In this course, we examine the idea of reconciliation among Indigenous and Canadian nations by considering the complicated role of religion and spirituality in “truth and reconciliation.” Specifically, residential schools for Indigenous children were a collaboration of church and state that violently broke the spirit and intent of the treaties—or sacred promises—made between the Crown and Indigenous nations. The course will set the 2015 Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada in a longer history of twentieth-century commissions, reports, and petitions in which both Indigenous and Canadian people (and some churches) named the cultural and spiritual genocide of residential schools and called for action.
In this course, we examine the idea of reconciliation among Indigenous and Canadian nations by considering the complicated role of religion and spirituality in “truth and reconciliation.” Specifically, residential schools for Indigenous children were a collaboration of church and state that violently broke the spirit and intent of the treaties—or sacred promises—made between the Crown and Indigenous nations. The course will set the 2015 Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada in a longer history of twentieth-century commissions, reports, and petitions in which both Indigenous and Canadian people (and some churches) named the cultural and spiritual genocide of residential schools and called for action.
