understand the role of Indigenous peoples in confronting the major challenges of our time: the control and distribution of vital resources like land and water, and the recognition of the dignity of all peoples, including those who have been historically colonized and dispossessed. Assessments include: Attendance and class participation: 20%; Discussion facilitation: 5%; Source presentations: 15%; three essays (two of which are 1000 words each, and a final essay of 2000 words: 15%; 15%; 30%).

HIST 489RW: Indigenous Peoples and Empires

• Instructors: Yanna Yannakakis and Samantha Billing
• Meeting Day/Time: Tuesdays; 2:30 - 5:15

In this course you will practice the art of researching and writing history by producing a 20-page major research paper based on original sources. There is no single way to write history; historians take diverse approaches, ask different questions, employ distinct methods, and argue passionately over competing interpretations. This course will provide you with tools to develop your own approach while learning about and adhering to the standards of the historical profession. The content of the class focuses on the histories of Indigenous peoples’ interactions with European empires in Latin America from the age of first contact to the Age of Revolution. We will read classic and foundational texts as well as new and innovative scholarship that places Native people at the center of complex relationships with diverse actors in the Atlantic World, including Europeans and Africans, while at the same time considering the methods, theoretical frameworks and politics of these histories.