American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS)

AIIS 1100 - Indigenous North America (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 1600, ANTHR 1700  
This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the diverse cultures, histories and contemporary situations of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Students will also be introduced to important themes in the post-1492 engagement between Indigenous and settler populations in North America and will consider the various and complex ways in which that history affected - and continues to affect - American Indian peoples and societies. Course materials draw on the humanities, social sciences, and expressive arts.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, HA-AG), (HST-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
AIIS 1110 - Indigenous Issues in Global Perspectives (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 1601  
This course attends to the contemporary issues, contexts and experiences of Indigenous peoples. Students will develop a substantive understanding of colonialism and engage in the parallels and differences of its histories, forms, and effects on Indigenous peoples globally. Contemporary Indigenous theorists, novelists, visual artists and historians have a prominent place in the course, highlighting sociocultural and environmental philosophies, critical responses to and forms of resistance toward neocolonial political and economic agendas and the fundamental concern for Indigenous self-determination, among other topics. We will not only examine the history of victimization of indigenous peoples through colonial oppression, but we will also study their response as agents of change in providing alternative paradigms and insights to humanity in the third millennium.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • To gain perspective of contemporary issues in Indigenous Studies with a historical sense that not only conveys the pastness of the past but its presence and relevance for the future.
  • To examine current issues in Indigenous Studies that are important to communities.
  • To apply an interdisciplinary lens in understanding indigenous sociocultural and ecological issues.
  • To appreciate the complex interconnectivity between the ecological and the sociocultural.
  • To comprehend that policy actions informed by cultural systems manifest themselves in social structures that rely on ecological foundations.
  • To situate Indigenous Studies within a humanistic framework of knowledge generation.
  • To illustrate the relevance and contribution of Indigenous Studies to broader issues of humanity in the 21st Century.
  • To discern a methodology of hope based on indigenous experience.
  
