Cornell University Registrar

Program Description

The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program offers a minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) to undergraduate students in any college at Cornell. The AIIS minor explores complex histories and contemporary situations of Indigenous communities in North America and across the globe.

Academic Standards

Grade Requirements

All courses must be completed for a letter grade. Grades of S/U or SX/UX will not be accepted.

Each course must be completed with a grade C or better to count toward the minor.

Minor Declaration Information

There are no prerequisites to the minor, however, an application is required.

Students seeking to minor in AIIS or determine the eligibility of a course are encouraged to contact the AIIS Student Support Specialist. Students are advised to consult the AIIS program website for the most up-to-date listings of course offerings and the link to our digital minor application form.

Apply via the AIIS Minor Application.  

Program Information

• Minimum Credits for Minor: 15

Minor Requirements

The American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) minor is earned by completing five courses. One course must be at the foundational level: AIIS 1100 or AIIS 1110, plus at least four approved courses from the AIIS curriculum. The four additional courses must include one course from Group A (arts and humanities) and one course from Group B (social and natural sciences) as listed below. The remaining courses may be from Group A or Group B, graduate-level courses or independent study. Of the four additional course requirements from Group A or Group B, one must be at the 3000 or 4000 level. Only one 3-credit independent study (AIIS 4970 Independent Study) may count toward the minor. 

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Foundational Courses
Select one of the following:
AIIS 1100	Indigenous North America	4
AIIS 1110	Indigenous Issues in Global Perspectives	3

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Elective Courses
Group A (Arts and Humanities)
HIST 1950	The Invention of the Americas	4
AIIS 2240	Native American Languages	3
AIIS 2600	Introduction to Native American Literature	3
AIIS 2660	Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong: Unlearning Native American History	3
AIIS 3324	Cayuga Language and Culture	3
AIIS 3325	Cayuga Language and Culture II	3
AIIS 3560	Thinking from a Different Place: Indigenous Philosophies	3
AIIS 4000	Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History	3
AIIS 4200	Locke and the Philosophies of Dispossession: Indigenous America's Interruptions and Resistances	3
AIIS 4300	Indigenous Peoples and Decolonial Philosophies	3
AIIS 4450	Settler Colonialism And The Elimination of the Native	3
AIIS 4625	Contemporary Native American Fiction	3
AIIS 4670	The Indigenous Poetry of Resistance	3
ARTH 2255	Ecocriticism and Visual Culture	4
ARTH 4556	Decolonial Poetics and Aesthetics: Arts of Resistance in the Americas	3
ENGL 4630	Rethinking Asian American Literature: Indigeneity, Diaspora, Settler Colonialism	4

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Group B (Social and Natural Sciences)
ANTHR 1200	Ancient Peoples and Places	4
AIIS 2350	Archaeology of Indigenous North America	3
AIIS 2420	Nature-Culture: Ethnographic Approaches to Human Environment Relations	4
AIIS 2720	From the Swampy Land: Indigenous People of the Ithaca Area	3
ANTHR 3245	Across the Seas: Contacts between the Americas and the Old World Before Columbus	3
ANTHR 3255	Ancient Mexico and Central America	3
ANTHR 3256	Ancient Civilizations of the Andes	3
AIIS 3330	Ways of Knowing: Indigenous and Place-Based Ecological Knowledge	3
AIIS 3422	Culture, Politics, and Environment in the Circumpolar North	3
ANTHR 4216	Maya History	3
ANTHR 4268	Aztecs and Their Empire: Myth, History, and Politics	3
ANTHR 4725	American Indian Lands and Sovereignties	4

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Graduate-Level Courses
AIIS 6000	Critical Approaches to American Indian and Indigenous Studies: Intellectual History	3
AIIS 6010	American Indian and Indigenous Studies Speaker Series	1
AIIS 6200	Locke and the Philosophies of Dispossession: Indigenous America's Interruptions and Resistances	3
AIIS 6240	Native American Languages	3
AIIS 6300	Indigenous Peoples and Decolonial Philosophies	3
ANTHR 7256	Ancient Civilizations of the Andes	3
ANTHR 7268	Aztecs and Their Empire: Myth, History, and Politics	3
ARTH 6556	Decolonial Poetics and Aesthetics: Arts of Resistance in the Americas	3
ENGL 6625		4

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Independent Study
AIIS 4970	Independent Study	1-4
AIIS 6970	Independent Study in American Indian and Indigenous Studies	1-4