The subject explores the resonances (and differences) between the historical experiences of indigenous peoples in settler nation states such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US by focusing on three textual forms: literary texts, paratextual primary sources such as government policy documents related to the contexts of these literary texts, and contemporary political theory by indigenous and non-indigenous authors on these topics. Literary texts addressed will include life-writing, novels, poetry, and plays. Paratextual primary sources addressed will include modes of settler governance over indigenous peoples in the aforementioned nation-states (as a means to build a basis for comparison). Contemporary political theory will be deployed to foreground student awareness of the robust critique of governmental dispossession now extant among indigenous scholars and their settler colonial studies allies.
