HIST 205-02, Queer Histories, Spring 2013

Abstract

The actual history of Native North Americans bears little resemblance to popular lore about Indians as mystics in harmony with nature, as primitives and victims, or as warriors and princesses. This course will analyze EuroAmerican constructions of Indian identity in light of imperial expansion, and re-envision Native American people as active agents in history. Our chronology begins before European invasion and goes beyond the “closing of the frontier” to include the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will trace Indian innovations in land use, family structure, economic life, political organization and diplomatic relations, through the histories of specific tribes as they navigated changing North American landscapes. In the process, we will re-periodize and remap North American history using tribal standards of significance.