Calendar Archive: 2006-2007 Events
Fall 2006
August 22 on Nevada Street, Urbana, 2:00 - 5 p.m.
Nevada Street Block Party
Featuring the spinning of DJ Brian Frejo aka "Shock B" from the Culture Shock Camp. An all-Native hip-hop crew from Oklahoma City, Culture Shock Camp's sound is defined by its powerful blend of hip-hop and Native music that promotes a message of wellness, unity and Native pride.
View a photo gallery of this event.
September 4, 2006
Professor D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark will have an article, "'To Feel the Drumming Earth Come Upward': Indigenizing the American Studies Discipline, Field, Movement," published in an upcoming special issue of American Studies and Indigenous Studies Today (formally, the Journal of Indigenous Nations Studies)
Professor Clark has also been appointed to a three-year term as a member of the Minority Scholars' Committee of the American Studies Association (ASA), and has been elected to the executive committee of the CIC-AISC.
Professor Frederick E. Hoxie, along with R. David Edmunds and Neal Salisbury, has completed a book called The People: A History of Native American (Houghton Mifflin). The People demonstrates that the active participation of American Indians in a modern, democratic society has shaped—and will continue to shape—national life.
Professor Robert Dale Parker has edited a book that brings together the complete writings of the first-known American Indian literary writer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft. Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft will be released in December, 2006.
Professor LeAnne Howe's film Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire will be premiering in Washington DC on September 29. In the film, Howe travels to Cherokee, North Carolina to the home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in search of the father she never knew. Instead, the community she discovers leads her to ask crucial questions about identity, cultural preservation, health, capitalism, religion, assimilation.
The Before Columbus Foundation has selected A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children to receive one of its 2006 Book Awards. Edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin, A Broken Flute contains reviews of hundreds of children's books about American Indians, in addition to essays by Native and non-Native children, parents, and scholars (including contributions from Debbie Reese, Liz Reese, and Jean Mendoza).
Professor James Treat's new book, Writing the Cross Culture: Native Fiction on the White Man’s Religion (2006), has been published by Fulcrum Publishing. This edited anthology brings together various Native American voices like N. Scott Momaday, Diane Glancy, Vine Deloria Jr., Irvin Morris, and others, "to offer critical perspectives on diverse Christian beliefs and practices."
September 5, 2006
Welcome new faculty member, Jodi Byrd
Jodi Byrd, Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies, will join the program in the Fall of 2006. Professor Byrd comes from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, where she was a faculty member in the Department of Political Science. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Iowa.
Her research and teaching have focused primarily on contextualizing and transforming postcolonial theories and colonial discourse analyses to engage the continued settler colonialisms that mark the Americas and the Pacific.
September 13, 2006, 4:00 - 6:00 pm at Native American House
Fall Open House
Please come and say hello to some of the faculty, students, and staff at the Native American House and ask about what is planned for the year. We are now found in two adjacent locations: 1206 and 1204 West Nevada Street.
September 15-16, 2006 at the Newberry Library
CIC AIS Annual Research Conference
The Newberry Library will host a conference on “Emerging Research in American Indian Studies.” This forum is for CIC faculty to present research before a gathering of colleagues from across the CIC AIS. Faculty and grad students from non-CIC institutions are welcome to attend.
Thursday, October 5 at 4:00-5:30
Location: Asian American Cultural Center, 1210 W. Nevada Street, Urbana
Native Americans: Old Values in the New World Order
In this lecture, award-winning Native American journalist George Benge will examine—and explain—how America’s First People can have the best of both worlds by combining the unique power of their cultural and spiritual heritage with opportunities that abound in the modern, technological era.
George Benge is a news executive with Gannett Co., Inc. He joined Gannett in 1991 as managing editor of the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader. From 1993 until assuming his current position in May, 2001, he was executive editor of Gannett newspapers in Muskogee, Okla., Lafayette, Ind., and Asheville, N.C. Previously, Benge held editing and management positions in news, design, features and sports at The Detroit News, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. He is a past board member of the Native American Journalists Association and a current a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Cherokee Phoenix, the tribal newspaper of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. He graduated from Olivet (Mich.) College and attended graduate school at Wayne State University, Detroit.
From The Indianapolis Star, read "The time is long overdo for Chief Illiniwek to retire"
View Benge's October 5th lecture video (available only on Real Player). Problems? See troubleshooting information.
