On Violence and the Limits of Settler Colonialism
Room: McKellar room 290
London
Drawing upon his extended inquiries into Native American history, Professor Ned Blackhawk seeks to trouble conventional understandings of North American historical development and will do so in these lectures through a sustained focus upon the history of violence. Unlike many historical subjects, violence defies easy summation. It simultaneously structures social orders but remains experientially elusive and unfamiliar, except to those who endure it, especially Indigenous peoples for whom the experience of colonialism remains an inherently violence process. Assessing the spectacular growth of Native American and Indigenous Studies through the lens of violence and settler colonialism, these lecture provide overviews of how historical inquiry provides essential forms of social analysis. While conventional paradigms of historical development have overwhelmingly naturalized Indigenous peoples and the history of colonialism, recent studies have exposed powerful alternatives to the Euro-centricism of previous generations.
Oct 18 Historicizing Violence and Colonialism
Returning to his 2006, award-winning study, Violence over the Land, Blackhawk offers in Lecture 1 an assessment of the many ways that the study of violence has shaped Native American history in recent years.
Oct 19 Genocide and the Emergence of Settler Colonialism
2006 also witnessed the publication of Patrick Wolfe's famous article, "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native," in the Journal of Genocide Research. This lecture assesses the rise in settler colonial studies within Native American historiography and assesses its transformative power and limitations.
Oct 20 State Violence: Continuing Legacies of Colonialism
While many studies of Native American history have exposed the power and agency of Native peoples in the making of North America, much work remains to connect such histories with contemporary inequities and policy challenges. This work examines issues of violence, child welfare, and U.S. legal history to expose the ongoing legacies of colonialism in twenty-first-century U.S. law and policy.
