Welcome >
Native Courses at ND

Native Courses at ND

The University of Notre Dame's Native American topic course offerings vary by semester and year. Below is a sampling of the types of courses that have been offered recently:

Fall 2022

Native American Politics and Philosophy

POLS 30727 taught by Samuel Piccolo

From the protests at Standing Rock, the renaming of various sports teams, and a Supreme Court
decision regarding much of eastern Oklahoma, the political concerns of Native Americans have
re-emerged with force in recent years. Many claims of Indigenous peoples of North America are
lumped together with the cries against injustice by other minority groups. Yet there also seems to
be something distinctive about Indigenous peoples: their traditions are unbroken continuations of
the first inhabitants of these territories who often insist that they are not merely more mistreated
American citizens but citizens of sovereign nations. In this class, we will study the politics of
Indigenous peoples and the states that have come to be in North America as well as the philosophy
that underlies or illuminates these politics.

Spring 2022

Decolonizing Gaming: Critical Engagement Through Design and Play

AMST 30150 taught by Ashlee Bird

This course aims to change the way you think not only about the way that we play games, but also about the way that video games teach their players to behave within their digital worlds. This course will encourage students to reflect on and utilize their lived experiences as players, and utilize these experiences to locate themselves within their analysis and writing as well as their design practices. This course will undertake an intensive, interdisciplinary focus on the history of video game development, representation in video games, and the languages that digital games work in as well as decolonial theory and diverse theories of design. This class will engage with a variety of scholarly texts, video games, media posts, videos, and design exercises, in order to illustrate the ways in which video games have shaped the ways we play, think, and behave within their spaces. Students will be required to write and design around these lessons and address and push back against the problematic behaviors and colonial narratives around violence, race, gender, sexuality, and relationship to the land that these gamic languages and lessons have created.

Spring 2021

NOTRE DAME AND AMERICA
HIST 30004, taught by Kathleen Cummings

In this course, we will interpret Notre Dame - an institution often defined as America's only truly national University - from the perspective of American studies. Notre Dame--much like America-- can be defined and understood in multiple ways: as a physical location, as social and institutional world, and as an imaginary. We will explore Notre Dame from its pre-history as the homeland of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, to its founding as a missionary outpost of the European Catholic church, through its evolution during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through its present profile as a top-tier research university and the nation's premier Catholic educational institution. We will focus not only on obvious subjects such as Catholicism and football but also on as other key topics and themes in American studies that intersect with Notre Dame's story in the past and present.

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WEST
HIST 30627, taught by Joshue Specht

Few American regions have generated as many cultural narratives, myths, and icons as the American West. Exploring conflicts and conquests alongside Western culture and the creation of the mythic West, we will examine the West through the multiple perspectives of the many peoples who have lived there. Using novels, histories, first-hand accounts, art, and film, we will trace the history and culture of the West. While discussing the evolution of the West's regional identity, we'll explore topics like episodes of violence and conquest, the creation of the US-Mexico border, the rise of national parks and tourism, and the West Coast's counterculture. In this course, we will investigate how violent frontier battles and brutal discrimination became tamed and commodified to sell the West to Americans through fashion, film, and tourism. This course is open to all students; no previous knowledge of the topic is required.

FASHIONING IDENTITIES IN COLONIAL AMERICA
AMST 30143, taught by Sophie White

Did Puritans really only wear black and white, or did they wear fashionable lace, silk ribbons and bright colors? Did early settlers wash their bodies to get clean? What role did fashion play in the making of the American Revolution? And how did slaves and Native Americans adorn their bodies? This course will address such questions by focusing on dress and material culture. We will consider the role of dress in the construction of colonial identities, and examine the ways that bodies operated as sites for negotiating class and ethnic encounters.