Tuesday, October 10 at the Author’s Corner (second floor of the Illini Union Bookstore), 4:30
Poetry Reading: Ingrid Wendt & Ralph Salisbury
Illinois-born poet Ingrid Wendt is the prizewinning author of five books of poems, two anthologies, and a book-length teaching guide. Honors include the Oregon Book Award, the Yellowglen Prize, the Editions Prize, the Carolyn Kizer Award, the D. H. Lawrence Award, and three Fulbright professorships to Germany.
Born in Iowa of a Cherokee story-teller, singer father and a story-telling Irish American mother, Ralph Salisbury grew up hunting and trapping, and working on a family farm, which had no electricity or running water. Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon, Salisbury is the author of two books of short fiction and eight books of poetry.
Monday, October 16 at 1204 Native American House, Conference Room, 12:00-1:30
"Sacajawea: Feminist Heroine, Multicultural Icon, and Colonial Subject"
Discussing intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality as they impact issues of access, voice, and equality, Dr. Wanda Pillow's recent research includes the uses of representations of Sacajawea and York, "members" of the Lewis and Clark ‘Corps of Discovery’ expedition, 1802-1804.
This talk, based on a forthcoming essay in Hypatia, centers on how Sacajawea, the Lemhi Shoshone woman who accompanied the 1804 Corps of Discovery expedition, is a popularized and romanticized figure in U.S. history, lore, and popular culture. Pillow traces how reproductions of whiteness, within boundaries, of Sacajawea were necessary to situate her as national heroine, feminist icon, and, most recently, multicultural subject of history. Analyzing best selling women’s novels as well as popular history texts, Pillow demonstrates how colonial reproductions of whiteness continue to capture Sacajawea for national consumption while simultaneously reinforcing whiteness. Left with consumable images, Pillow specifically considers the challenge for feminism to write and think differently about subjects like Sacajawea.
October 26, 2006, 7:00pm at Main LibraryRoom 66, 1408 W. Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801
Screening of Groundbreaking PBS Television Series
INDIAN COUNTRY DIARIES: "SPIRAL OF FIRE"
In "Spiral of Fire," American Indian Studies Professor LeAnne Howe (Choctaw) travels to the North Carolina homeland of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to discover how their fusion of tourism, cultural preservation, and spirituality is key to the tribe's health in the 21st century.
November 1, 2006
American Indian Studies and Gender and Women Studies invite applications for position
The American Indian Studies (AIS) and Gender and Women Studies (GWS) programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign invite applications for a joint full-time tenure track faculty position at the rank of assistant professor. The successful candidate will hold a tenure track percentage position in both units with the tenure home in either AIS or GWS. This position demonstrates an exciting collaboration between AIS and GWS. We seek colleagues whose teaching, research, and scholarship will contribute to curricular and program development in both units and whose work provides critical perspectives on the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, and indigeneity—including American Indian, First Nations, Indigenous, and Hawaii/ Pacific perspectives—in a global/transnational context.
Field open: Applicants in fine arts, humanities, and social sciences are encouraged to apply. Special consideration will be given to candidates whose work is clearly centered within indigenous and feminist studies. Applicants will hold a PhD by start date of August 2007. (ABD applicants with PhD completion by August 2007 will be considered.)
To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by December 1, 2006. Salary is competitive.
Applicants should submit application letter, C.V., two writing samples, and three reference letters to:
Professor Wanda Pillow, Director AIS/NAH
Professor Cris Mayo, Director GWS
Native American House
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1204 W. Nevada
Urbana, IL 61801
(217) 265-9870
The University of Illinois is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer
Monday, November 6 at 1204 Native American House, Conference Room, 12:00-1:30
Dr. Kim Furumoto, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in American Indian Studies
"Enemy Lines in Federal Indian Law"
Tuesday, November 14 at Levis Faculty Center, Third Floor, 4:00
CAS/MillerComm Lecture Series Presents
Dr. Luis Macas, President, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and director, Scientific Institute of Indigenous Cultures, Quito, Ecuador
Indigenous Rights in a Global Arena: Globalization From Below
Dr. Luis Macas has long been at the forefront of the struggle for political rights for indigenous peoples in Ecuador as a founder and then president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). He is now reaching beyond borders to make intercontinental alliances in the emergent pan-global indigenous peoples’ movement. In this talk he discusses this grassroots form of globalization, pointing to challenges and successes of indigenous people’s movements across the Americas and beyond.
