American and Indigenous Studies Program Presents

Once Were Maoists: Third World Currents in Fourth World Anti-Colonialism in Canada, 1967-1982

This presentation will provide a history of Red Power radicalization and Indigenous-Marxist cross-fertilization. It examines the political work undertaken by a dedicated cadre of Native activists and organizations in Canada between 1967 and 1982. It argues that their political organizing and theory-building borrowed substantively and productively from a Third World-adapted Marxism—with certain Maoist concepts being particularly important—which provided an appealing international language of political contestation that they not only inherited but sought to radically transform through a critical engagement with their own cultural traditions and land-based struggles. Not unlike many radicalized communities of color during this period, these organizers molded and adapted the insights they gleaned from Third World Marxism abroad into their own critiques of racial capitalism, patriarchy, and internal colonialism at home.

---

Glen Coulthard is an associate professor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and in the Department of Political Science. Glen has written and published numerous articles and chapters in the areas of contemporary political theory, indigenous thought and politics, and radical social and political thought (marxism, anarchism, post-colonialism). His most recent work on Frantz Fanon and the politics of recognition won Contemporary Political Theory’s Annual Award for Best Article of the Year in 2007. He is Yellowknives Dene.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.

Time: 5:30 pm EDT/GMT-4

Location: Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium

Subscribe: Save this Event: Subscribe / .ics File