HIST 6674 - Dispossession, Truth, and Reconciliation

(crosslisted) AMST 6674

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Enrollment limited to: graduate students. Co-meets with AIIS 4674/AMST 4674/HIST 4674.

J. Parmenter.

The dispossession of Indigenous nations by Europeans represents the foundation of the past five centuries of North American history. Yet the truth of that history remains cloaked behind various Western legal-religious justifications for the dispossession of lndigenous American populations by Europeans (i.e., terra nullius, the Doctrine of Discovery, the right of conquest, and Manifest Destiny). Through analysis of primary texts and up-to-date historical and legal scholarship, students in this course will unpack these still-thriving tropes of settler-colonial justification for dispossession, assess the true impact of the taking of Indigenous lands, and explore prospects for meaningful reconciliation in the present.