FNST 600 – Foundations of First Nations Studies: Theory and Practice

Department: First Nations Studies, UNBC  CRN 50300

L’heidli T’enneh keyoh whust’i. 

Calendar Course Description: A seminar in which major contributions to the field are reviewed and the methods, approaches and conclusions of the works are explicated and located within contemporary theory.

Theory and practice in balance - pictured as balanced balls on scale that symbolize harmony and equity between Theory and practice that is good and beneficial., 3d illustration

FNST 600 in the Fall 2021 term

Course Times: Friday 5-8pm & Saturday 9-12 on select weekends (Sept. 8-Dec. 6)          

Location: on-line

2021 course description:

Amilcar Cabral writes that a number of different experiences have been accumulated to help with fighting imperialism. The scholar Paul de Man, in his “Resistance to Theory,” on the other hand argues that the main interest of theory lies in revealing the impossibility of defining it. However, despite inimical attitudes, the role of theory in (re)shaping and (re)thinking culture is undeniable, because its rise has been concomitant with significant cultural and historical changes, and with a number of important intellectual challenges to ways of thinking about philosophy, science, history, and art. This course will examine diverse trajectories of critical inquiry within Indigenous studies by means of structuralism, feminism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, marxism etc. Primary texts will include essays by Saussure, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Emma LaRocque, Gayatri Spivak, and others. The array of theoretical approaches will provide students with analytical apparatus and interpretive strategies to choose various points of examinations of research at a graduate level in the Indigenous studies field..

Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

  • define and demonstrate understanding of theoretical concepts and their theorists in a critical way
  • apply theoretical concepts to their MA in FNST projects
  • able to communicate their ideas effectively in both oral and written formats

Required Texts:

(1) on-line readings + videos

(2) Emma LaRocque, When the Other is Me.

(3) Memmi, Albert, The Colonizer and the Colonized.

(4) Gayatri Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason.