Spring 2025 Course Offerings
NAS 101 0001-LEC 45761, Intro to Native American Studies, TTH 12:30-1:45pm, Barrows Hall 125, 3cr.
Max Enrollment: 50, Instructor: Anthony Sutton
Course Description: This course will survey American Indian social, philosophical and cultural aspects in historical and contemporary society. It examines the issues and experiences of Native people from a variety of perspectives. Satisfies the General Education Social Contexts & Institutions and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements. Prerequisites: None
Max Enrollment: 50, Instructor: Anthony Sutton
Course Description: This course will survey American Indian social, philosophical and cultural aspects in historical and contemporary society. It examines the issues and experiences of Native people from a variety of perspectives. Satisfies the General Education Social Contexts & Institutions and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements. Prerequisites: None
NAS 101 0190-LEC 45762, Introduction to Native American Studies, Web-Online, 3cr.
Max Enrollment: 60, Instructor: Lisa Neuman
Course Description: This course will survey American Indian social, philosophical and cultural aspects in historical and contemporary society. It examines the issues and experiences of Native people from a variety of perspectives. Satisfies the General Education Social Contexts & Institutions and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements. Prerequisites: None
Max Enrollment: 60, Instructor: Lisa Neuman
Course Description: This course will survey American Indian social, philosophical and cultural aspects in historical and contemporary society. It examines the issues and experiences of Native people from a variety of perspectives. Satisfies the General Education Social Contexts & Institutions and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements. Prerequisites: None
NAS 101 WINT-LEC 45763, Introduction to Native American Studies, WINTER 12/30/24-1/17/25 – Web-Online, 3cr.
Max Enrollment: 49, Instructor: John Bear Mitchell
Course Description: This course will survey American Indian social, philosophical, spiritual, and cultural aspects in historical and contemporary society. It examines the issues and experiences of Native people from a variety of perspectives. Satisfies the General Education Social Contexts & Institutions and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements. Prerequisites: None
Max Enrollment: 49, Instructor: John Bear Mitchell
Course Description: This course will survey American Indian social, philosophical, spiritual, and cultural aspects in historical and contemporary society. It examines the issues and experiences of Native people from a variety of perspectives. Satisfies the General Education Social Contexts & Institutions and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements. Prerequisites: None
NAS 102 0001-LEC 45794, Intro to Wabanaki Culture/History/Issues, T 4:00-6:50pm, Williams Hall 203, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 35, Instructor: John Bear Mitchell
Course Description: This course provides an overview of the tribes that make up the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, the Passamaquoddy, the Maliseet and the Micmac. It will provide a survey of the individual tribes’ historic, cultures, philosophic, and creation stories, as well as a brief overview of Canadian, U.S., and Maine Indian history. This course will discuss and explore current issues and concerns as well as critical concepts such as sovereignty, treaty rights, and tribal government.
Max Enrollment: 35, Instructor: John Bear Mitchell
Course Description: This course provides an overview of the tribes that make up the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, the Passamaquoddy, the Maliseet and the Micmac. It will provide a survey of the individual tribes’ historic, cultures, philosophic, and creation stories, as well as a brief overview of Canadian, U.S., and Maine Indian history. This course will discuss and explore current issues and concerns as well as critical concepts such as sovereignty, treaty rights, and tribal government.
NAS 203 0001-LEC 4544736835, Wabanaki Language II, TH 5:00-7:50pm, Williams Hall 206, 3cr.
Max Enrollment: 21, Instructor: Roger Paul
Course Description: Wabanaki Languages 2 is intended for students that have finished level 1 or those who have a knowledge of Wabanaki vocabulary. This class will focus on short interactions and sentence structure. Students will be introduced to the Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqey writing system and will create sentences to present and discuss in class. Manipulation of verb phrases and some morphology will help students read and comprehend Wabanaki sentences. Students will be able to prepare and deliver a short presentation to the class in a Wabanaki Language
Max Enrollment: 21, Instructor: Roger Paul
Course Description: Wabanaki Languages 2 is intended for students that have finished level 1 or those who have a knowledge of Wabanaki vocabulary. This class will focus on short interactions and sentence structure. Students will be introduced to the Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqey writing system and will create sentences to present and discuss in class. Manipulation of verb phrases and some morphology will help students read and comprehend Wabanaki sentences. Students will be able to prepare and deliver a short presentation to the class in a Wabanaki Language
NAS 240 0001-LEC 47614, Engaging Foodways, TTH 11:00am-12:15pm, Barrows Hall 125, 3cr.
