L98 AMCS 227 Topics in Native American Culture: Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies
What are some things you'd like to highlight about the course?
Among the many things we do in an introductory course is learn keywords and concepts. If this is your first Native American and Indigenous Studies course, it might be the first time you’re hearing certain terms such as Indigeneity, settler colonialism, tribal sovereignty, blood quantum just to name a few. Because the Indigenous past and present is either marginalized or erased from high school (and higher education) curricula, we will spend time grappling with terms and concepts. To do this, we will together create a glossary. In groups—or individually for those who prefer to work alone—students will work to arrive at definitions of terms and explanations of concepts based on readings and possibly further research that they will post in a shared document. As we watch films, read novels, or listen to music, this document will provide us with a common language to analyze our sources. Instead of memorizing terms, we will wrestle with them to arrive at a deeper understanding of the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies.
Students will have the option to work collaboratively for their final projects—such as producing a podcast—or do a more standard written final assignment. Whatever they decide, the aim is to produce something with a public audience in mind. I’m excited to work with students as they find ways to creatively apply and express what they’re learning in the course
Balraj Gill is a historian, interdisciplinary scholar, and educator who works at the intersection of Indigenous Studies, Carceral Studies, and histories of colonialism and imperialism in the Americas. Dr. Gill’s current research focuses on the formation of the carceral state through its relationship with tribal nations. Her manuscript project, The Politics of Confinement: Indigenous Homelands, Carceral Imperialism, and the Making of the Deep North, is a history of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Oyáte that focuses on the experiences of Dakhóta and Lakȟóta people with spatial and institutional confinements sanctioned under U.S. and Canadian settler colonialism. It demonstrates how histories of Indigenous confinement and incarceration broaden our understanding of what scholars have called the Age of Mass Incarceration.
Dr. Gill teaches courses in Native American and Indigenous Studies and on the cultures of carcerality and imperialism. Her research and creative practice interests further include memory and memorialization, the labors of love and care, kinship and kin-making, critical geography, data visualization, mass education, social movements, and cooperative institution-building.
