Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A study of colonialism, culture, and identity with a focus on the strategies used by diasporic communities and (neo)colonial subjects to address the impact of colonial violence as well as create ethical communities. Historical and contemporary case studies will be examined. Students who took CMNS 855 in Term 1071 may not take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

Topic for Fall 2025:  Indigenous & Postcolonial Identities, Politics, and Resistance

This course examines scholarship and critical thought on Indigenous and postcolonial identities, resistance, and resurgence. Indigenous peoples have worldviews, philosophies, and critical perspectives that shape Indigenous theory, historical consciousness, and cultural production. Despite the settler nation-state’s assimilation agenda, whether spoken in the language of erasure/extinction or that of accommodation (via “recognition” politics), Indigenous peoples have, in Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson’s words, “refused to stop being themselves” and continue to assert their rights, practice stewardship of their lands, and exercise self-governance.

Indigenous theory and critical thought are rooted in histories, kin relations, and worldviews specific to Indigenous peoples, but as this course will explore, it is in deep conversation with other areas of postcolonial thought, recognizing shared histories of oppression and dispossession and aspirations for sovereignty and liberation. This course examines the overlaps and divergences of Indigenous and postcolonial thought. We will examine articulations of sovereignty, identity, and resistance and resurgence through the work of, for instance, key Indigenous scholars including Audra Simpson (Mohawk), Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene), Jodi Byrd (Chickasaw), and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Nishnaabeg) alongside authors including Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Christina Sharpe, among others. We will examine visual and media arts, taking as our starting point the understanding that cultural production is a form theory in its own right, where creatives critique and transform theoretical orientations to and understandings of identity, nationhood, resistance and kinship.

Through close readings, discussions, and screenings/viewings, students will be grounded in critical thought central to Indigenous and postcolonial thought and struggle, which will prepare students to build on this material in the development of their own research projects.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: