[Hamp-law] new legal course on indigenous people and cultural survival

[Flavio Risech]

This is a special opportunity that will be available to Five College
students next semester.  Please recommend it to students who might be
interested.  Stephanie

>Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 10:42:39 -0500
>From: "Peter d'Errico" <derrico at legal.umass.edu>
>Subject: Steve Newcomb visiting teacher
>To: 5CNAISCC <5natam-l at amherst.edu>
>Reply-to: derrico at legal.umass.edu
>Organization: Legal Studies, University of Massachusetts
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 (Macintosh; U; PPC)
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>
>Please post the attached memo and notify your students:
>
>The UMass Legal Studies Department is pleased to announce the
>appointment of Steven T. Newcomb, Director of the Indigenous Law
>Institute, to teach a course in the Spring 2002 semester, "Indigenous
>Peoples and the Politics of Cultural Survival."
>
>Steve Newcomb has twice been a speaker in events sponsored by our
>committee. Many of you have met him and will recall the very favorable
>public responses to his presentations.
>
>Here is the course description:
>
>
>      LEGAL 497B --
>      Indigenous Peoples & the Politics of Cultural Survival
>
>       "No State can achieve proper culture, civilization, and
>      progress...as long as Indians are permitted to remain." Martin
>      Van Buren, 1837. This course will examine the efforts of three
>      Native nations -- the Oglala Lakota, the Kanaka Maoli, and the
>      Western Shoshone -- to preserve and maintain their ancestral
>      homelands and their distinct cultural identities. The course
>      will particularly focus on the efforts of these three nations
>      to protect and restore their homelands, cultural patterns,
>      social institutions and traditional forms of law, and to
>      ensure their continued existence as distinct peoples who have
>      survived for thousands of years. The course will explain why
>      Indigenous peoples' cultural survival is greatly hindered
>      because of the dominating cultural, economic, political, and
>      legal context of the State.
>
>Mr. Newcomb is Shawnee-Delaware. He has been active in indigenous issues
>worldwide for many years. He is a Senior Fellow at the Fourth World
>Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics at the University of
>Colorado at Denver. He is the author of many essays and articles,
>including a seminal law review article on "The Evidence of Christian
>Nationalism in Federal Indian Law." He has prepared and presented legal
>documents on behalf of indigenous peoples and organizations, including
>court briefs and submissions to the United Nations.
>
>Mr. Newcomb has presented at conferences and seminars in the United
>States, Canada, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland on issues
>of indigenous rights, human rights, environmental restoration,
>indigenous systems of meaning and law, and indigenous cultural property.
>He has led international, multicultural workshops on these topics.
>
>The course is open to all 5 College students.