AIIS 1123 - FWS: The Rights of Indigenous Peoples in International Law (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2019  
AIIS 2240 - Native American Languages (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with LING 2248  
This course explores the wide variety of languages indigenous to the Americas. There were thousands of languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans and hundreds of these languages are still spoken today. We will look at several of these languages in terms of their linguistic structure as well as from social, historical, and political perspectives. No prior linguistic background is required and no previous knowledge of any Native American languages is presumed.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG), (GLC-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2019  
AIIS 2350 - Archaeology of Indigenous North America (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 2235, AMST 2350, ARKEO 2235  
This introductory course surveys archaeology's contributions to the study of American Indian cultural diversity and change in North America north of Mexico. Lectures and readings will examine topics ranging from the debate over when the continent was first inhabited to present-day conflicts between Native Americans and archaeologists over excavation and the interpretation of the past. We will review important archaeological sites such as Chaco Canyon, Cahokia, Lamoka Lake, and the Little Bighorn battlefield. A principal focus will be on major transformations in lifeways such as the adoption of agriculture, the development of political-economic hierarchies, and the disruptions that accompanied the arrival of Europeans to the continent.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, HA-AG), (HST-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2018, Fall 2017  
AIIS 2420 - Nature-Culture: Ethnographic Approaches to Human Environment Relations (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 2420, BSOC 2420  
One of the most pressing questions of our time is how we should understand the relationship between nature, or the environment, and culture, or society, and whether these should be viewed as separate domains at all. How one answers this question has important implications for how we go about thinking and acting in such diverse social arenas as environmental politics, development, and indigenous-state relations. This course serves as an introduction to the various ways anthropologists and other scholars have conceptualized the relationship between humans and the environment and considers the material and political consequences that flow from these conceptualizations.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG, SCH-AG), (GLC-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020  
AIIS 2600 - Introduction to Native American Literature (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 2600, ENGL 2600  
The production of North American Indigenous literatures began long before European colonization, and persists in a variety of printed, sung, carved, painted, written, spoken, and digital media. From oral traditions transmitted through memory and mnemonics to contemporary genres and media, Native North American authors offer Indigenous perspectives on social, political, and environmental experience, through deft artistry and place-specific aesthetics. Our attention will focus on the contexts from which particular Native American literatures emerge, the ethics to consider when entering Indigenous intellectual territory, and close attention to common themes and techniques that frequently appear in contemporary Native American literature. Readings will feature a range of novels, poetry, short fiction, graphic novel/comics, and film.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
AIIS 2660 - Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong: Unlearning Native American History (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HIST 2660, AMST 2660  
One thing many Americans think they know is their Indians: Pocahontas, the First Thanksgiving, fighting cowboys, reservation poverty, and casino riches. Under our very noses, however, Native American history has evolved into one of the most exciting, dynamic, and contentious fields of inquiry into America's past. It is now safer to assume, as Comanche historian Paul Chaat Smith has pointed out, that everything you know about Indians is in fact wrong. Most people have much to unlearn about Native American history before true learning can take place. This course aims to achieve that end by (re)introducing students to key themes and trends in the history of North America's indigenous nations. Employing an issues-oriented approach, the course stresses the ongoing complexity of Native American societies' engagements with varieties of settler colonialism since 1492 and dedicates itself to a concerted program of myth-busting. As such, the course will provide numerous opportunities for students to develop their critical thinking and reading skills.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG), (HST-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Spring 2020  
AIIS 2720 - From the Swampy Land: Indigenous People of the Ithaca Area (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 2720, ARKEO 2720, AMST 2729  
Who lived in the Ithaca area before American settlers and Cornell arrived? Where do these indigenous peoples reside today? This class explores the history and culture of the Gayogoho:no (Cayuga), which means people from the mucky land. We will read perspectives by indigenous authors, as well as archaeologists and historians, about past and current events, try to understand reasons why that history has been fragmented and distorted by more recent settlers, and delve into primary sources documenting encounters between settlers and the Gayogoho:no. We will also strive to understand the ongoing connections of the Gayogoho:no to this region despite forced dispossession and several centuries of colonialist exclusion from these lands and waters.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, HA-AG), (HST-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2022  
AIIS 3248 - Finger Lakes and Beyond: Archaeology of the Native Northeast (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 3248, ARKEO 3248, AMST 3248  
This course provides a long-term overview of the indigenous peoples of Cornell's home region and their neighbors from an archaeological perspective. Cornell students live and work in the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Iroquois, and this class will help residents to understand the deep history of this place. We will examine long-term changes in material culture, settlement, subsistence, and trade; the founding of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy; indigenous responses to European and American colonization; the practicalities of doing indigenous-site archaeology in New York State; and contemporary indigenous perspectives on archaeology. Visits to local archaeological sites and museum collections will supplement classroom instruction.
Distribution Requirements: (HA-AG, SBA-AG), (HST-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2018, Fall 2013  
AIIS 3324 - Cayuga Language and Culture (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with LING 3324  
An introduction to the language and culture of the Cayuga (Gayogo_h?') people. Basic language instruction provided in an immersive learning environment, focusing on the relationship of language and culture to plants and growing.
Distribution Requirements: (ALC-AS, SCD-AS), (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
AIIS 3325 - Cayuga Language and Culture II (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with LING 3325  
A continuation of LING 3324, with further exploration of Cayuga (Gayogo_h?') language and culture. Language instruction continues in an immersive learning environment with a focus on plants and growing in the spring.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG), (GLC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
AIIS 3330 - Ways of Knowing: Indigenous and Place-Based Ecological Knowledge (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with NTRES 3330, AMST 3330  
Based on indigenous and place-based ways of knowing, this course (1) presents a theoretical and humanistic framework from which to understand generation of ecological knowledge; (2) examines processes by which to engage indigenous and place-based knowledge of natural resources, the nonhuman environment, and human-environment interactions; and (3) reflects upon the relevance of this knowledge to climatic change, resource extraction, food sovereignty, medicinal plant biodiversity, and issues of sustainability and conservation. The fundamental premise of this course is that human beings are embedded in their ecological systems.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: juniors and seniors.  
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG, ETH-AG, KCM-AG, SBA-AG, SCH-AG), (ETM-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-CEL, CU-ITL, CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020  
Learning Outcomes:
  • To appreciate natural resource development from a human ecological perspective.
  • To apply the interdisciplinary lens of human ecology to understand human and environmental relations.
  • To appreciate the complex interconnectivity between the ecological and the cultural.
  • To comprehend that individual actions informed by cultural systems manifest themselves in social structures that rely on ecological foundations.
  • To extend the notion of transdisciplinary to include indigenous and place-based knowledge.
  • To situate indigenous and local knowledge within a humanistic framework of knowledge generation.
  • To illustrate the participatory and experiential basis of indigenous and place-based knowledge.
  • To propose a method best suited for researching such knowledge processes.
  • To value the contributions of indigenous and place-based knowledge in the context of socio-cultural and environmental change and natural resource utilization.
  
