Native American Religions and Politics

This course examines Native American experiences in the Americas before, during, and after the establishment of the United States. It rejects romantic and New Age notions of Indigeneity by highlighting the robust and longstanding approaches to religion, politics, law, and wellness of specific communities and Indian Country at large. We will employ an interdisciplinary lens, reading historical, ethnographic, legal, and literary texts to both complicate and illuminate the relationship between Indigenous homelands and the U.S. nation state. By centering Native American experiences and accounts, we can better understand (and criticize) western religiosity, history, ecology, and politics.