A member of the Saraguro indigenous community (part of the Quichua-Kichwa nation), Luis Macas is the Ecuadorian presidential candidate for Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement, the political branch of CONAIE, in the 2006 elections.
Luis Macas' talk will be given in Spanish and simultaneously translated by Professor Linda Belote, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota at Duluth.
Sponsored by:
Global Studies Initiative
In conjunction with:
Asian American Studies Program, Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Center for Global Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of History, Department of Linguistics, Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Environmental Council, Global Crossroads Living/Learning Community, Native American House, Office of Continuing Education, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
November 20, 2006
Native American House and American Indian Studies Program invite applications for director
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is seeking a Director for the Native American House and American Indian Studies Program who is committed to advancing research and scholarship focused upon American Indian Studies in a transnational context. The Native American House and American Indian Studies Program are interdisciplinary programs of teaching, research, cultural programming, and student support providing University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students an opportunity to critically engage with the epistemologies and world views of American Indian communities and nations. The Program includes an accomplished faculty, excellent support staff, a dynamic curriculum that incorporates a range of theories, methodologies, and teaching approaches, a dedication to student success, and support for community outreach activities.
The Director stimulates research, supervises the administrative office of the programs, and promotes the development of American Indian Studies curricula. The Director also facilitates interdisciplinary communication and scholarship among the faculty. The Director is expected to represent and advance the interests of the Program on campus and in the community, as well as to cultivate external funding resources. The Director reports to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and will hold a full-time tenured appointment in the program and in an appropriate disciplinary unit.
The successful candidate will have a national and/or international scholarly standing in American Indian Studies, preferably in a transnational context; a demonstrated commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship; administrative experience; a Ph.D. or comparable terminal degree, and a strong record of distinguished teaching; a commitment to racial and gender diversity; and the ability to work closely with other interdisciplinary units on campus, including the ethnic studies programs. Salary is negotiable. The preferred starting date is on or before August 16, 2007.
Candidates should supply a letter of application, current curriculum vitae, samples of scholarly writing, and the names and addresses of at least three professional references. Full consideration will be given to applications and nominations received by January 15, 2007. Send nominations, applications, and inquiries to:
Robyn Camp
Search Committee/Director, NAH/AIS
807 S. Wright, Suite 320
Champaign, IL 61820
rcamp@illinois.edu
217/244-9010
Monday, December 4 at 1204 Native American House, Conference Room, 12:00-1:30
Dr. Kristina Ackley, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in American Indian Studies
"Working from Community: Unification and Nationalism in Oneida Tribal Discourse"
Kristina Ackley has a Ph.D. in American Studies and a M.A. in American Indian Studies. Her research extends her dissertation, “We Are Oneida Yet: Discourse in the Oneida Land Claim.” She is a member of the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin and of Bad River Chippewa descent. Her scholarly work encompasses community-based/determined research, and it incorporates her current studies in Indigenous methodologies and epistemologies.
Dr. Ackley's research reframes what cultural resiliency means by challenging the view of Native communities as less than whole or pathological. She critically considers not so much what has been done to Native communities, but what they have been able to maintain. By moving the lens to the colonized instead of the colonizer she asks the question: what has endured and why? With this research she shows that factionalism in the Oneida communities can be seen as a normative and persistent facet of tribal discourse, and examines this in light of the Oneida land claim. In this talk, Dr. Ackley will also discuss her emerging work with the traditional Longhouse Oneida community in the context of decolonization practices and a discourse of continuity.
Spring 2007
Thursday, February 1 at Foellinger Auditorium, 709 S. Mathews Avenue, 4:00 PM
Racism, Power, and Privilege at UIUC: A Campus Open Forum
For more information about this event, contact I-Resist
Wednesday, February 7 at 1204 Native American House, Conference Room, 12-1:30 PM
Jodi Byrd and D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark
"Indigenizing the Academy: Interdisciplinary Undergraduate and Graduate Programs in American Indian Studies" (Colloquia Series in American Indian Studies)
An opportunity for staff, students, and faculty to learn about and share ideas in response to the pending undergraduate and graduate minor programs in American Indian Studies. One hundred and seventy years after residents of Illinois conspired with the U.S. government to cleanse their state of Indian nations (and, along with them, indigenous intellectual interdisciplines, laws, and governments), Indigenous ways of knowing returned to the state's flagship university in 2003 to reclaim intellectual authority. Fundamentally concerned with the articulation of an Indigenous critical theory, interdisciplinary academic programs in American Indian Studies seek to indigenize the academy, to carve out a space in -- and from which -- the intellectual authority of Indigenous values and knowledge are respected in a transformative and empowering environment that offer innovative approaches to invigorate and transform the established academic disciplines. Byrd and Clark, citizens of the Chickasaw and Meskwaki nations, respectively, are faculty members of the American Indian Studies Program.
