Courses

Current Courses

Fall 2013

» To register for American Indian Studies courses, you can begin here: Registration Information.

» See the Registration Help Guide if you need on-line assistance.

» Learn more about the undergraduate minor or contact John McKinn.

AIS 101: Intro to American Indian Studies. STAFF, TTH 9:30-10:45; TTH 11-12:25, TTH 2-3:15; DeLisle TTH 12:30-1:45 (Discovery); Williams, TTH 11-12:25

Interdisciplinary introduction surveys the stories, histories, and lands of tribal peoples who became known as "American Indians." 

These courses will include a comparative introduction to the geography, societies, and cultures of Oceania, including Hawai`i,.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Spring 2013 for a
UIUC: Hist&Philosoph Perspect course, and UIUC: US Minority Culture(s) course

AIS 199: Museums and the Pacific. DeLisle, TTH 9:30-10:45

Museums and the Pacific. This course examines the relations between museums and indigenous Pacific Islanders. It explores the role of museums and similar cultural institutions - including the work of Euro-American explorers, scientists, anthropologists, and tourists - in the collections, exhibitions, and representations of Native Pacific Island peoples and objects.

AIS 199: American Indians in Film.Howe, TTH 12:30-1:45

In this course we examine Hollywood films with American Indian themes from the silent era classic Redskin (1929), to contemporary dramas such as Hidalgo (2004). Students will analyze converging themes of racial stereotypes, nationalism, transnationalism, and American exceptionalism in American film production.

Non-Chancellor's Scholars may enroll with consent of instructor and Director of the Campus Honors Program.

AIS 275: Sex on the Beach. Diaz, MW 10-10:50, Lab T 2-4:20

The topic for this course (AIS 275 Am Indian and Indigenous Film) is "Sex on the Beach" and will focus on films the Pacific Islands. Have you ever noticed that films set in the Pacific are always about romance or tragedy? This course samples the body of films set in the Pacific Islands to develop our critical visual literacy skills through which we can understand a broader, ongoing, history of Euro American fears and desires as projected through exotic and erotic films of romance and tragedy set in the islands.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2013 for a
UIUC: Literature and the Arts course , and UIUC: US Minority Culture(s) course

AIS 291: Independent Study

Supervised reading and research in American Indian Studies chosen by the student with instructor approval.

AIS 490/590: Fires of Memory. Harjo MW 4:00 ‐ 6:20, First eight‐week course (meets August 13 thru Oct 13)

The Power of Personal Storytelling in Indigenous America Stores can be literal caches of remembering, so that dream, history, or mythic elements have a place to live until they are refreshed into being by speaking, or by reading. We will consider how earthscape, generation, and individual personhood generate meaning. We will consider the power of memory, even memory as a living being. There will be two tracks through the course, one designed for undergraduates and another, more rigourous one, for graduate students.

There will be a creative non-fiction writing option, or an essay option. For permission to register, contact John McKinn in the American Indian Studies Office.

AIS 491: Readings in American Indian Studies

Individual guidance in intensive readings in the theories and practices of the field of American Indian Studies.

AIS 503: #Indigenous. Byrd T 3:30-5:50

#Indigenous: Digital Natives, Technology, and Indigenous

Critical Theory With #idlenomore and the rise of social media for indigenous activism, decolonizatin, and mobilization, questions emerge about the role digital technology plays in indigenous modes of resistance locally and globally. This course, in conjuction with the fall symposium on Indigneous New Media, will look at some of the recent scholarship in indigneous studies that considers the impact of media, technology, and digital cultures on knowledge production at the site of materiality, recognition, and language. In reading key texts across a range of disciplines from video game studies to queer theory, the course will ask students to consider how a concept like indigeneity mobliizes and disrupts the structures of settler colonialism and notions of spatiality, territoriality, temporality, and futurity. Some of the texts may include Ian Bogost, Unit Operations, Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, Mishuana Goeman, Mark My Words, Mark Rifkin, When Did Indians Become Straight, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Red: A Haida Manga, and Chadwick Allen, Trans-Indigneous.