INDIGENOUS SELF-REPRESENTATION
AMST 30114, ENG 20114 taught by Jay Miller

How does our understanding of early American literature change when we take account of the rich archive produced by the original inhabitants of North America? To answer this question, students will read a range of Indigenous narratives, beginning with a reinterpretation of Pocahontas and proceeding to explore self-representation in Native writing from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. This will include non-alphabetic "texts" such woven baskets, sermons, autobiographies, poetry, and novels. The course concludes with the work of Simon Pokagon, a member of the Pokagon Potawatomi Indians whose traditional homeland encompasses the current location of the University of Notre Dame. Central topics to be discussed are the role of Indigenous peoples in the formation of early American literature, the complex relationship between Native writers and Christianity, and various Indigenous critiques of and alternatives to settler colonialism.

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
AMST 30141, ANTH 30041, ENGL 40814, taught by Robert Walls

Native Americans have long been trapped in a betwixt and between state, caught by the forces of past and present, tradition and assimilation, romanticization and caricature. Yet through it all, Native voices have continued to speak of the Indian experience with great power and eloquence. This course will introduce Native American literature as a distinctive contribution to American and world literature. We will examine a wide range of expressive culture from the last century, including novels, poetry, graphic stories, children's literature, film, digital media, autobiographies, performances of oral literature, and music. Through the passion, creativity, and humor of Indian authors, we will learn something of the historical experience of Native men and women, and how they have reacted to massacres and mascots, racism and reservations, poverty and political oppression. Above all, we will try to understand how indigenous authors have used literature to engage crucial issues of race and culture in the United States that continue to influence their lives: identity, self-discovery, the centrality of place, cultural survival, and the healing power of language and spirituality. Class discussions will incorporate literary, historical, and ethnographic perspectives of Native expressive culture and the agency of authors as artists and activists vis-à-vis the wider American literary tradition. Authors include Sherman Alexie, Nicholas Black Elk, Louise Erdrich, D'Arcy McNickle, N. Scott Momaday, Linda Hogan, Winona LaDuke, and Leonard Peltier.

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
AMST 30180, HIST 30623, taught by Brian Collier

America is Indian Country! Our identity is tied to both real American Indian people and romanticized ideas about them. Anglo Americans liked to play Indian but they also claimed a right to places, land, and water. All of this presented a variety of problems for Native Americans over time. This course examines Native Americans and their constant adaptation and survival from European contact through the 20th century, as well as Anglo America's co-option of Native resources, traditions, and images. It explores themes of Native American creation, treaties, education, sovereignty, culture, literature, humor, art, and activism. We will address national issues but also recognize there are over 500 distinct cultural and linguistic groups who are the indigenous people of the modern United States. Questions we will explore include why Native people are sovereign but also U.S. Citizens, why Indian mascots are such a hot issue, and how Native people have come to run so many Casinos. This course is the history and culture course that brings the first Americans together with the rest of America.

HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION
AMST 30467, ESS 33613, HIST 33613, taught by Brian Collier

This course blends the History of Education and American Indian History and is open (by invitation only) to students interested in action research on these two topics. The course may include an opportunity to collaborate on a project with a school that is part of the Native mission network schools and may include travel to a Native community. The class will feature some digital components, including the use of data analytics to formulate ideas about Native education in the United States. Students need no prior knowledge of this kind of work; even those with the most basic computer skills can learn how to use data to formulate important questions about education. The course is by invitation only because it has an outcome opportunity for a fall conference.

Fall 2020

EXPERIENCE OF CONQUEST
HIST 30910, taught by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

The aim of this class is to try to understand what conquest, as we have traditionally called it, meant to the people who experienced it in some parts of the Americas that joined the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth century. We'll concentrate on indigenous sources - documentary, pictorial, and material - and try to adopt the indigenous point of view, without neglecting sources mediated by Europeans. Although the class will concentrate on selected cases from Mesoamerica, the lecturer will try to set the materials in the context of other encounters, both within the Americas and further afield; and students will be free, if they wish, to explore case-studies from anywhere they choose in the Americas (in consultation with the lecturer and subject to his approval) in their individual projects.