AIIS 3422 - Culture, Politics, and Environment in the Circumpolar North (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 3422  
This course examines the cultures and histories of the circumpolar North. The primary emphasis is on the North American Arctic and Subarctic with some attention to northern Eurasia for comparative purposes. The focus is on the indigenous peoples of the region and the socio-political and ecological dimensions of their evolving relationships with southern industrial societies.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG), (GLC-AS, SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Spring 2018, Spring 2015  
AIIS 3500 - Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance (3 Credits)  
The first half of the course will be devoted to situating Indigenous peoples, of which there are 476,000,000 globally, in an international context, where we will examine the proposition that Indigenous people are involved historically in a global resistance against an ongoing colonialism. The second half will present a specific case of this war: settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel with a particular emphasis on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding plausible the South African assertion of genocide in Gaza.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-ITL, CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Identify and analyze key components of Indigenous perspectives on political, social, and environmental systems(this can be observed/assessed through written reflections and discussions).
  • Define and differentiate key terms such as "Indigeneity," "Resistance," "SettlerColonialism," and "Genocide" in both international law and Indigenous contexts(this can be observed/assessed through writing assignments and presentations).
  • Conduct a historical analysis of Indigenous peoples' current situations(this can be observed/assessed by researching and presenting findings in a paper).
  • Conceptualize your idea of a just society through the comparison of Western and Indigenous epistemologies (this can be observed/assessed through argumentative essays and class debates based on insights gained from the previous outcomes).
  • Apply these outcomes to an understanding of the history of Israel/Palestine with a focus on the history of Gaza and the current Gaza war (this can be observed/assessed by researching and presenting findings in a paper).
  
AIIS 3560 - Thinking from a Different Place: Indigenous Philosophies (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 3562, ENGL 3560  
The Western nation-state has failed to solve the two most pressing, indeed catastrophic, global problems: poverty and climate change. This failure is due to the inability of national policy to imagine a world beyond a boundary drawn by the formative capitalist ideas of property, production, and profit. The course will begin by discussing the historical origin and continuing force of these ideas while raising questions about their limits. Then it will look at a range of alternative ideas about how the world should work if we want to keep it socially, economically, and ecologically in balance. The alternatives we will query come from a range of Indigenous writers of fiction, poetry, and theory, who locate themselves in Native American (north and south), Aboriginal, and Maori communities.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, LA-AG), (SCD-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Explain Indigenous theory and practice in dealing with social, economic, and environmental issues.
  • Contrast Indigenous theory and practice with Western approaches to these issues at a time of gross income inequality and environmental collapse worldwide.
  • Think critically about the most effective ways to deal with these global issues after having considered both approaches to these issues.
  
AIIS 4000 - Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History (3 Credits)  
An interdisciplinary survey of the literature in Native American Studies. Readings engage themes of indigeneity, coloniality, power, and resistance. The syllabus is formed from some classic and canonical works in Native American Studies but also requires an engagement with marginal writings and theoretical and historical contributions from scholars in other disciplines.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: advanced undergraduates.  
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, HA-AG)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
AIIS 4200 - Locke and the Philosophies of Dispossession: Indigenous America's Interruptions and Resistances (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 4220, PHIL 4941  
This course looks at the philosopher John Locke as a philosopher of dispossession. There is a uniquely Lockean mode of missionization, conception of mind and re-formulations of the 'soul' applied to dispossess Indigenous peoples of the social institutions, intellectual traditions and the material bases and practices which sustain(ed) them. While colonization is typically used as a kind of shorthand for this process, we will be attempting to stay focused on the specific dimensions of Lockean dispossession and its mutually informing relationship with English colonialism.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Demonstrate a fluency in the philosophical formulations for settler colonialism and the historical and ongoing dispossessing of Native Americans—specifically, a fluency in Locke's philosophies of 1) the workmanship theory of property, 2) of consciousness and the modern "self," 3) theories of mind, 4) metaphysics and theology.
  • Develop enhanced interpretive abilities through formal presentations and writing assignments.
  • Apply pedagogical skills in teaching course content where they lead seminar topics.
  • Employ sharpened interpretation and critical analysis skills through course writing assignments and structured editorial assistance to 1) concisely convey central argument(s) of texts, 2) make warrantable claims using relevant historical, philosophical, legal and material/empirical evidence, 3) clearly indicate one's positionality in developing arguments.
  
