Native Pathways Program: Community, Culture, and Cosmos: Activism, Art, and Self-Determination (Quinault)

Community, Culture, and Cosmos: Activism, Art, and Self-Determination will explore topics including local and global Indigenous social movements, education, cultural agency, decolonization theory, and conceptions of sovereignty. Beginning with historical perspectives of traditional knowledges and practices, then shifting toward the ongoing struggles for self-determination by Tribal communities, we will explore questions of representation, authenticity, and creative expression to examine the imposed juxtaposition of the traditionalism and modernity. Using an Indigenous lens for our studies, students will develop a community-oriented approach to understanding and articulating the complexities of Indigenous worldviews in order to, as Casey Ryan Kelly and Jason Edward Black state, “reconsider how we understand the rhetoric of civil society by examining anti-colonial discourses that privilege Indigenous narratives … [and] how Native people themselves demystify colonial symbols and material conditions and [explore] how our own scholarship can work in tandem with Native rhetorical tactics.”

Students will be introduced to rhetorical analysis, methods of communication, and expressions of Indigenous sovereignty as it operates within the settler-colonial framework with a focus on writing, reading, and the creative arts for political ends. By examining cultural materials and information displayed in Tribal, public, and digital exhibits, we will familiarize ourselves with forms of culturally appropriate representation that contrast with Eurocentric conceptualizations of Native Americans. In this program, students will participate in student-led seminars and talking circles, submit written deliverables, craft a visual presentation, produce a portfolio of work, and create a final assignment involving critical analysis.

The Native Pathways Program (NPP) meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6-9:30pm at various “site” locations. NPP Quinault meets at TBD. All site students will meet at the House of Welcome Longhouse on the Olympia campus for full weekend intensives January 11 and 12, February 15 and 16, and March 15 and 16. Saturdays 10am to 6pm and Sundays 10am to 4pm. 

NPP offers a 12 credit core studies option and an option for 16 credits that includes the core studies and an additional 4 credits for either a capstone project or other program-related work.