FYS 054 Indigenous and Settler Sites of Memory

The United States was created from land wrested from Indigenous inhabitants.  How do people living in a society with such a foundation address the violence of conquest?  How is this story told – or rewritten – on the land?  How have settlers represented the Native past and present?  In this course, we explore these questions using the local area as our focal point.  In exploring Indigenous geographies and settler sites of memory -- museum exhibits, burial grounds, historical markers, and place names--we will ask which pasts have been remembered publicly and analyze commemorative practices.  Students will engage in ethnographic research and develop a digital database of important Native and settler sites of memory as we explore the local landscape.

Instructor

A. Smith