This course examines the persistence and change in Native American cultures using archaeological, ethnohistorical, socioeconomic, ethnographic, linguistic, and autobiographical sources among others. In addition to broad regional and historical coverage, we will read about and discuss culture change, colonialism, federal law, gender, race, and places in Native American contexts. Our goal is to understand the lived experiences of Indian people and the many forces that shape Native American lives.

This course will examine the parallels of anthropological works and resulting government policies in the late-19th and 20th centuries as they relate to the genre of Native Americans film, both popular and ethnographic works. In addition, an extensive regional and historical literature review will complement the possible films.

The research conducted by sociologists and anthropologists generates large, complex data sets that are difficult to interpret subjectively. We will explore the basic quantitative tools that sociologists and anthropologists can use to understand these data sets and learn how to craft a research question and research design that utilize quantitative data, how to select appropriate quantitative techniques and apply them, how to present results, and how to critically evaluate quantitatively based knowledge claims.

There is a great cultural, and linguistic diversity among Native American Indigenous Nations and their approach to managing cultural and natural resources. This course will explore this diversity in addition to the various ways Indigenous nations have maintained and exerted their sovereignty. This will be done in one of three distinct topics: 1). American Indian Sovereignty - an examination of the historical and political foundations of Indigenous sovereignty and its current expressions; 2). Indigenous Economics and Economies - a contrasting of Indigenous approaches for building and maintaining sustainable economies with non-Indigenous ones combined with the use of economic methods to understand the impact of settler colonialism and capitalism on Indigenous economies; or 3). Native American Languages - an examination of: the structure and origin of Indigenous languages; the events that have led many Indigenous languages to be endangered; and the efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages. For clarification purposes: American Indian is used to refer to Indigenous people residing within the boundaries of the continental United States; Native American broadens this definition to include all Indigenous people residing in either North or South America; while Indigenous is the most broadly defined. Indigenous includes all people who identify with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies who consider themselves distinct from the societies now prevailing on those territories both within and outside the Americas.

The research conducted by sociologists and anthropologists generates large, complex data sets that are difficult to interpret subjectively. We will explore the basic quantitative tools that sociologists and anthropologists can use to understand these data sets and learn how to craft a research question and research design that utilize quantitative data, how to select appropriate quantitative techniques and apply them, how to present results, and how to critically evaluate quantitatively based knowledge claims.