AIIS 4300 - Indigenous Peoples and Decolonial Philosophies (3 Credits)  
Indigenous Peoples and De-Colonial Philosophies explores the formulations of de-colonization from multiple intellectual trajectories - namely the Fanonian, Latin American and Settler Colonial Studies orientations. The course pays particular attention to some of the central tenants elaborated across these traditions that provide for the philosophies of de-colonizing, placing them in critical conversation with American Indian and Indigenous scholarship. It will examine the differences and commonalities within and across these philosophies for de-colonization, with particular attention to how they describe relations to land and the political, socio-cultural practices for animating de-colonial present(s) and futures.
Exploratory Studies: (LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Demonstrate a fluency in the philosophical formulations that justified/defended colonization - specifically a fluency in the political philosophies of/for dispossession, 2.) the socio-cultural formulations of settler colonialism. Likewise a fluency in the philosophic and theoretical elaborations on de-colonization, specifically 3.) the Indigenous, Fanonian and Latin Americanist positions, clarifying their common principles and diagnoses, differing aspirations and tensions.
  • Develop enhanced interpretive abilities through formal presentations and writing assignments.
  • Apply pedagogical skills in teaching course content by leading seminar topics.
  • Employ sharpened interpretation and critical analysis skills through course writing assignments and structured editorial assistance to 1) concisely convey central argument(s) of texts, 2) make warrantable claims using relevant historical, philosophical, legal and material/empirical evidence, 3) clearly indicate one's positionality in developing arguments.
  
AIIS 4450 - Settler Colonialism And The Elimination of the Native (3 Credits)  
Settler Colonialism And The Elimination of the Native: The course title is taken from Patrick Wolfe's generative essay, which analyzes the specific genre of colonialism in which the object is the replacement of the native (original) population by settlers, whose goal is the appropriation of native land through various forms of violence from genocide to forced assimilation. The particular focus of this course will be the forms settler colonialism takes in the United States against the American Indian population and in Israeli-dominated Palestine against the indigenous Palestinian population and the resistance to settler colonialism by these populations. The course, then, is comparative in method, beginning with analyzing the common biblical origin, that of the Chosen People, that generated the settler ideologies in both the U.S. and Israel.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, ETH-AG, HA-AG)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Analyze and explain the intertwined histories of the United States and Israel/Palestine.
  • Apply the comparative method to undertake historical analysis.
  • Apply the comparative method to conduct a written analysis.
  • Recognize, define, and apply key terms in the historical analysis of colonialism: colonialism, settler colonialism, apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and assimilation.
  
AIIS 4625 - Contemporary Native American Fiction (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ENGL 4625, AMST 4627  
If you haven't read contemporary U.S. American Indian fiction, then it might be fair to ask how much you know about the United States, its origins and its current condition. Since the 1960s, American Indians have been producing a significant body of award-wining novels and short stories. In 1969, for example, N. Scott Momaday, from the Kiowa nation, won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel House Made of Dawn and in 2012 Louise Erdrich, who is Anishinaabe, won the National Book Award for her novel The Round House. In between these two notable moments and since we can list an impressive number of Native storytellers whose work is aesthetically powerful, offering us a narrative of the United States that counters the official history. Centrally the course will focus on the various formal approaches Native writers take from surrealism to realism in representing the (post)colonial situation of Indian country and the ongoing resistance in Indian country to the U.S. legal and political regime.
Distribution Requirements: (ALC-AS), (CA-AG, LA-AG)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Identify contemporary Indigenous writer and the genders they are writing in.
  • Communicate the main theme in the discussed novels that relate to contemporary and historical issues in Indigenous communities, such as land rights, child welfare, protection of Indigenous women, Indigenous governance systems, construction of racial and colonial regimes, etc.
  • Analyze historical and legal trends in Indigenous-federal relations.
  
AIIS 4670 - The Indigenous Poetry of Resistance (3 Credits)  
In this course, we will read poems of resistance from Indigenous people in Turtle Island (North America), Palestine, and Gu?n (Guam). Our purpose will be to understand how this poetry is both a description and an act of resistance to settler colonialism and to compare the forms resistance takes in these different settler locals.
Distribution Requirements: (LA-AG)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2018  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Describe the meaning of settler colonialism and its different manifestations in the locals of the course.
  • Identify the concept of Indigeneity as a historical, geographical, and political term.
  • Differentiate the various meanings of the term resistance as a political term.
  • Thoroughly interpret poetry.
  • Demonstrate effective ways to write about poetry.
  