Spring 2020

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
AMST 30141, ANTH 30041, ENGL 40814, taught by Robert Walls

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
AMST 30180, HIST 30623, taught by Brian Collier

HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION
AMST 30467, ESS 33613, HIST 33613, taught by Brian Collier

COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA
ILS 30460, HIST 30901, taught by Karen Graubart

When Columbus stepped ashore in the Caribbean in 1492, he set in motion a process that led to the creation of wealthy Spanish and Portuguese empires in the Americas, the genocide of countless numbers of indigenous men and women, the enslavement of millions of African men and women, and the eventual formation of a variety of independent states competing in the world economy. In this semester-long survey, we will examine topics in this history that will allow us to consider how history is produced as well as what happened in the past, from various perspectives, from elite colonial administrators and merchants to indigenous peasants and formerly enslaved men and women.

THE PAST AND FUTURES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
CSEM 23102, taught by Robert Walls

What does it mean to be an indigenous person in today’s globally interconnected world? While some native peoples are thriving—especially in North America—many others remain vulnerable to national agendas, the world economy, and environmental disturbances. The loss of ancestral languages, lands, religious traditions, means of subsistence, and even human remains continues to threaten the rights, dignity, and cultural survival of entire indigenous societies. This course will examine the history of native peoples as they struggled against colonialism, forced assimilation, and racial discrimination. We will take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how representations of native lives—through photography, film, literature, museums, and ethnography—continue to shape political and social relationships with the powers that surround them. Most importantly, we will listen to indigenous voices themselves and to expressions of indigeneity in politics, autobiography, art, digital media, science, and religion, and how they serve as commentary on the challenges of the present and the future: the legacy of genocide; the cultural impact and economic potential of tourism; threatened intellectual property rights over medicines and music; the decline of traditional foods and related health concerns; the evolving status and rights of women; and the role that both individuals and powerful outside institutions (e.g., anthropologists, activists, state governments, the United Nations, Christian churches) may play in the struggle for survival and self-determination.

Fall 2019

NOTRE DAME AND AMERICA
HIST 30004, taught by Kathleen Cummings

COLONIAL AMERICA
HIST 30601, taught by Dylan LeBlanc

The European settlement of this continent was one of the more significant events in the past several centuries. That claim may appear self-evident, but Americans today are still confronting the legacies of many of the decisions that people made hundreds of years ago during colonization. This course explores early American history and attempts to recapture that world, suggesting how it is not as distant from our own society and culture as we sometimes think. The class combines lectures and discussions to cover the period from first contact between European and Native peoples through the American Revolution. Some of the major themes will be the interaction of European, Native, and African peoples; the extraordinary diversity of early America; the cultural, political, and economic incorporation of the colonies into the British empire; and the surprising decision to pursue independence. Students will have the opportunity to read both documents from the period and modern works of history as they explore the people, events, and places that shaped early America.

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WEST
HIST 30627, taught by TBA

THE INDIAN SCHOOL AND AMERICAN CULTURE
HIST 30765, taught by Brian Collier

Native education took place in communities throughout North and South America long before Europeans arrived, but when the Europeans arrived the education took on a new form and flow first with Spanish missionary education in the presidios that dotted the new American landscape and then later in schools run out of the budget of the War Department as Grant's Peace Policy worked to "kill the Indian but save the man" a quote so often attributed to the Indian School era. Now in the modern era Native American schools are being run more and more often by Native people and for Native peoples. What has shifted in these eras to make "Indian" education change? What does the Indian School in the modern era look like? How do modern schools combat the prejudice and racism against them in other schools and in broader society? This course will discuss the history of Native education both in the past and present and create digital humanities resources for some of the remaining Indian Schools in the country in conjunction with the American Indian Catholic Schools Network at Notre Dame. The useful digital humanities projects will be put to work at current schools. This is a class in which you'll both learn about the past and make a difference in the present with members of a small team from the class.

