Indigeneity and Latinidad

EMR 148 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

In this seminar, we study the Americas (North, Central, and South) and the Caribbean from the lived experiences and cosmologies of Indigenous peoples. By thinking 
inter- and anti-disciplinarily, we work to provincialize Eurocentrism, while, at the same, we listen to Indigenous voices, literatures, and stories. Methodologically, this means that we learn decolonial theory, transnational feminisms, and critical Indigenous studies to practice ways of knowing that are informed by lived experiences and dynamic Indigenous knowledges. Through the consistent practice of such alternative epistemologies, seminar will explore various salient topics: history, the archive, and cultural memory; nationalism and statecraft across (Latin) America; Indigenous sovereignty and social movements; trans-Atlantic and hemispheric race studies; race, language, and the environment; literatures and aesthetics; migration, displacement, and identity; and Indigenous language revitalization and cultural reclamation. The seminar will pay special attention to Nahua studies and Nahuatl language and cultural revitalization, both by learning about the scholarship and being introduced to the language. Nahuatl is an Indigenous language spoken by more than 1.5 million people in México alone, and it is often recognized as the language spoken by the Mexica (or Aztec) people of central México.

All students are invited and challenged to consider colonialism, imperialism, race, gender, culture, sovereignty, and knowledge through Native languages.