Welcome to American Indian Studies
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With courses that explore sound studies, decolonial love, Indigenous film and new media, queer Indigenous studies, activist anthropology, Latinx Indigenous migrations, and Indigenous women writers of the Midwest, AIS draws students from multiple disciplines across campus.
Undergraduate students interested in graduate school or careers in public administration, education, public relations, marketing, politics, and government take AIS courses to learn about the worlds, histories, representations, and political struggles of Indigenous peoples locally and internationally.
AIS graduate seminars attract M.A. and Ph.D. students from such disciplines as English, Anthropology, History, Education, Middle Eastern Studies, Slavic Studies, and Theatre. As a member of the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies, AIS offers students taking the graduate or undergraduate minor access to resources, fellowships, and programs at The Newberry Library and McNickle Center.
- Once the project is finished, tribes from around the country will be able to look at the materials online and have access to pieces of their histories Read full story Illinois researchers, Native American tribes working together to curate, increase access to oral histories
- It is with great sadness that I write to let you know about the passing of our previous Chancellor’s postdoc fellow, Angela Tapia Arce at her home in New York. As those of you who got to work with her last year know well, Angela was an amazingly generous person, scholar, artist, and activist Read full story In Memoriam: Dr. Angela Tapia Arce
- Deena Rymhs is a 2022–2023 HRI Campus Faculty Fellow. Rymhs’ project “Putting Back Together: Re-Worldings in annie ross’s Pots and Other Living Beings” focuses on a recently published book of poet and weaver annie ross (Maya). Read full story Research re-envisions social, ecological relations through Indigenous literary and visual texts
AIS 101: Intro to American Indian Studies
Fall 23: Professor: Jacki Rand -- Meets: Mondays, Wednesdays 1 p.m.-1:50 p.m. Discussion sections: Fridays, 12-12:50 p.m, or 1-1:50 p.m. Interdisciplinary introduction surveys the stories, histories, and lands of tribal peoples who became known as "American Indians"
AIS 503 Oddkin: Rethinking Relations in Indigenous Literary and Visual Texts
Professor: Deena Rymhs -- Oddkin: Rethinking Relations in Indigenous Literary and Visual Texts: In “How Do We Behave as Good Relatives?” Daniel Heath Justice writes about “making kin as oddkin […] where the range of relatives to whom we are responsible extends far beyond our biological relatives and, indeed, the category of the human itself.”
AIS 275: Indigenous Film and New Media
Spring 2023 -- When you think of Native Americans, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Did you think of something Modern or historical? Do you imagine Natives in space? Did you imagine Natives time travelling? If you didn't imagine any of those things, it is understandable. But did you know that Indigenous People have films that imagine themselves in all of these places.
AIS 490: Queer Indigenous Studies
Queer Indigenous Studies: This seminar will delve into the burgeoning field of queer Indigenous studies. Topics to be explored include the origins of queer Indigenous studies in 1980s Indigenous and women of color feminisms, the development and complexities of the term "Two-Spirit," queer Indigenous relationships to body and land, ongoing legacies of violence against queer Indigenous people, and reclamation of cultural and spiritual roles.