Laura C. Harris Series 2021-2022
Imagining Together: Indigenous Activisms and Feminism
The Laura C. Harris Series theme for 2021-22, Imagining Together: Indigenous Activisms and Feminisms, seeks to deepen our knowledge and campus engagement with complex issues in indigeneity, indigenous feminisms, and indigenous-led approaches to solving pressing global and local problems, including Ohio indigenous histories. In announcing our theme we acknowledge that the land our own University exists on has long served as a site for the Adena, Hopewell, Potowatomi, Lenape, Shawanwa, and other peoples. As we explore issues of indigeneity locally and globally as a part of the LCH programming for 2021-2022, we honor and respect the diverse indigenous groups connected to this territory. Our framing of this theme is a part of our commitment to learning how to work in solidarities toward the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.
Indigenous scholars and activists point to the gendered impacts of settler colonialism and genocide. These include gender-based and sexualized violence in the forcible displacement of Indigenous peoples from land and natural resources, distortions and deliberate destruction of social structures and kinship networks, and the demonizing and erasure of indigenous ways of knowing and being in the world. We also ask what an Indigenous approach to academia and academic learning could look like. How can we comprehend the historic and current role(s) of the sciences in the complex narratives of indigeneity, settlement, conquest, and empire? In what ways can the fine and performing arts help to illuminate questions of indigeneity, identity, and sovereignty? If scholars centered indigenous approaches in their disciplines, what different questions and methodologies would take form? Who defines indigeneity and how? What relationships and connections are there between racial justice work and decolonization efforts? What are the shapes and dynamics of transindigenous networking and politics?
Fall 2021
Kim TallBear, Sept. 27 & 28
Will Wilson, Oct. 27-30
Spring 2022
Maura Garcia and Ahyoka Youngdeer, Feb. 1-5
Red Sky Performance, March 30-April 2
In Conversation: Will Wilson
Denison Museum Exhibition
On Display August 23 (Monday) - November 19 (Friday), 2021
Organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Tintype Demonstration: Thursday, October 28th, 11:00 AM, Denison Museum
Artist Talk: Thursday, October 28th, 7:00 PM, Denison Museum
Campus visit: October 27-30, 2021
Will Wilson, a Diné photographer who spent his formative years living in the Navajo Nation, is widely recognized for his unique approach to photography. Wilson studied photography at Oberlin College (BA, Studio Art and Art History, 1993) and the University of New Mexico (MFA, 2002) and has held several visiting professorships and artist residencies and curated many exhibits. He received the prestigious Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art in 2007 and the Native Arts and Culture Foundation Artistic Innovation Award in 2010. Recently, Wilson was awarded the Rollin and Mary Ella King Native artist fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM, where he continues as Artist in Residence.
In Conversation: Will Wilson, On display Aug. 23rd-Nov. 19th, 2021 at Denison Museum
Diné (Navajo) photographer Will Wilson’s ongoing Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX) project is dedicated to creating a contemporary vision of Native North America. Wilson combines 19th century wet plate (tintype) photography with 21st century AR technology to create new conversations about Indigenous identity. To expand the conversation, historical images from Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian (1907-1930) will also be on view, as well as selections from Wilson’s new series Connecting the Dots, depicting the pollution and damaging effects of uranium mining on Navajo lands.
Support provided by Art Bridges
Photo credit: Will Wilson, Insurgent Hopi Maiden, Melissa Pochoema, Citizen of the Hopi Tribe, 2015, printed 2019, Archival pigment print from wet plate collodion scan, 50 x 40 in. Art Bridges.
Decolonizing Indigenous Sexualities and Research-Creation: the RELAB and Tipi Confessions
September 28 (Tuesday), 7:00 PM, Herrick Hall Auditorium
Campus visit: Sept 27-28 (Mon & Tues), 2021
Kim TallBear is Associate Professor of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment. She established the teaching and research program, Indigenous Science, Technology and Society, which informs “national, global and Indigenous thought and policymaking related to science and technology” to promote Indigenous self-determination. She also studies decolonial and critical sexualities and is co-producer of the radio show, Tipi Confessions. Building on lessons learned with geneticists about how race categories get settled, TallBear is currently working on a book that interrogates settler-colonial commitments to settlement in place, within disciplines, and within monogamous, state-sanctioned marriage. She is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota.
Dr. TallBear will discuss the University of Alberta Faculty of Native Studies-based RELAB, a “research-creation” or arts-based research group, Indigenous Studies decolonial and relational analytic frameworks as co-constituted with performance, and other creative works. This talk will highlight both Indigenous Studies and arts-based theoretical foundations of the RELAB and its core performance initiatives.
Denison Libraries, 100 W College, Granville, Ohio 43023 Phone: 740-587-6235, email: reference@denison.edu In order to view PDF documents, you will need to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer
