Powwow Cultures in Native North America
AIS 321 / MUSIC 321
Learn about historic and contemporary powwow practices by engaging in a variety of participatory and hands-on activities, including interactions with powwow musicians, dancers, organizers, and community members — via guest lectures and participation in the annual UW First Nations Powwow — as well as analyses of print and audiovisual media, including social media.
Jessica Bissett-Perea, American Indian Studies
John-Carlos Perea, Music
5 credits, A&H / SSc / DIV
Making the In/Human: A Public Writing Seminar
(listed as “Seminar in Public Writing: Writing for Good”)
CHID 320 A
What does it mean to be human? How are certain humans made into monsters? Explore how ideas of the “human” are made in relation to concepts of inhumanity, animality, and monstrosity, and how these concepts have operated within and against forms of social and political power. We will pair readings of critical theory with writing assignments including analysis of sci-fi and horror films, literature, and video-games; op-eds; writing on current events; and more.
Kyle Trembley, Anthropology
5 credits, A&H / W
Asian American and Pacific Islander Women
AAS 392 / GWSS 392
Explore the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality in the lives of Asian American and Pacific Islander women and examine how forces such as immigration, colonialism, sovereignty, labor, family, gender roles and relations, community, war, homeland politics, transnationalism, and social movements shaped and were shaped by these women.
Linh Nguyen, American Ethnic Studies
5 credits, SSc / Diversity
Latinx and Latin American Cartographies
(listed as “Special Topics in Geography”)
GEOG 295
How can maps become agents for environmental justice, human rights, and political action? Rethink how maps are made — and for whom they are created — as you explore alternative cartographic practices emerging from Latin America that respond to issues such as migration, displacement, extractivism, and climate change while foregrounding ethics, participation, and social impact. The course combines lectures with mapping hands-on workshops. (No prior cartography experience is required.) Students will learn how mapping practices from the Global South mobilize narrative, emotion, and collective knowledge to challenge colonial frameworks of data and space.
José Alavez, Geography
5 credits, SSc
The Art of Indigeneity in South Asia
(listed as “Topics in Asian Art”)
ART H 414 A / ART H 514 A
Explore what art and visual culture tell us about the history and ongoing formations of Indigeneity and their marginalization in modern and contemporary South Asia. As Indigenous art and visual culture have received increasing recognition in South Asia, the moment demands attending to the specific ways that colonial collecting practices, discourses of craft, modernist representations of Indigeneity, and the work of Tribal and Adivasi artists and cultural practitioners have informed the South Asian case.
Akshaya Tankha, Art History, School of Art + Art History + Design
5 credits, A&H / SSc
Baltic Cultures
SCAND 345 / JSIS A 345
Learn about the cultures and peoples of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in a social and historical context through Baltic literature, music, art, and film, including "The Man Who Spoke Snakish," an Estonian fantasy novel about the last human who knew the powerful language of snakes. Packed with dark humor, the book is also about the identity of a small nation adapting and surviving in a globalizing world — a perfect introduction to the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian peoples of Northern Europe, ancient and modern.
Guntis Šmidchens, Scandinavian Studies, International Studies
5 credits, A&H / SSc
