Dr. Avalos is as an Assistant Professor in the of Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Religious Studies with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. She is an ethnographer of religion whose research and teaching focus on Native American and Indigenous religions in diaspora, healing historical trauma, and decolonization. Her work explores urban Indigenous and Tibetan refugee religious life as decolonial praxis. She is currently working on her manuscript titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. It argues that the reassertion of land-based logics among Native and Tibetan peoples not only de-centers settler colonial claims to legitimate knowledge but also articulates forms of sovereignty rooted in interdependent relations of power among all persons, human and other-than human.
ETHN 1023 - Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies
Primary Instructor
-
Spring 2024
Introduces critical terms, issues, and questions that inform the discipline of American Indian Studies. Examines "historical silences" and highlights how American Indian scholars, poets, and filmmakers use their work to address/redress historical subjects, and represent their Native communities.
ETHN 2001 - Foundations of Comparative Ethnic Studies: Race, Gender and Culture(s)
Primary Instructor
-
Fall 2020 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023
Introduction to the study of race, ethnicity and gender in the United States. Overview of concepts, theories and analytic frames that shape the interdisciplinary field of Ethnic Studies. Focuses on historic, institutional, legal and cultural issues that impact African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Chicanas and Chicanos, European Americans, Native Americans and Indigenous peoples in the U.S.
ETHN 2703 - Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions
Primary Instructor
-
Spring 2021 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2024
Studies the religious lifeways of diverse Indigenous peoples in North America. The course considers how these religious lifeways facilitate healing, movements of social protest, and efforts for self-determination in response to ongoing forms of colonialism. Students will critically explore the impact of colonial structures on Native American religious traditions, such as missionization, and evaluate the meaning of decolonization as both a pathway and goal supporting Native liberation. Same as RLST 2700.
ETHN 3403 - Indigenous Rights and Red Power Movement
Primary Instructor
-
Fall 2024
Deals with historical events involving conflicts between the U.S. government and American Indians. Examples include the role of the FBI in the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation (1972-76) or the 1864 massacre of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in Colorado territory. Additional courses may relate to tribal governments. Recommended prerequisite: ETHN 1023 or ETHN 2001. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours on different topics.
ETHN 6101 - Topics: Specialized Comparative Studies
Primary Instructor
-
Spring 2021
Focuses on a variety of advanced interdisciplinary studies. Themes include: Race and Sports, Critical Whiteness Studies, Race and Masculinity, Applied Community Engagement, Black Women in the Diaspora, US/Mexico Border Cultures, Criminalization and Latinas/os, Race, Violence and Film, and Cuba and Tourism. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Recommended requisite: ETHN coursework.
ETHN 6103 - Indigenous Thought and Theory: Foundations in NAIS
Primary Instructor
-
Fall 2019 / Fall 2022
Introduces the theoretical landscapes of Native American and Indigenous Studies. Explores debates, methodologies and concerns that ground the field and provides critical engagement with Indigenous communities and knowledges. Teaches standards for evaluating scholarly sources based on criteria derived from the most outstanding recent scholarship in the field. Requires writing and thinking critically about issues of concern for global indigenous communities.
ETHN 6841 - Advanced Directed Readings in Ethnic Studies
Primary Instructor
-
Spring 2020 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023
This is a graduate level directed readings course designed to expand student knowledge in a particular area of concentration with a broad interdisciplinary and comparative framework. These areas of concentration include work in Africana, American Indian, Asian American, Chicana and Chicano and Transnational/Hemispheric ethnic studies. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours.
RLST 2700 - Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions
Primary Instructor
-
Spring 2021 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2024
Studies the religious lifeways of diverse Indigenous peoples in North America. The course considers how these religious lifeways facilitate healing, movements of social protest, and efforts for self-determination in response to ongoing forms of colonialism. Students will critically explore the impact of colonial structures on Native American religious traditions, such as missionization, and evaluate the meaning of decolonization as both a pathway and goal supporting Native liberation. Same as ETHN 2703.