EXPERIENCE OF CONQUEST
HIST 30910, taught by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Spring 2019

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
AMST 30180, HIST 30623, taught by Brian Collier

THE PAST AND FUTURES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
CSEM 23102, taught by Robert Walls

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
AMST 30141, ANTH 30041, ENGL 40814, taught by Robert Walls

FASHIONING IDENTITIES IN COLONIAL AMERICA
AMST 30143, taught by Sophie White

HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION
AMST 30467, ESS 33613, HIST 33613, taught by Brian Collier

COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA
ILS 30460, HIST 30901, taught by Karen Graubart

Fall 2018

INCA AND COLONIAL PERU
ARHI 20800, taught by Michael Schreffler

This course studies the art and architecture of Peru during the time of Inca dominance in the fifteenth century through the period of Spanish colonial rule in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It examines the ways in which the visual culture of the Inca was transformed in the wake of the Spanish invasion and conquest of Peru. It considers the persistence and transformation of indigenous American materials, techniques, object types and iconographies; the emergence of new iconographies and genres; and the foundation and development of Spanish colonial towns.

THE INDIAN SCHOOL AND AMERICAN CULTURE
AMST 30137, ANTH 30117, ESS 30574, HIST 30765, taught by Brian Collier

Native education took place in communities throughout North and South American long before Europeans arrived, but when the Europeans arrived the education took on a new form and flow first with Spanish missionary education in the presidios that dotted the new American landscape and then later in schools run out of the budget of the War Department as Grant's Peace Policy worked to "kill the Indian but save the man" a quote so often attributed to the Indian School era. Now in the modern era Native American schools are being run more and more often by Native people and for Native peoples. What has shifted in these eras to make "Indian" education change? What does the Indian School in the modern era look like? How do modern schools combat the prejudice and racism against them in other schools and in broader society? This course will discuss the history of native education both in the past and present and create digital humanities resources for some of the remaining Indian Schools in the country in conjunction with the American Indian Catholic Schools Network at Notre Dame. The useful digital humanities projects will be put to work at current schools. This is a class in which you'll both learn about the past and make a difference in the present with members of a small team from the class.

COLONIAL AMERICA
AFST 30233, AMST 30322, CNST 30009, HIST 30601, ILS 30405, taught by Garrett Fontenote

EXPERIENCE OF CONQUEST
HIST 30910, MI 30243, taught by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Spring 2018

THE PAST AND FUTURES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
CSEM 23102, taught by Robert Walls

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
AMST 30141, ANTH 30041, ENGL 40814, taught by Robert Walls

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
AMST 30180, HIST 30623, taught by Brian Collier

FASHIONING IDENTITIES IN COLONIAL AMERICA
AMST 30143, taught by Sophie White

HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION
AMST 30467, ESS 33613, HIST 33613, taught by Brian Collier

GLOBAL INDIGENOUS POLITICS
ANTH 43403, taught by Christopher Ball

Indigenous people often appear to be people without property. Whether it is outside observers who presume that they never had a "proper" economy of individual possessions, or whether it is indigenous representatives who define themselves as having lost their property—their land, their traditions, their languages—what and who is indigenous is defined by an absence. In contemporary contexts of globalization, however, indigenous traditional knowledge as intellectual property has become a lightning rod of political action. There has been a corresponding redefinition of the indigenous from the criterion of autochthony or priority to relations of dispossession or appropriation. Anthropology has continued comparative study of the variety of theories of, or knowledge about, property and its place in the construction of individuals and collectivities in indigenous societies. This course connects cultural categories of property with ethnographic scenes of its alienation to explore the emerging role of culture as emblem, itself a kind of property. We ask how indigenous appropriation of the culture concept and colonial appropriation of the environmental knowledge, art, language, and land of indigenous cultures furthers the cycle of symbolic and material exchange that defines indigeneity.

