This course is an introduction to the discipline and an overview of the histories, cultures, and struggles of the Native American and Indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America. Colonization and resistance, racial and social justice, and spiritual and cultural affirmation will be examined through the lived experiences of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples and the analysis of theoretical and cultural texts specific to Native American and Indigenous Studies.

This course examines historical and modern Native American communities and their relationship to institutional and university research. Course readings and discussions focus on nation building, environmental challenges, federal government policies, and methodologies for working with and conducting work and research alongside tribal communities.

This course provides a disciplinary overview of the history, theory, and application of Federal Indian Law from European contact to the present. Emphasis is placed on the legal relationship between Indian Nations and the federal government. Topics include the examination of treaties, tribal sovereignty, the Doctrine of Discovery, the federal trust responsibility, and criminal and civil jurisdiction in Indian Country.

This course provides a survey of Native American music and dance addressing styles both traditional and modern, and ranging across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Surveying a wide range of musical practice, this class explores sociological conceptualizations of tradition and modernity, anthropological culture and musicological history, and the complex interrelationship of Native American musical performance as it relates to sovereign, distinct, and modern Nations.

This course builds on the social scientific theories and methods learned in the Engaging with Native American Communities I course and applies them to a comprehensive research project focused on community-based organizations or cultural institutions.