Past Events

Lecture, 8 December 2017

Karl Jacoby, The History of Violence, the Violence of History

Lecture, 29 September 2017

William Bauer, California Through Native Eyes

Lecture, 3 April 2017

Matt Gilbert: Louis Tewanima, Hopi Indian

Where: Tisch 104, 2-3:30 pm

Lecture, 17 March 2017

Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe 1846-1873.

Where: Haven Hall 3512, 4-5:30 pm

Dissertation Chapter Workshop, 11 May 2016

Sophie Hunt, “Creek and Seminole Power on Florida’s Gulf Rivers, 1789-1835”

Where: Haven Hall 3512, 2-4 pm

Dissertation chapter workshop for Sophie Hunt on her third chapter, entitled, “Creek and Seminole Power on Florida’s Gulf Rivers, 1789-1835”

Dinner Reception, 11 March 2016

N. Scott Momaday

Where: Executive Learning and Conference Center Dining Room, 7-9 PM

Reception in honor of the first annual Robert F. Berkhofer Lecture on Native American Studies, given by Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday

Lecture, 11 March 2016

N. Scott Momaday, Robert F. Berkhofer Lecture on Native American Studies

Where: Michigan League Ballroom, 6-7:30 PM

The first annual Robert F. Berkhofer Lecture on Native American Studies, given by Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday

Lunch & Discussion, 10 March 2016

Lunch and Discussion with Michael McDonnell (University of Sydney) on his new book Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America

Where: Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Conference Room, 12-1:30 PM

Lunch and Discussion with Michael McDonnell (University of Sydney) on his new book Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America, graduate school, and professionalization.

Mock Job Talk, 22 February 2016

Michelle Cassidy, “‘I am an Indian and I fought through the War of Rebellion’: Anishinaabe Assertions of Identity in Civil War Pension Claims”

Where: Mason Hall 3314, 4-6 PM

Mock job talk for NAISIG member Michelle Cassidy in preparation for her upcoming interview at University of Massachusetts-Boston.

Reading Group, 22 February 2016

Michael McDonnell, Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America

Where: Haven Hall 3512, 1-3 PM

Reading group on Michael McDonnell’s new book, Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America, in preparation for his visit.

Dissertation Chapter Workshop,11 December 2015

Walker Elliot, “What We Need is a ‘Red Power Movement’: Lumbees, Labor, and Migration in North Carolina’s War on Poverty”

Where: Haven Hall 3773, 2-4 PM

Dissertation chapter workshop for Walker Elliot’s first dissertation chapter, “What We Need is a ‘Red Power Movement’: Lumbees, Labor, and Migration in North Carolina’s War on Poverty”

Reading Group, 16 October 2015

Benjamin Madley, "Reexamining the American Genocide Debate: Meaning, Historiography, and New Methods”

Where: Haven Hall 3512, 1-3 PM

Reading group discussion of Benjamin Madley’s seminal article Benjamin Madley, "Reexamining the American Genocide Debate: Meaning, Historiography, and New Methods,” and its implications for the larger topic of genocide in the field of Native American Studies.

Seminar, 2 October 2015

Representing the Indian Boarding School: Texts and Images

Where: Angell Hall 3222, 9 AM- 1 PM

A one-day seminar featuring Professor Arnorld Krupat (Cornell University), concerning Indian Boarding Schools, the scholarship around them, and how we, as teachers, can improve how we integrate this topic in the classroom.

Writing Workshop, 21 May 2015

Writing Workshop, NAISA 2015 Participants

Where: 3512 Haven Hall, 2-4 pm

Papers presented were Michelle Cassidy's “Our Dear Noble Country”: Anishinaabe Motivations for Enlisting in the Union Army," and Emily Macgillivray's "Native Space, Settled Space, and Routes to Freedom: Racial Hierarchies in the Great Lakes, 1780 to 1840."

Writing Workshop, 14 May 2015

Writing Workshop, NAISA 2015 Participants

Where: 3512 Haven Hall, 2-4 pm

Papers presented were Sophie Hunt's “Little Inducement to the Cultivator”: Swamps, the Bloodhound Controversy, and Settler Colonialism in the Second Seminole War," Lisa Jong's “With Wonderful Accuracy in Miniature”: Constructing Regional Artifacts in the Fiction of E. Pauline Johnson," and Frank Kelderman's “The Importance and Utility of Native Agency”: Ojibwe Tribal Authority in Peter Jones’s “Appeal to the Christian Public."

