Cornell University Registrar

Program Description

The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program offers American Indian and Indigenous studies as a minor field to all graduate students at Cornell. To qualify for the minor, graduate students must select a faculty member from the field of American Indian and Indigenous studies to serve as minor member on their special committee (students in programs where there is a single advisor rather than a special committee are encouraged to contact the Director of Graduate Studies to determine how they can meet the requirements for the minor).

Students must also take two courses: a one-credit speaker series in which visiting scholars, students, and faculty present their research and the three-credit seminar, Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Both courses are offered once per year. The Critical Approaches seminar must be taken for a letter grade.

Faculty expertise spans multiple fields, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, education, fiber science and apparel design, history, linguistics, literature, natural resources, and performing and media arts, enabling students to develop programs that address their specific interests. Faculty with specific research expertise in Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) studies, North American issues, and Indigenous issues globally within diverse disciplines further broaden opportunities for study.

Application for admission is made only to the major fields. After matriculation, a student may select minor subjects from the major or minor fields.

Graduate Minor Field Requirements

The American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) graduate minor is available to graduate students in any field of graduate or professional study at Cornell. The minor is earned upon completion of the following:

• Two required graduate-level courses, AIIS 6010 American Indian and Indigenous Studies Speaker Series and AIIS 6000 Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History
• Selection of an AIIS Graduate Field faculty member to serve on the applicant's graduate committee

Connect with an AIIS staff member with any questions about the minor or application process. 

Faculty

Eric T Cheyfitz

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Native American Literature; Federal Indian Law; Navajo and other Native American Nations; Settler Colonialism in Palestine-Israeli Relations; Indigenous social Movements in Bolivia and Chiapas, Mexico

Denise Nicole Green

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Indigenous Textiles, Fiber Arts and Film of the Northwest Coast

John Stanley Henderson

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: archaeology of the Americas; Indian history of Mexico and Central America

Juliana Hu Pegues

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Asian American studies, Native and Indigenous studies, women of color feminisms, queer of color critique, English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; women's literature

Kurt Jordan

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Haudenosaunee Studies; Seneca and Cayuga Archaeology

Karim-Aly S. Kassam

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Indigenous/Place-Based Ecological Knowledge; Biocultural Diversity; Ecological Calendars; Climate Change and Sustainability; Indigenous Land Use Mapping; Akwesasne Mohawk Nation; Standing Rock Lakota/Dakota Nations; Communities of the Pamir Mountains

Sarah E. Murray

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Indigenous Languages

Paul Nadasdy

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Ethnography of Northern Athapaskan Peoples; Indigenous-State Relations; Ecological Anthropology

Jeffrey P. Palmer

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: film production, documentary, media studies, American Indian & Indigenous Studies

Jon William Parmenter

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Iroquois social and political history; northeastern Algonquians; governance; settler relations

Troy A. Richardson

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Indigenous Education; Philosophy of Education; Research Ethics and Methodologies; Decolonial Philosophies

Jolene K. Rickard

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Modern and Contemporary Indigenous Art; Decolonizing Methodologies; Curatorial Theory and Practice; New Media Practices and Haudenosaunee Media Culture

Ivanna Sang Een Yi

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: American Indian and Indigenous Studies: American Indian and Indigenous Studies
• Research Interests: Korean Literature, Comparative Literature, American Indian and Indigenous Studies, Environmental Humanities