This event is part of a semester-long series titled "Rethinking the Languages of Racism: An American Indian Studies Response to Racial Harassment."
Friday, February 9 at 192 Lincoln Hall, 2:00-4:00PM
Panelist: Pedro Cában, Lisa Marie Cacho, Helen Neville, Kent Ono, Debbie Reese, and David Roediger
Moderator: D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark
"Disempowering Racial Oppression, Discontinuing Chief Illiniwek and Other Forms of Racial 'Entertainment'"
Roundtable discussion by faculty members of racialized communities studies programs concerned in their research and teaching with power, privilege, oppression, and structural change in the academy. Racialized communities studies offer an intellectual force that positions these scholars to respond powerfully to forms of racial harassment witnessed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during the 2006-07 academic year -- forms ranging from Chief Illiniwek's halftime performances, to racist entertainment sponsored by sororities and fraternities and campus academic organizations, to the racist threats leveled online through Facebook against American Indian students, staff, and faculty. Panelists will address these local incidents of racial harassment, frame racial oppression more generally, and offer visions for transformative futures.
This event is part of a semester-long series titled "Rethinking the Languages of Racism: An American Indian Studies Response to Racial Harassment."
Thursday, February 15 at the Author's Corner in the Illini Union Bookstore, 4:00 PM
Professor Parker will be discussing his new book, The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft. Introducing a dramatic new chapter to American Indian literary history, this book brings to the public for the first time the complete writings of the first known American Indian literary writer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (her English name) or Bamewawagezhikaquay (her Ojibwe name), Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky (1800-1842).
Monday, February 19 at Pennsylvania Avenue Resdience Hall (906 W. College Ct), 7 PM
Cornel Pewewardy
Do You Want to be a Pilgrim or Indian? Indian Education 101
***CANCELED***
Realities of Indian education and what mainstream students are taught about Indians over the life cycle -- in educational institutions and mass media. Group dialogue format. Pewewardy, a citizen of the Comanche Nation, is the academic dean at the Comanche Nation College in Lawton, Oklahoma and co-author (with D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark) of Indian Like Me? Looking forward to the History of 'Indian' Mascots (University of Nebraska Press). He is the recipient of the American Education Research Association's Distinguished Scholar Award and three-time nominee for the Mike Charleston Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Indigenous Education. An 11-veteran of Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and formerly an associate professor at the University of Kansas, he is a five-time winner of Big XII Outstanding American Indian Faculty of the Year Award, as well as a recipient of the Kemper Award for Teaching Excellence, Crystal Eagle Award for Outstanding Leadership in American Indian Studies, and Anthony Daniels Award for Leadership and Achievement in Multicultural Education.
Thursday, February 22 at 100 Gregory Hall, 4:30
Presenter: James M. Fortier (Moderator: LeAnne Howe)
Title: Lights, Cameras, Indians: Empowerment and Cultural Renewal through the Lens of a Metis Documentary Filmmaker
Film showing followed by discussion with the filmmaker. Award-winning filmmaker James M. Fortier will screen excerpts from his documentaries on American Indian peoples. His directorial debut, Alcatraz Is Not An Island, chronicles the 1969 Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island and earned him an Emmy Award for directing. In addition to excerpts from his first film, he will show clips from his more recent films, including Pulling Together, made in collaboration with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and Green Green Water, co-produced with Minneapolis filmmaker Dawn Mikkleson. He also will feature three sneak previews of his latest films including: Bad Sugar, an episode of a national PBS series on health disparities, it explores the historical and social determinants of diabetes among the Pima and Tohono O'odham tribes in Arizona; Gathering Together, a sequel to the Muckleshoot tribe's Pulling Together, explores cultural renewal and Indian Identity through the revival of the tribe's ancient canoe culture; and Playing Pastime: American Indian Fast Pitch Softball and Survival, a 30-minute short work in progress co-produced with award winning author and poet and citizen of the Choctaw Nation LeAnne Howe. Fortier (Metis and Pic River Ojibway) is a three-time Emmy Award winning documentary-filmmaker born in Ontario Canada and raised near Chicago. He recently began production of AIM: The American Indian Movement with Illinois filmmaker and UIUC faculty member Jay Rosenstein. Howe is a faculty member of the American Indian Studies Program.
