Program Description
The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program offers a minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) to undergraduate students in any college at Cornell. The AIIS minor explores complex histories and contemporary situations of Indigenous communities in North America and across the globe.
Program Information
- All coursework for this major is in person, in Ithaca, unless otherwise noted.
- Total Credits Required: 15 minimum.
Minor Requirements
The American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) minor is earned by completing five courses: AIIS 1100 and AIIS 1110, plus at least three other courses from the AIIS curriculum, for a minimum total of 15 credit hours. The three additional courses must include one course from Group A (arts and humanities) and one course from Group B (social and natural sciences) as listed below. The third course may be from Group A or Group B, graduate-level courses or independent study. Of the three additional course requirements from Group A or Group B, one must be at the 3000 or 4000 level. Only one 3-credit independent study (AIIS 4970 Independent Study) may count toward the minor. Only program-listed courses (listed below) for which the student has earned a letter grade of C or better will be counted toward the minor; no courses taken for S/U credit or first-year writing seminars will count toward the minor. Students seeking to minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies or determine the eligibility of a course are encouraged to contact the AIISP Student Support Specialist. Students are advised to consult the AIIS program website for the most up-to-date listings of course offerings and the link to our digital minor application form.
The AIIS minor is offered in person in Ithaca, NY. There are no prerequisites to the minor, however, an application is required.
Required Courses
Course List Code | Title | Hours |
AIIS 1100 | Indigenous North America | 4 |
AIIS 1110 | Indigenous Issues in Global Perspectives | 3 |
Elective Courses
Group A (Arts and Humanities)
Course List Code | Title | Hours |
HIST 1950 | The Invention of the Americas | 4 |
AIIS 2240 | Native American Languages | 3 |
AIIS 2600 | Introduction to Native American Literature | 3 |
AIIS 2660 | Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong: Unlearning Native American History | 3 |
ARTH 2255 | Ecocriticism and Visual Culture | 4 |
AIIS 3324 | Cayuga Language and Culture | 3 |
AIIS 3325 | Cayuga Language and Culture II | 3 |
AIIS 3560 | Thinking from a Different Place: Indigenous Philosophies | 3 |
AIIS 4000 | Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History | 3 |
AIIS 4200 | Locke and the Philosophies of Dispossession: Indigenous America's Interruptions and Resistances | 3 |
AIIS 4300 | Indigenous Peoples and Decolonial Philosophies | 3 |
AIIS 4450 | Settler Colonialism And The Elimination of the Native | 3 |
AIIS 4625 | Contemporary Native American Fiction | 3 |
AIIS 4670 | The Indigenous Poetry of Resistance | 3 |
AIIS 4900 | | |
ARTH 2255 | Ecocriticism and Visual Culture | 4 |
ARTH 4556 | Decolonial Poetics and Aesthetics: Arts of Resistance in the Americas | 3 |
ARTH 4771 | | |
ENGL 4630 | Rethinking Asian American Literature: Indigeneity, Diaspora, Settler Colonialism | 4 |
Group B (Social and Natural Sciences)
Course List Code | Title | Hours |
ANTHR 1200 | Ancient Peoples and Places | 4 |
AIIS 2350 | Archaeology of Indigenous North America | 3 |
AIIS 2420 | Nature-Culture: Ethnographic Approaches to Human Environment Relations | 4 |
AIIS 2720 | From the Swampy Land: Indigenous People of the Ithaca Area | 3 |
ANTHR 3245 | Across the Seas: Contacts between the Americas and the Old World Before Columbus | 3 |
ANTHR 3255 | Ancient Mexico and Central America | 3 |
ANTHR 3256 | Ancient Civilizations of the Andes | 3 |
AIIS 3330 | Ways of Knowing: Indigenous and Place-Based Ecological Knowledge | 3 |
AIIS 3422 | Culture, Politics, and Environment in the Circumpolar North | 3 |
ANTHR 4216 | Maya History | 3 |
ANTHR 4235 | Meaningful Stuff: Interpreting Material Culture | 3 |
ANTHR 4240 | Collecting Culture: Museums and Anthropology | 3 |
ANTHR 4268 | Aztecs and Their Empire: Myth, History, and Politics | 3 |
ANTHR 4725 | American Indian Lands and Sovereignties | 4 |
Graduate-Level Courses
Course List Code | Title | Hours |
AIIS 6000 | Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History | 3 |
AIIS 6010 | American Indian and Indigenous Studies Speaker Series | 1 |
AIIS 6200 | Locke and the Philosophies of Dispossession: Indigenous America's Interruptions and Resistances | 3 |
AIIS 6240 | Native American Languages | 3 |
AIIS 6300 | Indigenous Peoples and Decolonial Philosophies | 3 |
ANTHR 7256 | Ancient Civilizations of the Andes | 3 |
ANTHR 7268 | Aztecs and Their Empire: Myth, History, and Politics | 3 |
ARTH 6556 | Decolonial Poetics and Aesthetics: Arts of Resistance in the Americas | 3 |
ENGL 6625 | Indigenous Feminisms | 4 |
Independent Study
Course List Code | Title | Hours |
AIIS 4970 | Independent Study | 1-4 |
AIIS 6970 | Independent Study in American Indian and Indigenous Studies | 1-4 |