American Indigenous Studies (BA)

Class introduces students to history of the discipline and surveys both historic and contemporary topics of importance to American Indian Studies including gender roles, education, sovereignty, treaties, and oral traditions.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Oral traditions are at the base of all American Indian cultures. This class will provide students with the necessary tools for a better understanding of traditional knowledge and its importance within diverse traditional cultures.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Course introduces students to the legal side of being American Indian. Politics and policies will be examined to show how a contemporary native experience is shaped through American courts, Presidential chambers, and Native activist movements.

Prerequisites: AIS 101

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will provide overview of Minnesota Indian nations and their relations to each other and the effects of European incursion. Subsequent relations will focus on the US-Dakota war and its aftermath.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Working with a faculty advisor, students will gain practical knowledge of fieldwork techniques and gain practical experience through this experiential learning course. Students will learn to approach indigenous communities and people with respect to cultural practices and behave like relatives in their research practices. This course is a capstone research project for the AIS program.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Gold

This course provides the first steps in understanding the Dakota culture through the language of the Oyate or Dakota people. Students will be introduced to culture and concepts through the Dakota language and learn to understand the words from a Dakota worldview.

Prerequisites: AIS 101

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course provides the second step in understanding the Dakota culture through the language of the Oyate or Dakota people. Students will continue to explore an understanding of culture and concepts through the Dakota language and learn to understand the words from a Dakota worldview.

Prerequisites: AIS 101, AIS 110

Diverse Cultures: Purple

An introduction to the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in the Ojibwe language as well as non-linguistic aspects of cultural background and history.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-07, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

An introduction to the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in the Ojibwe language as well as non-linguistic aspects of cultural background and history.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-07, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Grammar review, oral practice, written composition, and development of reading and listening skills within a cultural context.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08

Grammar review, oral practice, written composition, and development of reading and listening skills within a cultural context.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08

This course is an introduction to Native American history from creation to 1900 in North America. It introduces students to the continuity of social, cultural, political, and economic diversity amongst Native American peoples and focuses on adaptions to intertribal and colonial relationships during this time period.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course is an introduction to Native American history from 1900 to present day. It introduces students to the continuity of social, cultural, political, and economic diversity amongst Native American peoples and focuses on the impact of federal Indian policy, issues of power, sovereignty, identity, activism, and self-determination.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Being American Indian and being woman creates a unique situation for women who have been directly influenced by the differences of gender roles from two intersecting cultures. This course will focus on how those differences have affected American Indian Women.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

The course is offered according to student demand and instructor availability/expertise. A variety of topics related to ethnic and cultural areas will provide curriculum enrichment on an ongoing basis.

Prerequisites: none

Examines leadership prior to European colonization, the overlap of Indian and colonial leadership, contemporary governmental leadership, and contemporary tribal leadership. Define what is and is not leadership and examine characteristics of individuals deserving the title of leader among American Indians.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This class introduces students to Indigenous perspectives of education, knowledge, and learning. Students will explore the historical relationships between educational institutions, policies, practices, and Indigenous communities. Through an engagement with present day efforts of educators, programs, and institutions that incorporate and engage traditional knowledges, students will develop a deeper understanding of Indigenous education and ways to promote teaching practices and pedagogies that value and support a diverse educational community.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-09

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course examines American Indian identity as it relates to Hollywood film industry history. Underlying issues of contemporary Indians are also addressed through an introduction to Native Cinema and the effects of current technologies and globalization.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Introduces students to the differences between indigenous and Western views of the environment. Analyzes the impact of invasion and encroachment on indigenous societies' interactions with nature. Compares historical and contemporary environmental issues in indigenous societies.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-10

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Course introduces students to the various ways that land is used by American Indians. We will explore traditional land use, contemporary land use, and land issues that impact American Indians and cultural activities that are tied to the land.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will provide students with a greater understanding of the social structure of American Indian nations through the production, reproduction and revival of traditions. This will include looking at oral, musical, kinetic, ideational, and material traditions.

Prerequisites: none

Introduces students to museum science and how historic constructs, practices, and contemporary issues of the museum as an institution relates to the representation of American Indians. Focus will be on translating western practices to a Indigenous aesthetic.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Gold

This course is offered according to student demand and instructor availability/expertise. A variety of topics related to ethnic and cultural areas will provide curriculum enrichment on an ongoing basis.

Prerequisites: none

A brief, intensive or hands on experience based in Indigenous knowledge and methods. Variable topics.

Prerequisites: none

Field experiences in settings appropriate to the discipline of American Indian Studies. Requires advanced standing in American Indian Studies and consent of supervising faculty.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Gold

Allows for an advanced level pursuit of special projects of research on an independent basis. Requires coordination with a faculty member.

Prerequisites: none

This course focuses on studying the diversity of human societies using environmental approaches such as evolutionary/ecological perspectives and systems modeling. Case studies will be drawn from Native American cultures.

Prerequisites: none

A detailed study of Minnesota archaeology from ca. 12,000 years ago to ca 1900, with a focus on diverse and changing Native American populations.

Prerequisites: none

A survey of current knowledge about the prehistoric Native American inhabitants of North America from ca. 15,000 years ago until ca. 1900. Topics will focus on the processes of cultural development, change, and disruption by Euro-American influences.

Prerequisites: none

A detailed study of Latin American archaeology from ca. 12,000 years ago to ca.1900, with a focus on diverse and changing Native American populations.

Prerequisites: none

American Indians adapted to environmental systems in North America with cultures ranging from small groups of foragers to cities supported by intensive agriculture. This course presents a variety of perspectives of this cultural diversity from the Ice Age to the 20th century.

Prerequisites: none

This writing-intensive course surveys the earliest Native American literary works, from oral tradition and songs to contemporary works and authors, with a particular emphasis on tribal and cultural contexts that identify these works as Native American.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course is designed to provide law enforcement students with the basic information, tools, and skills needed to improve interpersonal communications with coworkers and citizens from all ethnic and cultural groups. It is also intended to provide some historical information so students can contextualize and better understand why particular groups may distrust and resist law enforcement and the criminal justice system as a whole.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

To what extent do the differences among races and between genders represent biological differences, and to what extent are they constructed by society? Is racism best conceptualized as an additional burden to sexism or as one different in kind?

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-07

Racial and ethnic minorities in U.S. politics. Public opinion on racial issues, minority representation, race (partisanship and voting behavior), and racial issues (affirmative action, school busing, immigration).

Prerequisites: none