Professor: Chris Pexa
W - 9:00am to 11:45am

This seminar gives a broad overview of key theoretical interventions in the emergent, international, and interdisciplinary field of Critical Indigenous Studies. Our exploration will begin with the emergence of American Indian Studies as an academic discipline in the 1970s and 80s, tracking its development over the next twenty years into increasingly global articulations of Indigenous studies and, more recently, of critical Indigenous studies as “a knowledge/power domain whereby scholars operationalize Indigenous knowledges to develop theories, build academic infrastructure, and inform our cultural and ethical practices” (Moreton-Robinson 2016). Moreton-Robinson’s highlighting of academic theory and production as both stemming from, and being responsive to, the ethical frameworks and political demands of Indigenous communities beyond academia will inform the rest of the seminar’s exploration of key political terms and sites, to include the following: Indigenous epistemologies; Indigenous ethics; sovereignty; ecological/anti-extraction movements; global Indigeneities; Indigenous feminisms; queer/trans/Two-Spirit Indigeneities; sound studies; literary studies; Black and Indigenous intersections.