Reading Group, 24 April 2015

Settler Colonialism Reading Group, Theorizing Native Studies

Where: 3512 Haven Hall, 3-5 pm

Settler Colonial Studies reading group on the new volume from Duke University Press, Theorizing Native Studies. During this meeting, chapters by Scott Morgensen, Andrea Smith, and Vera Palmer were discussed.

Reading Group, 20 February 2015

Settler Colonialism Reading Group, Theorizing Native Studies

Where: 3505 Haven Hall, 2-3:30 pm

Settler Colonial Studies reading group on the new volume from Duke University Press, Theorizing Native Studies. During this meeting, chapters by Teresia Teaiwa, Glen Coulthard, and Mark Rifkin were discussed.

Guest Lecture/Workshop, 20 February 2015

Sheila Contreras, "Mestizaje/Metissage: Post-Conquest Literary Cultures in the Americas

Where: Haven Hall 3512 from 2-4 pm (Workshop in Haven Hall 3773 from 10-11:30 am)

Workshop with Professor Sheila Contreras, Michigan State, and a guest lecture on her latest research project.

Reading Group, 13 February 2015

Settler Colonialism Reading Group, Theorizing Native Studies

Where: 3505 Haven Hall, 2-3:30 pm

Settler Colonial Studies reading group on the new volume from Duke University Press, Theorizing Native Studies. The book's introduction was discussed during this meeting.

Guest Lecture, 6 February 2015

Lisa King (University of Tennessee), "Legible Sovereignties: Exhibiting Relevance in Native Museums"

Where: Angell Hall 3222 at 1:30 pm (Workshop in 3241 Angell Hall at 10 am)

Workshop with and guest lecture from Lisa King on sovereignty enacted through the National Museum of the American Indian, the Ziibiwing Center, and the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum.

Mock Job Talk

Frank Kelderman, "Authorized Agents: The Projects of Native American Writing in the Age of Removal"

Where: Haven Hall 3512 from 1-2:30 pm

Mock job talk from Frank Kelderman in preparation for campus visits.

Reading Group, 24 November 2014

Sheila Contreras, Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism, and Chicana/o Literature

Where: Haven Hall 3773 from 5-7 pm

Reading group on Sheila Contreras's Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism, and Chicana/o Literature in preparation for a visit by Professor Contreras.

Reading Group, 21 November 2014

Settler Colonialism Reading Group Meeting

Where: Haven Hall 3773 at 3 pm

Discussion of three short articles - "Decolonizing Antiracism" by Bonita Lawrence and Enakshi Dua; "Decolonizing Resistance, Challenging Colonial States" by Nandita Sharma and Cynthia Wright; and "Indigenous Peoples and Black People in Canada: Settlers or Allies?"-- around the category of "settler," and how histories of enslavement, diaspora, migration, and racialized marginalization relate to processes of settler-colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

Conference, 7 November 2104

The Global Indigenous Peoples Movement

Where: International Institute/1636 School of Social Work Building, 9 am-5:30 pm

A conference featuring Jens Dahl (University of Copenhagen), Shari Huhndorf (University of California, Berkeley), Virginius Xaxa (Tata Institute of Social Sciences), Kennedy Gastorn (University of Dar es Salaam), Dalee Sambo Dorough (University of Alaska, Anchorage), and, from the University of Michigan, Kelly Askew, Phil Deloria, Monica Hakimi, Daniel Halberstam, Rebecca Hardin, Pauline Jones Luong, Scott Lyons, Bruce Mannheim, David Porter, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, and Richard Tucker.

More information can be found here: http://www.ii.umich.edu/ii/aboutus/events/ci.iifallsymposiumtheglobalindigenouspeoplesmovementfri7nov2014_ci.detail

Guest Lecture, 17 September 2014

David Choberka on UMMA Holdings

Where: Haven Hall 3512

Presentation by David Choberka, Mellon Academic Coordinator at UMMA, on the museums holdings, research materials, and teaching opportunities within the collections.