This event is part of a semester-long series titled "Rethinking the Languages of Racism: An American Indian Studies Response to Racial Harassment."
Sponsored by:
Native American House/American Indian Studies
In Conjuction with:
Center for Advanced Study, Asian American Studies Program, La Casa Cultural Latina, Unit for Cinema Studies, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Department of English, Gender and Women's Studies Program, Department of History and Paid for by the Student Cultural Programming Fee
Thursday, March 1 at the Levis Faculty Center, 4:00 PM
CAS/MillerComm Lecture Series Presents
Robert A. Williams, Professor of Law at the University of Arizona.
"Can the Law Protect the Rights of Indigenous People?"
Native peoples around the world have experienced varying degrees of success in securing their rights to cultural survival within the legal systems of their own countries. Many groups in recent years, however, have increasingly turned to the international human rights system as a more effective arena for voicing their concerns. The law is the basic source of order in a modern state; but which source of law—the domestic law of the conqueror or international human rights law—can best protect Native peoples whom the state often seeks to marginalize and dispossess?
Sponsored by:
Department of History
In conjunction with:
African American Studies and Research Program, Asian American Studies Program, College of Law, Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Native American House/American Indian Studies Program
Support for this series as a whole is provided by:
Office of the Chancellor, Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, The Center for Advanced Study, George A. Miller Programs Committee and Peggy Harris Memorial Fund, The Council of Deans, The David Gottlieb Memorial Foundation, and The Graduate College.
Friday, March 2 at the Spurlock Museum, 12:30 PM
Asian American Studies Program's 10th Anniversary
The keynote speaker for the event is an alumnus of the Journalism Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. K.W. Lee (MS, Journalism, 1955) is an award-winning investigative journalist/activist, famous for his newspaper articles on the Chol Soo Lee case and for founding the Koreatown Weekly. In addition to his keynote talk, a panel discussing the history of the Asian American Studies Program and its future, as well as a reception, with live music from the Chip McNeill Jazz Quartet will be part of the festivities.
Co-Sponsors | African American Studies & Research Program, American Indian Studies, Asian American Cultural Center, Asian American Cultural Center Student Cultural Programming Fee, Asian Pacific American Graduate Students Organization, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, College of Communications, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures, Department of Educational Policy Studies, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Human and Community Development, Department of Journalism, Department of Sociology, Department of Speech Communications, Department of Theatre, Gender and Women's Studies, Latina Latino Studies Program, Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, School of Social Work, University of Illinois Alumni Association
For details visit the 10th Anniversary webpage.
Tuesday, March 6 at Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Language Building, 10 AM
David Wallace Adams, Professor Emeritus, Cleveland State University
"Images of Forced Acculturation: Photographs of the Indian Boarding School Experience"
David W. Adams published Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928 (University of Kansas Press, 1995). This book won the Western History Association’s award for the best book on the American West, the Educational Research Association’s Choice award as one of the “outstanding academic books” in the field of North American History. His articles have appeared in such journals as Harvard Educational Review, History of Education Quarterly, History Teacher, South Atlantic Quarterly, Pacific Historical Review, Journal of American Indian Education, and Western Historical Quarterly. He is presently working on a book tentatively titled Coming of Age on the Southwest Frontier: A Tri-cultural History, 1890-1990, a project sponsored by two grants from the Spencer Foundation and a research fellowship at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University (2005-2006).
Tuesday, April 3 at the Native American House Conference Room, 12 Noon
Teri Greeves
Traditional Adaptation--Beadwork for a New Century
Nationally acclaimed Kiowa artist Teri Greeves began her beading when she was eight years old on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Teri's beadwork has won many awards at the Heard Museum's Indian Market, Eight Northern Pueblo Arts and Crafts Show, and Best of Show at Santa Fe's SWAIA Indian Market. She is very dedicated to her art work and her family. She also has a goal of educating the public about the art of beadwork, as well as the history and values of the Kiowa people.
