FALL 2009 COURSES IN NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES

Dear Students: the faculty of Native American Studies welcomes you to consider our courses for the fall, offered in the areas of history, anthropology, and language studies. Most of these classes can be applied toward a minor in NAS. Consult your catalogue (or scroll to the end of this document) for meeting times and locations. Please contact Tiya Miles (tiya@umich.edu) with any questions.

200 Level Courses

AMCULT 217 Introduction to Native American Studies

Prof. Judy Daubenmier [meets the survey requirement]

This course is designed to be a broad overview of major topics in 
Native American studies. It centers around the concept of Native 
American identity at certain points in American history -- who were 
Native Americans prior to European contact, how have Euro-Americans 
attempted to define Native Americans at various points or to usurp 
their identity, and how have Native Americans contested those attempts 
and tried to reassert their own identities. Intertwined with the 
discussion of identity is the concept of colonialism and its various aspects.

300 Level Courses

AMCULT 316 Native American Peoples in North America

Prof. Barbra Meek [meets the survey requirement]

This course is an introduction to the anthropology of Native North America. In it we will explore the social, linguistic, and cultural diversity of the indigenous peoples of this continent through both early ethnographic descriptions and contemporary ethnographic accounts. By doing so, we will learn about the concepts, theories and methodologies that have developed within the anthropology of Native North America, and learn to critically evaluate the ethnographic practices employed. Topics include theories about the colonization of American Indians, problems of representation, struggles over land and resource management, and the politics of revitalization.

AMCULT/HISTORY 373 History of the American West

Prof. Michael Witgen

This course examines both the “place” and the “process” of the history of the U.S. West, a shifting region of Native North American that was the object first of Spanish, French, English, and then American expansionism, and finally as a distinct region with a unique relationship to the U.S. federal government, distinctive patterns of race relations, and a unique place in American cultural memory.

400 Level Courses

AMCULT 498 Indians and Empires in North America

Prof. Michael Witgen

In this course you will be asked to re-think American history.   That is, we will approach the history of America as a continental history.  This will require that we think of North America as a New World space, a place that was inhabited and occupied by indigenous peoples, and then remade by the arrival and settlement of Europeans.  You will be asked to imagine a North America that was indigenous and adaptive, as well as colonial and Euro-American.  This approach to the study of North American history is designed to challenge the epistemology and literature of Borderlands and frontier historiography, which displaces Native peoples from the central narrative of American history by placing them at the physical margins of colonial and national development.  Instead we will explore the intersection and integration of indigenous and Euro-American national identity and national space in North America and trace their co-evolution from first contact through the early nineteenth century.   

Ojibwe Language Courses

AMCULT 222 Ojibwe

Prof. Howard Kimewon

This course is the first half of First Year Ojibwe.  It combines oral proficiency with literacy skills to produce speakers capable of preserving and using this endangered language. (Introductory language courses do not count toward the NAS Minor.)

AMCULT 322 Ojibwe

Prof. Margaret Noori, Prof. Howard Kimewon

This course is the first half of Second Year Ojibwe. This course combines oral proficiency with literacy skills to produce speakers capable of preserving and using this endangered language.

AMCULT 422 Ojibwe

Prof. Howard Kimewon

This course is the first half of Third Year Ojibwe. This course combines oral proficiency with literacy skills to produce speakers capable of preserving and using this endangered language.