Mount Greylock, seen from Stony Ridge in Northwest Massachusetts
Academics
Native American & Indigenous Studies

Courses

Native American & Indigenous Studies (NAIS) is a coordinate program. Coordinates do not offer majors or concentrations, but are a cluster of courses that guide you towards interdisciplinary areas of study. These course clusters do not appear on your transcripts. Below is a sample of courses offered across the curriculum that align with the NAIS program.

Courses in Native American & Indigenous Studies

You may select courses that investigate topics such as Indigenous sovereignty, resistance to colonialism, environmental stewardship, language and literature, material culture and political movements. Below is a sample of courses offered across the curriculum that align with the NAIS program.

  • Examine critical moments of Indigenous sovereignty, resistance and adaptation within colonial and settler-state contexts.

    AFR 247
    Circa 1492: A Black Studies Perspective    		 AMST 101
    America: The Nation and Its Discontents    		 AMST 146
    Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies
    HIST 163
    Communications in Early America    		 HIST 254
    Sovereignty, Resistance, and Resilience: Native American Histories to 1865    		 HIST 361
    The Atlantic World: Connections, Crossings, and Confluences

  • Explore how Indigenous identities and experiences are shaped across different global regions and colonial contexts.

    ANTH 219
    The Art and Archaeology of Maya Civilization    		 ARAB 209
    Saharan Imaginations    		 ARAB 402
    Travel Literature in Arabic: The World through Arab/Amazigh Eyes    		 RLSP 405
    Alternative American Literatures

  • Analyze Indigenous visual traditions as expressions of identity, spirituality and resistance.

    ART 107
    Arts of Ancestral Native and Indigenous North America    		 ART 108
    Arts of Ancestral Native and Indigenous South America and the Caribbean    		 ART 304
    Indigenous American Urbanism: Teotihuacan and Its Legacy
    ART 428
    Anticolonial Approaches to the Arts of Ancestral Indigenous Americans    		 HIST 455
    Material Cultures in North American History

  • Center Indigenous storytelling, language and literary expression as knowledge systems and resistance tools.

    RLSP 231
    Indigenous Writers of Colonial Mexico and Peru    		 ARAB 249
    Trauma and Memory in Maghrebi and Middle Eastern Literatures    		 ARAB 222
    Photography in/of the Middle East

  • Examine Indigenous relationships to land, water and place as systems of knowledge, stewardship and resistance.

    AMST 367
    Colonialism and the Environment    		 BIOL 134
    The Tropics: Biology and Social Issues    		 GEOS 214
    Mastering GIS    		 GEOS 301
    Geomorphology
    LATS 105
    Latina/o Identities: Constructions, Contestations, and Expressions    		 REL 289
    Apocalypse Now, Then, and Again    		 SOC 335
    Nowheres
Students studying in the Davis Center

The Program & Courses

Find the right course for you, whether you’re interested in electives or are exploring Native American & Indigenous Studies as a complement to your major.

The Program
Course Catalog