amccomb

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amccomb@arizona.edu
Phone
520-621-6296
Office
Learning Services Building
Office Hours
Please email professor to schedule a meeting or refer to class syllabus.
McComb Sanchez, Andrea
Associate Professor

Dr. Andrea McComb Sanchez (Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara) specializes in Native American religious traditions, religion in the Southwest, religion and colonialism in the U.S., and religion and the environment. She is a member of the American Indian Studies Graduate Interdisciplinary Program and an affiliate of the Institute of the Environment. Dr. McComb Sanchez’s current book project (under contract with the University of Nebraska Press), Of Corn and Catholicism: A History of Religion and Power in Pueblo Indian Patron Saint Feast Days, focuses on the imposition, adaptation, and eventual appropriation of Catholicism by Pueblo Indians through their development of the Patron Saint Feast Days, and analyzes how these Feast Days are both a relaxation and a maintenance of boundaries between Catholicism and older Pueblo traditions and ceremonies. Dr. McComb Sanchez teaches courses on Native American religious traditions, religion and culture in the Southwest, religion and ecology, and theory and method in religious studies.  

Currently Teaching

RELI 212 – American Indian Religious Traditions

This course offers a broad introduction to the diversity and complexity of American Indian religious traditions historically and in the contemporary. Students will explore general themes in the study of American Indian religions and spirituality along with analyzing specific examples. Of particular importance are the history and effects of colonialism and missionization on Native people, continuing struggles for religious freedom and cultural survival, and historical and contemporary religious responses to social, cultural, political, and geographical changes.

RELI 407 – Religion, Spirituality, and the Sacred in Native North America

This course critically explores the categories of "religion," "spirituality," and "the sacred" as they relate to American Indian communities, traditions, lifeways, histories, narratives, ceremony, and land. Focusing on both the plurality of indigenous lifeways and shared characteristics, some major topics that will be examined include the role of religion both in the colonization of Native people as well as in resistance to colonization, the importance of land/place/ecosystem and conceptions of sacred space, and issues of religious freedom and the fight for traditional land. Throughout we will analyze the efficacy of the terms "religion" and "spirituality" as well as engage with concerns regarding the academic study of Native American religions more broadly.

RELI 507 – Religion, Spirituality, and the Sacred in Native North America

This course critically explores the categories of "religion," "spirituality," and "the sacred" as they relate to American Indian communities, traditions, lifeways, histories, narratives, ceremony, and land. Focusing on both the plurality of indigenous lifeways and shared characteristics, some major topics that will be examined include the role of religion both in the colonization of Native people as well as in resistance to colonization, the importance of land/place/ecosystem and conceptions of sacred space, and issues of religious freedom and the fight for traditional land. Throughout we will analyze the efficacy of the terms "religion" and "spirituality" as well as engage with concerns regarding the academic study of Native American religions more broadly.