Museum Exhibit Visit and Film Screening, 14 September 2014

Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 3/Contemporary Native North American Art from the Northeast and Southeast

Where: Meet outside of UMMA at 1:50 p.m. (exhibit walk through begins at 2 pm, and short films begin at 3 pm)

Guided tour of the Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 3 exhibit at UMMA, as well as a screening of the documentary Contemporary Native North American Art from the Northeast and Southeast. For more information on the exhibit, see http://umma.umich.edu/insider/changing-hands

Reading Group, 25 June 2014

Gender and Sexuality Book Study

Where: Haven Hall 3773

AISIG purchased members a book of their choice relating to Native American Studies and the study of gender and sexuality. After reading the books, we met for lunch and a discussion of common themes.

Social Gathering, 27 May 2014

AISIG Year End Lunch

Where: Off campus (Slurping Turtle)

A lunch with AISIG members to wrap up the 2013­2014 school year and to say goodbye to Jane Griffiths, a Fulbright scholar who has participated in our workshop this year.

Movie Screening and Discussion, 15 April 2014

Barking Water

Where: 3512 Haven Hall

A screening and discussion of the acclaimed film Barking Water by Seminole/Creek filmmaker Sterlin Hardjo. The event served as a community building event with the Native American Student Association.

Writing Workshop, 24 March 2014

Christie Toth, "'My Dream in Unfolding Before Me': 'Actually Existing' Diné College Students"

Michelle Cassidy, "'I am an Indian and I Fought Through the War of Rebellion': Anishinaabe Men and Places after the Civil War"

Where: 3512 Haven Hall

A workshop of writing by two graduate student AISIG members. Christie Toth’s dissertation chapter draws on ethnographic research at a tribally controlled college on the Navajo Nation to examine the diverse identities, experiences, language backgrounds, literacy practices, and motivations of sixteen Diné students enrolled in first­year writing, arguing that these students’ locations within the structures of ongoing US settler colonialism pose the greatest threats to students' academic success. Michelle Cassidy’s conference paper examines the way that Anishinaabe Civil War veterans and their communities employed common nineteenth­century stereotypes and preconceptions to strengthen their pension claims.

Public Lecture, 11 March 2014

Walter EchoHawk, "In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America"

Where: Henderson Room, Michigan League

Walter Echo­Hawk is a Native American attorney, tribal judge, author, activist, and a law professor. He represents Indian tribes on important legal issues such as treaty rights, water rights, religious freedom, prisoner rights, and repatriation rights. In this talk, he discussed the impact of the landmark United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the future of federal Indian law and policy in the United States.

Writing Workshop, 27 January 2014

Juliana Barr, "The Troublesome Case of the Cross and the Virgin: Indian Interpretations of Christian Iconography in the 16th and 17th Century Southwest"

A discussion of a work­ in ­progress by Juliana Barr, Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida. This chapter deals with the association between Christian iconography and violence that developed out of interactions between Spanish military forces and Native people in the 16th­ and 17th ­century Southwest. AISIG members discussed the work­ in ­progress and then emailed Prof. Barr, offering feedback on the chapter. The event was held in preparation for Prof. Barr’s visit to UM to speak at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.

Public Lecture, November 8th 3 pm to 5 pm

Mark Rifkin When Did Indians Become Straight?

Where: Tisch Hall 1014

Mark Rifkin’s research focuses on Native American writing and politics from the eighteenth century onward, exploring the ways that Indigenous peoples have negotiated U.S. racial and imperial formations. More recently, he has been drawing on queer theory to rethink the role kinship systems have played in Native governance and internationalism and to address the ways U.S. imperialism can be thought of as a system of compulsory heterosexuality.

In this lecture, Prof. Rifkin spoke about his book When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, The History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, 2010) as well as methodological intersections between Native Studies, Queer Studies, literature, and history.

November 8th, 2013, 11 a.m.

Light Breakfast and Professionalization Workshop for Graduate Students with Mark Rifkin

Where: Haven Hall 3773

Graduate students from a variety of departments met with Mark Rifkin to discuss a variety of professionalization issues, such as preparing conference papers, publishing articles, turning dissertations into books, teaching in liberal arts and large state schools, along with many others, over bagels and coffee.

Reading Group October 25, 3-5 pm

Mark Rifkin's When Did Indians Become Straight?

Where: G634 Haven Hall

Graduate students and faculty met to discuss Mark Rifkin's interdisiplinary text, When Did Indians Become Straight: Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty, published in 2011 by Oxford University press.