Max Enrollment: 20, Instructor: Anthony Sutton
Course Description: The ways we think about and engage with food daily have already been and continue to be shaped by social, cultural, and political influences. Family food traditions and storytelling can help us understand histories and culture around food and how that leads to different values that become supported or not through food infrastructure. Food infrastructure and policies designed to support it, can also be places to critically engage with how these structures create issues of equity and injustice within food systems and what communities are doing to change those issues. This course provides several ways of engaging with topics around food, whether students are interested in how culture and identity becomes produced and reproduced through food or ways to restore or reimagine food systems, both require developing specific skill sets to support these ways of thinking.
Max Enrollment: 20, Instructor: Anthony Sutton
Course Description: The ways we think about and engage with food daily have already been and continue to be shaped by social, cultural, and political influences. Family food traditions and storytelling can help us understand histories and culture around food and how that leads to different values that become supported or not through food infrastructure. Food infrastructure and policies designed to support it, can also be places to critically engage with how these structures create issues of equity and injustice within food systems and what communities are doing to change those issues. This course provides several ways of engaging with topics around food, whether students are interested in how culture and identity becomes produced and reproduced through food or ways to restore or reimagine food systems, both require developing specific skill sets to support these ways of thinking.
NAS 298 0001-IND, 46064, Directed Study in Native American Studies,
Max Enrollment: 10, Instructor: Darren Ranco
Course Description: Individual study, research, field experience and writing projects in Native American Studies. May be repeated for credit. Arranged upon request. Prerequisite: NAS 101 and permission
Max Enrollment: 10, Instructor: Darren Ranco
Course Description: Individual study, research, field experience and writing projects in Native American Studies. May be repeated for credit. Arranged upon request. Prerequisite: NAS 101 and permission
NAS 401 0001-LEC, 45853/ ANT 430 0001-LEC 47011, Who Owns Native Cultures, TTH 9:30-10:45am, Boudreau Hall 121, 3cr.
Max Combined Enrollment: 30, Instructor: Darren Ranco
Course Description: The answer to the simple question of who owns Native American / American Indian / indigenous cultures and cultural productions is surprisingly complex and engages the history of anthropology and the nature of anthropological knowledge itself. Course examines the evolving relationships between anthropologists, historians, and other researchers with indigenous peoples (in particular American Indians) and what kinds of ethical and legal relationships have evolved over time to address this question. Also looks at the ways in which contemporary cultural resource management by indigenous peoples serves as a key articulation of indigenous nationhood and sovereignty. Special attention is given to recent scholarship by indigenous researchers that decolonizes standard academic practices and roots the ownership of Native cultures and research in Native communities.
Max Combined Enrollment: 30, Instructor: Darren Ranco
Course Description: The answer to the simple question of who owns Native American / American Indian / indigenous cultures and cultural productions is surprisingly complex and engages the history of anthropology and the nature of anthropological knowledge itself. Course examines the evolving relationships between anthropologists, historians, and other researchers with indigenous peoples (in particular American Indians) and what kinds of ethical and legal relationships have evolved over time to address this question. Also looks at the ways in which contemporary cultural resource management by indigenous peoples serves as a key articulation of indigenous nationhood and sovereignty. Special attention is given to recent scholarship by indigenous researchers that decolonizes standard academic practices and roots the ownership of Native cultures and research in Native communities.
NAS 401 0002-LEC, 45845, Teaching Wabanaki Studies, TTH 11:00am-12:15pm, Williams Hall 218, 3cr.