Friday, April 6 at the English Building, Room 160, 3:30 - 5:30 PM
Susan Power, Adjunct Professor at Hamline University
"Old Stories from the New World: A Writer's Journey"
Susan Power is the best-selling author of The Grass Dancer (1994) and winner of the PEN/Hemmingway Award for Best First Fiction in 1995. Her second book, Roofwalker (2002), was the winner of Milkweed’s National Fiction Prize.
She is an enrolled member of the Stand Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota and received an A.B. degree in Psychology from Harvard/Radcliffe, a J. D. from Harvard Law School and a M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has also been granted a James Michener Fellowship (1992-1993) and a Bunting Institute Fellowship at Radcliffe College (1993-1994). Her short fiction has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The Voice Literary Supplement, Ploughshares, Story and the Best American Short Stories 1993. Power is also the winner of an Alfred Hodder Fellowship in Humanities at Princeton University,1996.
Monday, April 9 at Alice Campbell Alumni Center, 4:00-5:30 PM
Raymond DeMallie, Director, American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University
Black Elk, Holy Man of the Lakotas: An Anthropologist’s Perspective
John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks (1932) is a remarkable document of American Indian culture that brings the reader into the world of a nineteenth century Oglala Sioux (Lakota) whose life was dominated by sacred visions and the sense of responsibility that they commanded. With the reprinting of the book in the 1960s and its subsequent popularity as a religious text, Black Elk has become a cultural icon and the book, as Vince Deloria, Jr., suggested, is regarded as "an American Indian Bible." My publication of an edition of the original notes of Neihardt's interviews with Black Elk led me, as an anthropologist, to evaluate the real Black Elk and place him in the fuller context of his times. Since then, a storm of controversy has developed over the meaning and significance of Black Elk's words. In this presentation I discuss my perspective on Black Elk and his significance for the understanding of the Lakota.
Monday, April 9 at the English Building, Room 160, 8:00 PM
Jodi Byrd (American Indian Studies & English, UIUC), Luis Carcamo-Huechante (Romance Languages, Harvard University), and Markus Schulz (Sociology, UIUC)
Theorizing Indigenous Media: A Panel Discussion
Jodi Byrd (American Indian Studies & English, UIUC), "Kohta Falaya: Chickasaw Nation Comic Books and the Formation of National Memory"; Luis Carcamo-Huechante (Romance Languages, Harvard University) "Cultures In the Air!: Radio and Indigenous Voices in the Americas"; Markus Schulz (Sociology, UIUC), "Identity, Media, and Contentious Politics: Cross-Cultural Linkages"
Working from concrete cases involving radio, comics, the Internet, and other media forms, this panel will theorize the politics and aesthetics of media practices by indigenous peoples of the Americas from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective.
Background reading (available on e-reserves under Unit 2007/Rothberg): Craig Howe, "Keep Your Thoughts Above the Trees: Ideas on Developing and Presenting Tribal Histories."
Tuesday, April 10 at Native American House, Conference Room, 3:30-4:40 PM
Raymond DeMallie, Director, American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University
Lakota Winter Counts and the Cultural Interpretation of Time
The Lakota kept pictorial records that designated each passing winter with a mnemonic representing a memorable event from the previous year. These served as calendars to name the years and also formed the basis for a native history. One of the winter count keepers created as well a history of the world from the beginning, represented by a series of tipi circles that represented not years, but generations. Anthropological study of winter counts began in the 1870s and has continued since. This presentation will introduce winter counts as a genre, discuss the nature of the events they commemorate, and offer some interpretation of what they reveal about native Lakota concepts of time and history.
Wednesday, April 11 at IPRH, 805 West Pennsylvania Avenue, Urbana, 3:00 PM
The Furture of the Library
Panalists: Anne D. Hedeman (Professor, Art History & Medieval Studies); Frederick E. Hoxie (Swanlund Professor, History); Paula Kaufman (Interim Chief Information Officer & Professor, Library Administration); Karen Schmidt (Acting University Librarian & Professor, Library Administration); Mary Stuart (Head, History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library & Coordinator, Arts and Humanities Division); and Chair, Christine Catanzarite (Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities)
Monday, April 16 at the English Building, Room 160, 7 PM
The Rhetoric of Native American Mascotting
Jason Edward Black is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. His work has appeared in Southern Communication Journal, Communication Quarterly, American Indian Quarterly, Kenneth Burke Journal, and the Journal of Media and Cultural Politics. He recently completed a manuscript entitled Hybridized Governmental and Native Voices in the Nineteenth Century: Rhetoric in the Removal and Allotment of American Indians. Black teaches courses on Race and the Law; Contemporary Rhetorical Theory; African American Rhetoric; Critical/Cultural Theory; War/Protest Discourses; and the Rhetoric of Native America. He is a recipient of the Wrage-Baskerville Award from the Public Address Division at the National Communication Association and the Owen Peterson Award from the Rhetoric and Public Address Division of the Southern States Communication Association.