Faculty Writing Workshop Tuesday, September 17th, 4pm-6pm

"Air, Water, Land: Contemporary Cross-Cultural Performances in Multi-Vocal Recognition"

Dr. Petra Kuppers, Department of English Language and Literature

Where: G634 Haven Hall

In this essay, I am writing about cross-cultural artful collaborations between indigenous people and settler people, working together, ‘each …several, [so] there was already quite a crowd.’ That quote is the first sentence of the deleuzoguattarian Thousand Plateaus, and, keeping Jodi Byrd’s indigenous critique of Deleuze firmly in mind, I’ll use this as my entry point to talk about performance practices among arty tricky crowds with different names: names for themselves, named by others, violent naming and secret names.

My examples include a collaboration by Squamish drum group Spakwus Slulum with the Aeriosa Dance Society, a Vancouver-based aerial company; and Ojibwe artist Rebecca Gilmore’s iconic Fountain at the Venice Biennial’s Canada pavilion. I’ll end with observations from the Ghost Net Project, a large-scale and multi-year community arts/cultural development project from Australia, with practices that stretch across the Gulf of Carpenteria and the Torres Strait.

To give you an idea of context: the essay forms the basis of a number of engagements this semester: I’ll give part of it at the In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization conference in London in late October, and as part of theIndigenous Research in the Americas: Exploring the Liminality between Cultural Epistemologies working group at the American Society for Theatre Research in November.

May 10-11 2013: Symposium

Globalizing the Word: Transnationalism and the Making of Native American Literature

This symposium examined the influence of globalization and transnationalism on the "making" of Native American literature. Including fourteen distinguished scholars and writers, this meeting engaged the reigning critical paradigm in Native American literary studies – nationalism – and considered the promises (or potential pitfalls) of taking more decidedly transnational approaches to the production and criticism of Native American literature in a global age.

Keynote addresses by Philip Deloria and Gerald Vizenor.

Speakers: Chadwick Allen, Eric Cheyfitz, Matt Cohen, Kate Flint, Shari Huhndorf, Maureen Konkle, Arnold Krupat, Scott Richard Lyons, Elvira Pulitano, Philip H. Round, Sean Kicummah Teuton, Jace Weaver.

See symposium website for details

19 April 2013: Faculty Writing Workshop

Land, History and the Law: Constituting the “Public” through Environmentalism and Annexation

Dr. Susan Najita

Associate professor in American Culture, Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies, and English Language & Literature

This essay is a section from a longer study about the Hawai‘i Volcanoes NationalPark which was established in 1916 close to 20 years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. This particular section examines the process of creating what is known as the Kalapana Extension which has been more recently the site of active lava flows and land formation along the East Rift Zone. However, in 1938 when the Kalapana Extension Act was passed, the lands had been in held since the mid-19th-century under royal patent grants and land grants made by the Hawaiian Kingdom. The essay examines the history of annexing these lands to the park and what is at stake in the colonial taking of native lands for putative conservation purposes and how we might understand this history through the critique of theoretical and legal categories such as "the public," "public trust doctrine," and "the commons."

4 April 2013: Invited speaker

Accessing Indigenous Archives: Language, History, and Law

Scott Manning Stevens, Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies

In this lecture at the Clements Library, Dr. Scott Manning Stevens explored the links between archive and communities, especially as related to activism of various types, including federal recognition cases, treaty rights, sovereignty, and linguistic and cultural revival. Drawing from his research in Iroquoia (and relating this to other Great Lakes tribes) Dr. Stevens examines possibilities for archives (and academics) to forge links with indigenous community members and work in partnership with one another on a range of issues in which the archive can play a key role.

Scott Manning Stevens is the director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library (Chicago). A member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1997. Dr. Stevens's research revolves around the diplomatic and cultural resistance to settler colonialism among North American Indians, and the political and aesthetic issues surrounding museums and the representation of indigenous people. He has published on such various topics as the literature of William Apess, John Eliot's Indian bible, and the National Museum of the American Indian. He is the author of the forthcoming Indian Collectibles: Encounters, Appropriations, and Resistance in Native North America.