Fall 2017

CAPTIVES AND SLAVES
AMST 30126, AFST 30075, AMST 30126, GSC 30595, HIST 30605, taught by Sophie White

This interdisciplinary course will foreground the lives of the enslaved in colonial America and the Caribbean (inc. Haiti). We will consider indigenous Native-American and West African practices pertaining to enslavement and captivity, as well as the development of hereditary slavery in the colonies. Throughout, we will maintain a focus on understanding the lived experience of individuals who were captured/enslaved, with special emphasis on gender and material culture.

COLONIAL AMERICA
AFST 30233, AMST 30322, CNST 30009, HIST 30601, ILS 30405, taught by Garrett Fontenote

HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION
AFST 30467, ESS 33613, HIST 33613, taught by Brian Collier

EXPERIENCE OF CONQUEST
HIST 30910, MI 30243, taught by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Spring 2017

INCA AND COLONIAL PERU
ARHI 20800, taught by Michael Schreffler

THE PAST AND FUTURES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
CSEM 23102, taught by Robert Walls

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
AMST 30141, ANTH 30041, ENGL 40814, taught by Robert Walls

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
AMST 30180, HIST 30623, taught by Brian Collier

HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION
AFST 30467, ESS 33613, HIST 33613, taught by Brian Collier

EARLY MODERN ATLANTIC HISTORY
HIST 43654, taught by Catharine Cangany

From 1492 to the 1830s, European colonizers, Native groups, and peoples of African descent encountered and grappled with each other in the Atlantic world. Those interactions were marked by many things: curiosity, misunderstanding, creativity, religious zeal, greed, disease, accommodation, adaptation, syncretism, negotiation, innovation, resistance, resilience, rebellion, revolution, fear, suspicion, inequality, racism, and violence. There were economic developments: transformations in labor and commercial systems, manufacturing, distribution, communication, transportation, consumption, and credit changed the ways people produced, bought, sold, marketed, consumed, talked about, and paid for goods. Mercantilism gave way to capitalism, propelled by chattel slavery. There were religious and cultural innovations, marked by competitive missionizing, the printing press, evangelical Protestantism, hybridized beliefs and practices, and the trappings of materialism. There were environmental consequences: Native populations were decimated by European diseases. Species and crops swapped in the Columbian Exchange remade Old and New World landscapes. There were political dynamics: colonizers modified their modes of colonization and the laws that governed them, colonies changed imperial hands, and slaves, free colonists, and indigenous peoples rose up against their occupiers, in some instances successfully throwing off the bands of imperial control. In this course, students will consider these messy, complicated interactions in order to produce a 25-page research paper on some aspect of the early modern Atlantic world.

Fall 2016

CAPTIVES AND SLAVES
AMST 30126, AFST 30075, AMST 30126, GSC 30595, HIST 30605, taught by Sophie White

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
AMST 30180, HIST 30623, taught by Brian Collier

MAKING THE AMERICAN WEST
AMST 30185, HIST 30694, taught by Anne Coleman

This course takes cowboys, Indians, and the tourist west seriously. At once timeless and placeless, concepts like the "frontier" and the "Wild West" are also deeply rooted in western history and environments. How did the mythic West emerge in the 19th and 20th centuries? How has it hidden the native, gender, labor, and environmental realities of the West while also directly shaping them? We will examine expressions of the West ranging from Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Black Elk Speaks, and iconic visual culture, to western tourist resorts, the Sand Creek Massacre site, popular film, and museums of western art. We will end by exploring cultural critiques of mainstream mythic images and suggesting some critiques of our own. Course requirements will include reading, discussion, occasional film screenings, and smaller writing assignments as well as a final project where students present their own version of the West for public consumption. There will be a field trip to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis.

