Thread by @JasonPMcGraw

I taught a new 200-level undergrad history course this semester, Decolonization. I wanted to do something different, in many ways, as would befit the topic. No lectures, discussion-only. It went pretty well. It helped that I picked some great readings (Thread 1/ )

Starting us off on the first day was @BlackOutdoors1's essay “Naming a Frog After Led Zeppelin is Not a Fairy Tale,” which generated a very lively discussion - a good start to the semester! 2/ niche-canada.org/2021/07/07/nam…

Then we got into some definitions of decolonization from Australian and North American perspectives 3/ theconversation.com/explainer-what…

And then to outer space with a piece by @raminskibba on decolonizing the cosmos 4/ aeon.co/essays/we-need…

Then into the more grounded history parts of the semester with David E. Wilkins (Lumbee) on “A History of Federal Indian Policy” 5/

I paired Wilkins w/chapters from Black Elk Speaks, and students had a great discussion on what the different perspectives on white settler violence and Native dispossession offer us. They were really affected by Black Elk b/c many brought it up all semester 6/

After North American colonization and settler violence, we looked European colonialism in Belgian Congo, Kenya, China, Vietnam, India, and the Caribbean. Mostly through primary sources. I limited the time period to after 1800, just to make it manageable for me 7/

A piece I assigned because I love her writing was Jamaica Kincaid's "On Seeing England for the First Time," which forcefully shows what everyday life under colonialism is like. Our reading happened the week Kincaid signed the Harvard letter supporting John Comaroff (#awkward) 8/

After several weeks on colonialism, we moved on to the anticolonial movements of the 20th century, including readings from Cesaire and Fanon 9/

Alongside readings I did some multimedia. Not my strong suit. Along with Fanon, we watched the terrorism scenes from The Battle of Algiers 10/

Then we read all of Adom Getachew's Worldmaking After Empire. This was a challenging book for my students. But at the end of the semester they said I should assign it again. Very power analysis of 20th century decolonization. Students quoted Getachew in class all semester 11/

Then we had a week of readings on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality by Richard Delgado and @sandylocks. I explained to students the sole reason I did this was that state legislatures were trying to ban this work, and they should judge it for themselves 12/

After spring break we read essays by @stevesalaita on DAPL and the co-constitute settler colonialism of the US and Israel 13/

We also read an essay on decolonizing Chinese typefaces, which seemed to blow some students' minds, because they brought it up for weeks afterwards 14/ coolhunting.com/culture/decolo…

Then we read Tommy Orange's novel There There, about Natives whose lives cross paths at the Big Oakland Powwow. Some students did not appreciate a novel in a history course, but most liked it. There There does include a history-driven Prologue that makes for good discussion 15/

As we read There There, I showed scenes from The Exiles (1961) a film that follows Natives who have left their reservations to live in Los Angeles. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. It will stay with you. Yvonne Williams, shown here, is a powerful presence in the film 16/

An aside: after reading There There and watching The Exiles, I struck up a conversation with my colleague @_Liza_Black. Should have talked to Liza earlier, obvs, as she's an expert on Native Americans and film (here's her book, Picturing Indians, which you should own) 17/

Our reading There There also coincided with @fnecc's Traditional Powwow on IU's campus. I strongly encouraged students to go, since they were reading about a powwow! Some went - their first time at a powwow, they all reported 18/

After There There, we had various short readings that I called "policy pronouncements" around decolonizing mental health, science, humanitarianism, the Green New Deal, and @DavidTreuer's "Return the National Parks to the Tribes" 19/ theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

I asked students which reading demanded the most radical or fundamental change. I thought they would say @DavidTreuer but they responded either @MaxLiboiron on decolonizing science or @maxajl on a People's Green New Deal 20/

We ended the semester with @KimTallBear's essay "Caretaking Relations, Not American Dreaming" and Arundhati Roy's "Democracy's Failing Light" to think about the relationship between existing democracy and decolonization 21/

My other course this semester was the Modern Latin American history survey, a course I have taught for many years. I was surprised by how closely themes (accidentally) synched up in the two courses. On purpose, the Decolonization course had zero content on Latin America... 22/

...but in one course when we got to Latin America's 19th century sovereign debt crises & the origins of dependency, in Decolonization we were reading Getachew on 20th century anticolonial nationalists' attempts to avoid debt & dependency. These parallels happened all semester 23/

Some music I played in class: Buffy St. Marie; Attila's "Commissioner's Report"; Gil Scott-Heron "Whitey On the Moon" (@raminskibba mentioned it); MF Doom, A Tribe Called Red, Radiohead (all mentioned in There There); some others I'm now blanking on.... 24/

In sum, it was the students' willingness to carry the discussions that made the Decolonization course work. I lectured once, for 5 minutes, to fill in some details about Kwame Nkrumah (per Getachew's book). Otherwise, class was student discussion-driven and excellent for it END/