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Course Description

Summary

This course focuses on the ethnohistory of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica that spans parts of Mexico and Central America, through an Indigenous perspective from native authored texts spanning pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary times. The course develops a decolonial perspective on Indigenous Mesoamerica – challenging accounts of Indigenous Mesoamerican cultures and histories that rely solely on perspectives from European colonizers. The course develops a decolonial perspective on these cultures and histories through discussing Indigenous Mesoamerican worldviews as expressed in Indigenous Mesoamerican cosmologies and social structures. The course also develops a decolonial perspective by examining how Indigenous Mesoamerican peoples recount time, history, and their own traditions and adapted and maintained these practices even in the face of colonial oppression. Key assignments and activities will have students conduct their own ethnohistorical analyses of texts from specific Indigenous Mesoamerican media, time periods, and regions. Though this course will give students skills and knowledge in this specific area of study, it will also give students analytic skills for allied fields that involve the study of anthropology, culture, society, history and communication.