AIIS 4674 - Dispossession, Truth, and Reconciliation (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HIST 4674, AMST 4674, SHUM 4674  
The dispossession of Indigenous nations by Europeans represents the foundation of the past five centuries of North American history. Yet the truth of that history remains cloaked behind various Western legal-religious justifications for the dispossession of lndigenous American populations by Europeans (i.e., terra nullius, the Doctrine of Discovery, the right of conquest, and Manifest Destiny). Through analysis of primary texts and up-to-date historical and legal scholarship, students in this course will unpack these still-thriving tropes of settler-colonial justification for dispossession, assess the true impact of the taking of Indigenous lands, and explore prospects for meaningful reconciliation in the present.
Distribution Requirements: (HA-AG), (HST-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2022  
AIIS 4720 - Archaeology of Colonialism and Cultural Entanglement (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 4272, AMST 4272, ARKEO 4272  
This seminar uses archaeology to examine engagements between settlers and indigenous peoples throughout world history. Archaeology provides a perspective on settler-indigenous encounters that both supplements and challenges conventional models. We will assess the strengths and weaknesses of various theories of cultural engagement, examine methodologies, and explore a series of archaeological case studies, using examples from both the ancient world and the European expansion over the past 600 years. The seminar provides a comparative perspective on indigenous-colonial relationships, in particular exploring the hard-fought spaces of relative autonomy created and sustained by indigenous peoples.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, HA-AG), (HST-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2020, Fall 2018  
AIIS 4970 - Independent Study (1-4 Credits)  
Topic and credit hours TBA between faculty member and student.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-UG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
AIIS 6000 - Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History (3 Credits)  
An interdisciplinary survey of the literature in Native American Studies. Readings engage themes of indigeneity, coloniality, power, and resistance. The syllabus is formed from some classic and canonical works in Native American Studies but also requires an engagement with marginal writings and theoretical and historical contributions from scholars in other disciplines.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
AIIS 6010 - American Indian and Indigenous Studies Speaker Series (1 Credit)  
Graduate-level course that introduces students to ongoing research in the field of American Indian and Indigenous Studies in a proseminar/colloquium format. Advanced graduate students are expected to present their work in progress; all are expected to attend each seminar and provide presenters with critical and constructive commentary on papers.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
AIIS 6200 - Locke and the Philosophies of Dispossession: Indigenous America's Interruptions and Resistances (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 6220, PHIL 6941  
This course looks at the philosopher John Locke as a philosopher of dispossession. There is a uniquely Lockean mode of missionization, conception of mind and re-formulations of the 'soul' applied to dispossess Indigenous peoples of the social institutions, intellectual traditions and the material bases and practices which sustain(ed) them. While colonization is typically used as a kind of shorthand for this process, we will be attempting to stay focused on the specific dimensions of Lockean dispossession and its mutually informing relationship with English colonialism.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Demonstrate a fluency in the philosophical formulations for settler colonialism and the historical and ongoing dispossessing of Native Americans—specifically, a fluency in Locke's philosophies of 1) the workmanship theory of property, 2) of consciousness and the modern "self," 3) theories of mind, 4) metaphysics and theology.
  • Develop enhanced interpretive abilities through formal presentations and writing assignments.
  • Apply pedagogical skills in teaching course content where they lead seminar topics.
  • Employ sharpened interpretation and critical analysis skills through course writing assignments and structured editorial assistance to 1) concisely convey central argument(s) of texts, 2) make warrantable claims using relevant historical, philosophical, legal and material/empirical evidence, 3) clearly indicate one's positionality in developing arguments.
  