COLONIAL AMERICA
AMST 30322, AFST 30233, CNST 30009, HIST 30601, ILS 30405, taught by Garrett Fontenote

GLOBAL INDIGENOUS POLITICS
ANTH 4304, ANTH 63403, IIPS 63202, taught by Christopher Ball

Indigenous people often appear to be people without property. Whether it is outside observers who presume that they never had a ?proper? economy of individual possessions, or whether it is indigenous representatives who define themselves as having lost their property?their land, their traditions, their languages?what and who is indigenous is defined by an absence. In contemporary contexts of globalization, however, indigenous traditional knowledge as intellectual property has become a lightning rod of political action. There has been a corresponding redefinition of the indigenous from the criterion of autochthony or priority to relations of dispossession or appropriation. Anthropology has continued comparative study of the variety of theories of, or knowledge about, property and its place in the construction of individuals and collectivities in indigenous societies. This course connects cultural categories of property with ethnographic scenes of its alienation to explore the emerging role of culture as emblem, itself a kind of property. We ask how indigenous appropriation of the culture concept and colonial appropriation of the environmental knowledge, art, language, and land of indigenous cultures furthers the cycle of symbolic and material exchange that defines indigeneity.

RACE, EXPERIENCE, AND POLITICS

ANTH 43304, HESB 43892, ILS 43104, ANTH 63304, AFST 43708, IIPS 63204, taught by Gabriel Torres

This course challenges students to think about the relationship between the experience of race and politics. Historically, scholars have variously theorized race and racism, so we first consider the socio-cultural contexts of such intellectual engagements. Secondly, we examine the many ways in which race can be experienced: from everyday life, to education, and to popular culture (e.g., film, dance, music, and sports). Finally, we explore the politicization of race in various liberal democratic states. Throughout the semester, students must critically engage the junctures and disjunctures between racial experience and political thought. Although considerable weight will be given to ethnographic sources, this course is interdisciplinary and will draw from disciplines across the social sciences and humanities.

EXPERIENCE OF CONQUEST
HIST 30910, MI 30243, taught by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA
ILS 30460, HIST 30901, taught by Karen Graubart

USEM: Sustainable Wisdom, Civilization, and the Good Life

taught by Eugene Halton

The story of civilization as a march from primitive conditions and scarcity to inevitable progress and abundance has given way to a record showing the legacy of pre- and non-civilized peoples as thriving in sustainable lifestyles and beliefs. The advent of civilization marks a break from that long past and its sustainable wisdom, toward progressive ways of living that also came with many costs, ancient and modern. Through a combination of diverse readings, practical activities, field trips, and the sustainable wisdom conference, this seminar will consider the place of sustainable wisdom for contemporary civilization. The first weeks examine the watershed of consciousness involved in the transition from hunter-gatherer life to that of agriculturally-based civilization. Later topics include transitions to modern life and how practices and ideas from the legacy of sustainable wisdom might contribute to the good life today.

USEM: Sustainable Wisdom, Civilization, and the Good Life

taught by Darcia Narvaez

The story of civilization is often perceived as a march from primitive conditions and scarcity to abundance and inevitable progress. However, the record shows that pre and non-civilized peoples thrived with sustainable lifestyles and beliefs. Civilization then marks a break from that long past and its sustainable wisdom, toward ways of living that came with many costs. Through a combination of diverse readings, practical activities, field trips (Fernwood Gardens, Snite Museum, Farmer’s market), and the sustainable wisdom conference, this seminar will consider the place of sustainable wisdom for contemporary civilization. The first weeks examine the watershed of consciousness involved in the transition from hunter-gatherer life to that of agriculturally-based civilization. Later topics include how practices and ideas from the legacy of sustainable wisdom might contribute to the good life today. Students read contemporary and classic essays, stories and poems on the nature of wisdom, civilization and the good life. We take up practices that promote wellbeing and discuss how to balance the elements of a wise and good life.

Spring 2016

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
AMST 30141, ANTH 30041, ENGL 40814, taught by Robert Walls

We acknowledge our presence on the traditional homelands of Native peoples including the Haudenosauneega, Miami, Peoria, and particularly the Pokégnek Bodéwadmik / Pokagon Potawatomi, who have been using this land for education for hundreds of years, and continue to do so.