This course will focus on indigenous societies in the Americas and how we perceive them today. One of its purposes is to give students an idea of how much we know about some of them but, most of all, how much we ignore. It will also explore the difficult relationship between Western academic disciplines such as Anthropology (physical, cultural, and social), Archaeology, and Historiography, and indigenous peoples of the world. The readings and class discussions will try to explore the ways in which indigeneity was created from said disciplines. In order to do so, we will focus on some recent classic texts that had an enormous impact on the ways in which the non-specialists (that is, the general public) view indigenous peoples today.

We will start by reading Carolyn Dean’s book on material culture in the Andes. Later we will move to read Frank Salomon’s book on the way in which the Khipu tradition in the Andes is kept today in a community not so far from Lima, Peru’s capital. The controversy about ethics prompted by the unfair and sometimes inhuman treatment given to the Yanomami by some anthropologists is recorded and analyzed in Robert Borofsky’s Yanomami. The Fierce Controversy.

At the end of the course we will pass the mike to the indigenous subjects themselves and will try to listen to what they have to say. The books that will close the course are Nuestra arma es nuestra palabra, by Subcomandante Marcos (about the Chiapas, Mexico, insurgent indigenous movement) and Custer Died for Your Sins. An Indian Manifesto, by Vine Deloria Jr.

This course counts as an elective for the Spanish minor.

Class Format:

For Fall 2021: During certain periods of the term, we will engage in large discussions about the course content in an in-person format; during other periods of the term, we will engage in activities where students collaborate in small-group activities via breakout sessions in Zoom.