AIIS 6240 - Native American Languages (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with LING 6248  
This course explores the wide variety of languages indigenous to the Americas. There were thousands of languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans and hundreds of these languages are still spoken today. We will look at several of these languages in terms of their linguistic structure as well as from social, historical, and political perspectives. No prior linguistic background is required and no previous knowledge of any Native American languages is presumed.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2019  
AIIS 6248 - Finger Lakes and Beyond: Archaeology of the Native Northeast (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 6248, ARKEO 6248, AMST 6248  
This course provides a long-term overview of the indigenous peoples of Cornell's home region and their neighbors from an archaeological perspective. Cornell students live and work in the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Iroquois, and this class will help residents to understand the deep history of this place. We will examine long-term changes in material culture, settlement, subsistence, and trade; the founding of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy; indigenous responses to European and American colonization; the practicalities of doing indigenous-site archaeology in New York State; and contemporary indigenous perspectives on archaeology. Visits to local archaeological sites and museum collections will supplement classroom instruction.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2018, Fall 2013  
AIIS 6300 - Indigenous Peoples and Decolonial Philosophies (3 Credits)  
Indigenous Peoples and De-Colonial Philosophies explores the formulations of de-colonization from multiple intellectual trajectories - namely the Fanonian, Latin American and Settler Colonial Studies orientations. The course pays particular attention to some of the central tenants elaborated across these traditions that provide for the philosophies of de-colonizing, placing them in critical conversation with American Indian and Indigenous scholarship. It will examine the differences and commonalities within and across these philosophies for de-colonization, with particular attention to how they describe relations to land and the political, socio-cultural practices for animating de-colonial present(s) and futures.
Exploratory Studies: (LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Demonstrate a fluency in the philosophical formulations that justified/defended colonization - specifically a fluency in the political philosophies of/for dispossession, 2.) the socio-cultural formulations of settler colonialism. Likewise a fluency in the philosophic and theoretical elaborations on de-colonization, specifically 3.) the Indigenous, Fanonian and Latin Americanist positions, clarifying their common principles and diagnoses, differing aspirations and tensions.
  • Develop enhanced interpretive abilities through formal presentations and writing assignments.
  • Apply pedagogical skills in teaching course content by leading seminar topics.
  • Employ sharpened interpretation and critical analysis skills through course writing assignments and structured editorial assistance to 1) concisely convey central argument(s) of texts, 2) make warrantable claims using relevant historical, philosophical, legal and material/empirical evidence, 3) clearly indicate one's positionality in developing arguments.
  
AIIS 6422 - Culture, Politics, and Environment in the Circumpolar North (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 6422  
This course examines the cultures and histories of the circumpolar North. The primary emphasis is on the North American Arctic and Subarctic with some attention to northern Eurasia for comparative purposes. The focus is on the indigenous peoples of the region and the socio-political and ecological dimensions of their evolving relationships with southern industrial societies.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Spring 2018, Spring 2015  
AIIS 6451 - Indigenous Peoples and American Law (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with LAW 6451  
The course will focus on the basics of Federal Indian Law, the ever-changing body of case and statutory law and treaties that define the limits and extent of Indian tribal sovereignty in the United States in the late twentieth century. The course will explore the nature and extent of tribal sovereignty at the time of European contact, the changing strategies of the United States in relating to tribes, and the lasting impact of those strategies on current-day tribal communities and their rights of self-government. The course will also explore the role of the United States in protecting tribal sovereignty and tribal resources. It will also examine the powers and jurisdiction of tribal governments with regard to both members and non-members of the tribe, as well as the lack or extent, as the case may be, of state jurisdiction over activities on Indian lands. Students will be encouraged to continually identify and question the legal, political and moral basis of the laws and policies that constitute Federal Indian Law in the United States today. We will also examine the current ALI restatement project for Federal Indian Law.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
AIIS 6454 - Haudenosaunee - New York State Relations (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with LAW 6454  
This course is focused on the modern-day relationship between the Haudenosaunee and New York State. The first part of the course will introduce students to the historical relationship prior to the formation of the United States. The second part will be dedicated to the exploration of foundation legal and political principles governing the intergovernmental relationship. And the last part will focus on case studies of contemporary issues and conflicts.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
AIIS 6970 - Independent Study in American Indian and Indigenous Studies (1-4 Credits)  
A student may, with approval of a faculty advisor, study a problem or topic not covered in a regular course or may undertake tutorial study of an independent nature in an area of interest in American Indian and Indigenous Studies.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
AIIS 7720 - Archaeology of Colonialism and Cultural Entanglement (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ANTHR 7272, ARKEO 7272, AMST 6272  
This seminar uses archaeology to examine engagements between settlers and indigenous peoples throughout world history. Archaeology provides a perspective on settler-indigenous encounters that both supplements and challenges conventional models. We will assess the strengths and weaknesses of various theories of cultural engagement, examine methodologies, and explore a series of archaeological case studies, using examples from both the ancient world and the European expansion over the past 600 years. The seminar provides a comparative perspective on indigenous-colonial relationships, in particular exploring the hard-fought spaces of relative autonomy created and sustained by indigenous peoples.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2020, Fall 2018