This course focuses on texts written and produced by Indigenous artists who are engaging with some of the key tropes of speculative fiction, such as domination by dystopian governments, ecological destruction, and biological warfare. Unfortunately, these stories about post-apocalyptic struggles often connect quite clearly to the realities of Indigenous people. As Cherokee scholar Daniel Heath Justice asserts, “Indigenous and Black folks understand apocalypse—our peoples have lived it. For populations that faced eighty-percent mortality and higher due to European-inflicted disease, displacement, starvation, military action, and internment policies over just a few centuries—and in some cases mere decades—the ‘end of days’ isn’t just the stuff of … science fiction, but of historical memory and lived experience” (Why Indigenous Literatures Matter 166-67). Keeping this connection between apocalyptic conditions and Indigenous lived realities in mind, our course will grapple with the historical, social, and political contexts of settler colonialism that have created radically uneven worlds that are experienced as apocalyptic for some while generating privilege and prosperity for others.
While Indigenous speculative storytelling is often used as an imaginative response to colonization, such stories are also rich with Indigenous knowledges and practices that exceed colonialism’s reach. Indigenous stories are thus key to imagining alternative worlds beyond apocalypse, worlds of Indigenous resurgence and regeneration. Attending carefully to the articulation of these worlds and the knowledges they are built upon, our course will engage with the culturally-specific epistemologies and storytelling traditions represented in each work. At the same time, we will also consider points of connection amongst Indigenous artists who are drawing upon their nations’ philosophies to envision decolonial futures.
- Teacher: Rebecca Fredrickson
- Teacher: Heather MacLeod