AIIS 3560 - Thinking from a Different Place: Indigenous Philosophies

(crosslisted) AMST 3562, ENGL 3560
(D-AG, LA-AG) (CU-SBY)

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

E. Cheyfitz.

The Western nation-state has failed to solve the two most pressing, indeed catastrophic, global problems: poverty and climate change. This failure is due to the inability of national policy to imagine a world beyond a boundary drawn by the formative capitalist ideas of property, production, and profit. The course will begin by discussing the historical origin and continuing force of these ideas while raising questions about their limits. Then it will look at a range of alternative ideas about how the world should work if we want to keep it socially, economically, and ecologically in balance. The alternatives we will query come from a range of Indigenous writers of fiction, poetry, and theory, who locate themselves in Native American (north and south), Aboriginal, and Maori communities.

Outcome 1: Explain Indigenous theory and practice in dealing with social, economic, and environmental issues.

Outcome 2: Contrast Indigenous theory and practice with Western approaches to these issues at a time of gross income inequality and environmental collapse worldwide.

Outcome 3: Think critically about the most effective ways to deal with these global issues after having considered both approaches to these issues.