Co-sponsored by the Eighteenth-Century Studies Group, the Atlantic Studies Workshop, and the American History Workshop

22 March 2013: Graduate Student Writing Workshop

Medicine Men and American Indian Historical Trauma

Will Hartman (Clinical Psychology)

The field of community psychology has long been interested in the relations between how community problems are defined, what interventions are developed in response, and how power is distributed as a result. Tensions around these issues have come to the fore in debates over the influence of American Indian (AI) Historical Trauma (HT) discourse on understandings of history, health, healing, culture, and identity in AI communities. Through interviews with the two most influential medicine men on a Great Plains reservation, it was found that their understandings of HT fell out on either side of debates in the literature. The first, George, embraced HT as a therapeutic discourse in which dysfunction among tribal members was diagnosed as the result of HT and treatment was prescribed as a combination of ceremony and talk therapy. The second, Henry, replaced HT with the concept of a “post-traumatic era” (PTE), which shifted attention away from past confrontations with EuroAmerican colonists to present social, economic, and political problems on the reservation. Although disagreement between these two preeminent cultural leaders suggests the future of AI HT is uncertain, several possible scenarios are considered and the importance of critical reflection on how discourses surrounding disparities in AI populations facilitate healing is emphasized.

Cosmopolitan Composition

Christie Toth (English and Education)

According to Arnold Krupat, Native American literary criticism has been dominated by three major theoretical perspectives: nationalism, indigenism, and cosmopolitanism. However, these concepts have rarely been explicitly addressed in conversations within the field of rhetoric and composition about writing pedagogy in Native contexts. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Diné College English faculty, as well as my own experiences teaching basic writing in this setting, I think through the pedagogical implications of each of these three critical perspectives for tribal college composition instruction. Ultimately, I argue that only a cosmopolitan composition pedagogy is capable of addressing all parts of the Diné College mission statement while preparing students to respond to the rhetorical exigencies of settler colonialism. And, in fact, the pedagogical orientations adopted by the Diné College English faculty participating in my study can best be described as cosmopolitan.

9 November 2012: Faculty Panel

Teaching American Indian Studies

On 9 November 2012 AISIG hosted a faculty panel on “Teaching American Indian Studies” with Gregory Dowd, Philip Deloria, Margaret Noori, and Lee Botsoi (Harvard).

In their opening remarks and during a conversation with the audience, the four panelists addressed the challenges and possibilities of teaching American Indian studies across different disciplines; how American Indian history and culture are typically addressed in high school curricula and in the mainstream media; and how this affects the work being done in academic classrooms.

19 October 2012: Faculty Writing Workshop

Colonial Genocide and Historical Trauma in Native North America: Complicating Contemporary Attributions

Joseph P. Gone, Associate Professor of Psychology and American Culture

The concept of historical trauma entered the mental health literature in the 1990s as an explanatory frame for rampant substance abuse, trauma, violence, depression, pathological grief, and suicide in present-day indigenous communities. During the past two decades, this concept has increasingly been used to describe a form of vulnerability to mental health problems that stems from ancestral suffering and that accrues across generations into formidable legacies of disability and distress for contemporary descendants. One difficulty with this account, however, is the sweeping and casual designation of various instances of past intergroup violence as colonial genocide. This chapter critically assesses the widespread attribution of genocide to indigenous North American experience, and conclude that such attributions are frequently overgeneralized. This term is best reserved for specific instances of group-based mass murder because overgeneralized attributions of genocide disregard historical complexity, diminish its ethical enormity, and compromise prospects for future reconciliation.

28 September 2012: Faculty Writing Workshop

The Jingle Dress: Claiming a Philosophical Legacy as a Cultural Act

Adesola Akinleye, artistic director and choreographer of DancingStrong.

Akinleye's paper is a reflection on the experience of creating the performance piece “The Jingle Dress,” a 45-minute dance performance for 3 to 5-year-old audiences. Ethnographic data is drawn from having been a part of traditional dances and ceremonies on the Pine Ridge Reservation for over 20 years, the creative process of making “The Jingle Dress,” and responses to the work. The paper explores how contemporary dance’s physicalised inquiry into meaning and principles of being, impacts on embodied and cultural identity when it draws on traditional dances as a source. Assessing how dance shapes cultural identities and personal philosophy, it asks whether within a contemporary context shared philosophical principles (such as Pragmatism), and shared embodied approaches (such as dance) can create communities of understanding across cultures, or strip cultural identities.

