Imperial Visions/Decolonial Practices: From Palestine to Turtle Island

How do we look at ourselves, and how do we look at others? From where do these distinctions emerge, and how can we trace the, at times, blatant and at other times, insidious trajectories of imperial formations of looking that have shaped enduring configurations of race, class, citizenship, sex, gender, and ethnicity in our shared world? In this course we will trace the operations of the imperial gaze and (settler) colonial visuality, using different cultural, political, intellectual, and critical engagements with decolonial practices, focusing on such concepts as “resistance,” “refusal,” “resurgence,” “repair,” and “return.” In dialogue with weekly readings, screenings, and student-led discussions, we will work together to unpack these methods and approach them from different perspectives that center Black feminist, Critical Indigenous, and Palestinian theories anchoring our approaches in the geopolitical and imaginative terrain of Palestine and Turtle Island.