FS 009 PZ -Making Space and Unsettling Settlers: California Indian Nations and Pitzer College*

Institution: Pitzer

Description: This course will critically examine higher education as a site of decolonizing struggle within settler societies such as the United States. We will study colonization and decolonization, the cultural specificity of knowledge production, the educational experience of indigenous peoples, and differences between Western and indigenous ways of learning and knowing. Within this framework, and premised on the understanding of Pitzer College as a settler institution, we will consider Pitzer’s relationships with the Indian Nations of Southern California. In light of Pitzer’s social responsibility ethic, we will go beyond analysis to actively imagine new relationships and move towards enacting them. As part of this, the class will take actions in support of educational access for Indigenous youth as well as engaging in other types of service learning with Tribal Nations. [E. Steinman, Sociology]

Prerequisite(s): First-Year Seminars are required for all incoming freshman and do not have prerequisites.

Note(s): *This course includes an additional required hour of “global-local” programming each week.

First-Year seminars are not listed on the course schedule. Incoming students will be assigned to a first-year seminar and registered automatically.