Co-sponsored by the African American Studies and Research Program, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Anthropology, the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, History, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Rhetoric Reading Group, Latina/o Studies, and Speech Communication
Thursday, April 19 at 336 Lincoln Hall, 3 PM
"The Quests of Indigenous People to Maintain Cultural Continuity: Benefits of Hunting Lifestyles among the Innu of Canada"
Colin Samson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK
Sponsored by the Department of Sociology, Spring 2007 Seminar Series
Thursday, April 19 at 112 Huff Hall, 6:30 PM
Emmy Award Winning Filmmaker, Allan Holzman; Director of the Sherman Indian Museum, Lorene Sisquoc; Professor of Native American History at UCR, Clifford E. Trafzer; Professor of American Indian Studies,UIUC, Debbie Reese;Postdoctoral Research Fellow in American Indian Studies, Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert; UIUC Ph.D. candidate in History, Rebecca McNulty Schreiber
"Beautiful Resistance" and "Beyond the Mesas": Native Responses to the "Boarding School"
Experience
The Native American House at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign will host a preview screening and discussion around the upcoming film series, Culture of Children.
This Film screenings will attempt to highlight very different responses to the “Boarding school” experience by including representatives of several Native Nations. The screening event will educate students and the community about Indian boarding schools and aid in the diversity of Native North America, as different Nations express their responses to the positive and negative affects of the assimilation and acculturation policies of the United States government.
For example, "Beyond the Mesas" documents the forced removal of Hopi people to on- and off-reservation boarding schools, and their experiences at schools such as Sherman Institute, the Phoenix Indian School, Ganado Mission School, and Stewart Indian School. Topics covered in the film include Hopi understandings of education, early government efforts to assimilate and acculturate Hopis, the Oraibi Split, Hopi language loss at American schools, and the future of Hopi people. Some of the Hopis highlighted in the film include Marsha Balenquah (Bacabi, Arizona), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, Director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, and Lee Wayne Lomayestewa (Shungopavi, Arizona).
April 25, 2007
"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" Visits UIUC's Native American House
American Indian Studies associate professor LeAnne Howe interviews"The Daily Show" correspondent Aasif Mandvi about the retirement of Chief Illiniwek.
Howe presses Mandvi to speak truthfully about whether he is offended about being mistaken for an American "Indian" as opposed to an "Indian" from India.
[Photo credits: Debbie Reese]
You can view the segment titled "Trail of Cheers" on comedycentral.com.
Thursday, April 26 at 100 Greg Hall, 4:00-6:00 PM
The Process of Decolonialization of Indigenous Peoples
Dr. Larry Emerson will discuss the impact of colonization on indigenous peoples, with an emphasis on the process of indigenous decolonization and recovery from historical trauma. This presentation will provide examples of how indigenous communities and/or persons who identify with an indigenous heritage can begin such a decolonization process.
Friday, April 27 at the Anita Purves Nature Center, 1:00-5:00 PM
Decolonization Workshop
Larry Emerson will facilitate a workshop and dialoguing process that will help students further understand issues around colonization and the decolonization/recovery process. This workshop will also create a supportive space for persons from different indigenous backgrounds to connect and dialogue about historical and cultural commonalities and differences. The workshop will be facilitated at the Anita Purves Nature Center. There will be a post workshop dinner on campus, which students will have the option of attending in order to debrief and dialogue on how workshop can be applied on campus and home communities.
These events are expected to appeal to students, staff, and community members with an interest in understanding indigeneity in the construction of Latina/o and Native American identities.
The Anita Purves Nature Center is located at 1505 N. Broadway in Urbana (217-384-4062), and transportation will be provided from La Casa/Native American House to and from Nature Center.
Paid for by the Cultural Programming Fee, La Casa Cultural Latina, Native American House