Max Combined Enrollment: 25, Instructor: John Bear Mitchell
Course Description: An introduction from an educational approach that will focus on Maine Indians, both past and present along with social organizations, political experiences, and teaching/learning that is embedded within the fabric of Maine Indian learning modalities. This course is a survey of current elementary, middle school, and high school social studies, literature, and math teaching programs with an emphasis on the integration of theory and practice.
Max Combined Enrollment: 25, Instructor: John Bear Mitchell
Course Description: An introduction from an educational approach that will focus on Maine Indians, both past and present along with social organizations, political experiences, and teaching/learning that is embedded within the fabric of Maine Indian learning modalities. This course is a survey of current elementary, middle school, and high school social studies, literature, and math teaching programs with an emphasis on the integration of theory and practice.
NAS 401 0003-LEC, 45855/ HTY 599 0001-SEM 44827, Native American History, TH 4:00-5:50pm, Williams Hall 218, 3cr.
Max Combined Enrollment: 21, Instructor: Micah Pawling
Course Description: This course explores the significance Native American history from a regional perspective, with an emphasis on the diversity of indigenous peoples, homelands, and identity. While the term Northeast encompasses the northern Atlantic seaboard, west to the Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes region, and north to Hudson Bay, our primary focus extends beyond New England and eastern Canada to better appreciate human movement, dispossession, and the formation of new homelands and villages. From indigenous lifeways before European arrival to the close of the twentieth century, Native peoples of the Northeast have survived over 500 years of European colonization. For survival, Native leaders made decisions about alliance formations, treaty negotiations, and cultural adaptations. Since Native American history is too often relegated to the distant past, this course explores recent challenges that they confronted. The aim of this course is to understand Indigenous history from their own perspectives. Students will be introduced to the method of ethnohistory that can reveal indigenous voices in the past. We will investigate prominent themes of resistance, accommodation, activism, sovereignty, water, and cultural survival. As one ethnohistorian wrote, Native peoples “were positive actors in their own affairs, not passive pawns subdued by forces beyond their control.”
Max Combined Enrollment: 21, Instructor: Micah Pawling
Course Description: This course explores the significance Native American history from a regional perspective, with an emphasis on the diversity of indigenous peoples, homelands, and identity. While the term Northeast encompasses the northern Atlantic seaboard, west to the Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes region, and north to Hudson Bay, our primary focus extends beyond New England and eastern Canada to better appreciate human movement, dispossession, and the formation of new homelands and villages. From indigenous lifeways before European arrival to the close of the twentieth century, Native peoples of the Northeast have survived over 500 years of European colonization. For survival, Native leaders made decisions about alliance formations, treaty negotiations, and cultural adaptations. Since Native American history is too often relegated to the distant past, this course explores recent challenges that they confronted. The aim of this course is to understand Indigenous history from their own perspectives. Students will be introduced to the method of ethnohistory that can reveal indigenous voices in the past. We will investigate prominent themes of resistance, accommodation, activism, sovereignty, water, and cultural survival. As one ethnohistorian wrote, Native peoples “were positive actors in their own affairs, not passive pawns subdued by forces beyond their control.”
NAS 498 0001-IND 46065, Directed Study in Native American Studies,
Max Enrollment: 10, Instructor: Darren Ranco
Course Description: Advanced individual study, research, field experiences and writing projects in Native American Studies. May be repeated for credit. Arranged upon request. Department Consent Required. Enrollment Requirements: Prerequisite: Junior or Senior Standing and NAS 101 and one additional course within the Native American Studies minor and permission.
Max Enrollment: 10, Instructor: Darren Ranco
Course Description: Advanced individual study, research, field experiences and writing projects in Native American Studies. May be repeated for credit. Arranged upon request. Department Consent Required. Enrollment Requirements: Prerequisite: Junior or Senior Standing and NAS 101 and one additional course within the Native American Studies minor and permission.
For questions or permission, please contact: Native American Programs at 207.581.1417 or email Jen Bowen at jennifer.bowen@maine.edu
For a complete list of courses and course descriptions please see the University Catalog. For further questions please contact the department.