14 June 2012: Book Discussion

Philip Round, Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663-1880

On Thursday 14 June AISIG organized a discussion of Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663-1880 by Phillip Round. It was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010 and was the recipient of the Modern Language Association's James Russell Lowell prize in 2011. A description of the book can be found here.

16 April 2012: Graduate Student Writing Workshop

Native American Identity and Economic Development: Historical and Policy-related Dimensions of Change

Jonathan Atwell (Sociology)

This research proposal outlines a theoretical framework for studying the relationship between economic development and the maintenance of a unique culture and identity for American Indian tribes over the past two decades. Drawing on cultural approaches to economic sociology, two dimensions of analysis are proposed: the identity politics of sovereignty and the forms of revenue sharing. I hypothesize the effects of economic change on an individual’s cultural affiliation will vary based on his or her tribe’s historical form of identity politics and the particular form of revenue sharing it engages in. To conclude I offer a proposal for a first step to empirically explore the hypothesized relationship through field research with the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin.

The Generous Chief Comes to Washington: The O’Fallon Delegation of 1822 and the Performance of Publicity

Frank Kelderman (American Culture)

This paper examines the public events surrounding Benjamin O’Fallon’s delegation of Plains Indian leaders to Washington DC in 1822. The O’Fallon delegation brought Pawnee, Omaha, Kansas, Oto, and Missouri leaders to Washington for the first time, where they met with President Monroe, sat for portraits, attended parties, and were at the center of various public performances. These performances were projective acts that staged the tensions between Indian nations and the United States at a historical moment marked by increasing US imperialism. Through these publication events the Plains Indian delegation challenged and manipulated Americans’ ideological and affective preconceptions of Indianness, to attest Native autonomy west of the Missouri at a moment of US national consolidation and imperial aspirations.

23 March 2012: Faculty Writing Workshop

The Blanket Truth: Smallpox Stories and American Indian History

Gregory Dowd, Professor of History and American Culture

This paper examines legends surrounding smallpox, blankets, and atrocities. Focusing mostly on the Great Lakes area, it raises questions about the historical depth of accusations that colonists presented Indians with infected blankets, concluding that the accusations were scant until 1870, when the racist, elitist historian Francis Parkman published evidence for the actual British and Virginian effort of 1763 to infect Delawares. It also examines more recent professional history for its treatment of smallpox among Indians, finding in such history a particularly potent legend and a morality tale that is not only poorly grounded but that serves the interests of colonizers more than it serves truth.

Rethinking American Indian Historical Trauma: Lessons from an Early Gros Ventre War Narrative

Joseph P. Gone, Associate Professor of Psychology and American Culture

This paper explores the discourse of American Indian (AI) Historical Trauma (HT) with specific reference to a “war narrative” obtained by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber in 1901 from an elderly Gros Ventre woman named Watches All. In this account, Watches All described her participation in a historic intertribal battle, and her subsequent captivity and escape from the enemy during the late 1860s. This historical narrative references many first-hand experiences that would today be recognized as traumatogenic; indeed, Watches All’s account resonates across the centuries with contemporary trauma narratives familiar to psychotherapists and PTSD researchers. Interestingly, however, it remains improbable that this account would be accepted as a compelling instance of AI HT, even though such events appear to typify the most recognizably traumatogenic exposures of Gros Ventres throughout the historical period. The dilemma created by selective designation of certain kinds of historically traumatic events (and not others) in explaining contemporary AI mental health problems is discussed.

10 February 2012: Faculty Panel

The State of Native American Studies

During this panel, faculty members working in the area of Native American Studies presented their perspectives on the state of the field and were invited to hold an open discussion with the audience. The faculty panelists were:

Joseph Gone - Psychology, American Culture

Scott Lyons - American Culture, English Language and Literature

Barbara Meek - Anthropology

Tiya Miles - American Culture, History, Women's Studies, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies

Michael Witgen - History, American Culture

13 January 2012: Planning Meeting

On Friday 13 January AISIG held its Initial Planning Meeting and Writing Workshop. At this meeting, participants discussed upcoming events and possible speakers. Students and faculty from all disciplines were encouraged to join this planning meeting. We also discussed Professor Michael Witgen's response to James Merrell's “Second Thoughts on Colonial Historians and American Indians,” which revisits his 1989 essay regarding “the New Indian history.”