kursiloi, or courses I have taught and what has shaped my thinking

  • Three people in traditional karjalazet (Karelian) attire stand on a cliffside in Koli National Park overlooking a lake in Karjala (Karelia) on the current Finnish side of the border.

    Solidarities: Practices and Performances of Global Indigenous Politics

    This course weaves together pressing contemporary issues in global Indigenous politics. We first consider who often gets left out. We then analyze oral spoken and sung practices of retaining and sharing intergenerational knowledge. We learn about more-than-human kinships in the context of a climate crisis. We’ll wrap up with youths’ performance of Indigeneity.

    Photo: Anne Kalliola

  •  A dark mocha brown colored ringed seal sticks their big brown eyes, nose with large round nostrils, and water droplet-covered whiskers and eyebrows above the blue waves of Lake Saimaa in Karjala (Finland)

    Worlds: Radical, Abundant More-than-Human Futures

    Engage in the practices of dreaming, designing, and evaluating possible futures to co-create ones that better serve your communities. We foreground futures making and kinship collectives that pursue radical, abundant presents and futures and engage more-than-human communities across multiple temporalities in the projects of futures.

    Photo: Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto

  • Protestors walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset carrying a large flag of the United States of America with the names of victims of police violence written on its red and white stripes. Prominently written across is George Floyd's name.

    Bodies: Making American Politics

    This course considers how particular bodies constitute, construct, and complicate American politics. We will ask what mechanics undergird American politics. Who and what are sacrificed to create visions of America? Guest speakers include voting and queer rights activists, cyber security experts, and climate change mitigation specialists.

    Photo: Todd Heisler for The New York Times

  • Golden yellow lichen and light green-gray lichen grown on a piece of wood.

    Collective: Futures in the Making

    Dreaming and creating futures is always collective. Who do we collaborate with to make futures? Who, what, when, and where do we carry into future(s) in our collective imaginations? How can we create conditions of possibility for abundant, collective futures?

    Photo: Efraimstochter from Pixabay

  • Brightly colored green, blue, yellow, orange, and white ghost-net stitched together to create a panel of coral by artist Marion Gaemers with the Erub Arts Centre in the Torres Strait.

    Water: Politics of Power and Protest

    We examine pasts, presents, and futures of water and what that means for our communities and ecologies. We navigate Indigenous relationships to water and water protection, infrastructures of water management, water-related natural disasters and catastrophes, water scarcity narratives, rights to/of water, and water as sustenance for community building.

    Photo: Marion Gaemers, “Coral Panel 2”