Category: Uncategorized
What is Idle No More?
| February 11, 2013 | Posted by Misha under Uncategorized |
Here is a quick rundown of what the Idle No More Movement:
Who? The movement is supporting First Nations people of Canada.
What? A grassroots movement to get people mobile to join in the fight for honoring ancestry treaty rights, in protest of the new legislation policies that were passed in Canada last year. Some of the federal law changes include: Fisheries Act, the Canada Grain Act, the holding of hazardous materials, and making changes to Navigable Waters Protections Act.
Where? Canada; but demonstrations have gone international!
When? The Conservative party of Canada ruled for policy changes in December of 2012.
Why? There is extreme controversy over the proposed changes because of the resistance to the mining, oil and gas projects, and a pipleine project, ultimately threatening land and water qualities.
What is being done? Various demonstrations including: hunger-strikes, flash mobs, hand drum songs, teach-ins, wearing regalia to shopping centers, gatherings in protest all over the World!
For more info please visit:
2. A peoples’ movement that is idle no more
3. Idle No More? Speak for Yourself…
(image from: http://warriorpublications.wordpress.com)
Misha Averill is a senior at the University of Washington, majoring in American Indian Studies with a minor in Diversity. Her future aspirations include helping Native American communities through preservation of traditions, culture, language, and human rights. Misha has a special interest in Indigenous Rights and cross-culture interactions, and she hopes to attend law school for tribal government and Indian law.
Tribal Journeys in the New York Times
| July 29, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
Check out this New York Times article and accompanying slide show about this year’s Tribal Journeys!
2011-2012 Miss Yakama Nation Shanoa Pinkham!
| July 25, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
Congratulations to American Indian Studies major Shanoa Pinkham, who has been crowned Miss Yakama Nation! Shanoa has served the University of Washington community as Director of the American Indian Student Commission with the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW).
Summer course: AIS 360 – Indians in Cinema
| May 26, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
American Indian Studies is offering a special appearance of our popular AIS 360: Indians in Cinema, taught by Carol Warrior, this summer! This is a b-term course, offered MTuWTh 10:50 – 1:00, and, as always, it is VLPA/I&S.
This course focuses on the representation of American Indians in American cinema as central to the formation of the national identity narrative. The “American Indian” is an invented identity: the deployment of “The Indian” says more about the inventors than it does about the diverse people groups the label supposedly denotes. Within particular historical moments, representations of “The Indian” run the gamut between antagonistic dehumanization and sympathetic depictions of actual Indigenous North Americans, so in order to demonstrate such ambivalent trends, we will view and examine a variety of American films. The course will also give attention to filmic self-representation of Indigenous peoples, their resistance to the aforementioned social constructions, and how contemporary North American Indigenous filmmakers choose to represent their own “realities.” VLPA/I&S.
Film list:
Reel Injun
Dances With Wolves
Dance Me Outside
Smoke Signals
The Canary Effect
The Doe Boy
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
The entire list hasn’t been determined yet, but other possible films might include:
Pocahontas
Dead Man
Broken Arrow
The Searchers
Black Robe
The Business of Fancydancing
Last of the Mohicans
Thunderheart
Register today! Keep an eye on the blog for more information! Questions? Contact adviser Elissa Washuta.
Dian Million’s “Felt Theory” Is an Award Finalist!
| May 9, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
Professor Dian Million’s article, “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History,” Wicazo Sa (2009): 53-76, is on the finalist list for Most Though-Provoking Article in Native American and Indigenous Studies Prize for 2009. The 2011 membership of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) will vote on the slate of finalists and the prizes will be awarded at the Third Annual meeting of NAISA in Sacramento, May 19-21, 2011. Balloting took plece via the NAISA website in early 2011.
Native Voices at the Seattle Art Museum
| May 6, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
| Adjusting the Focus: Counterpoints to Media Stereotypes of Native Peoples May 14, 2011 2–4 pm Plestcheeff Auditorium |
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In conjunction with Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves, SAM and Native Voices, University of Washington’s Indigenous Documentary Film Program, examine stereotypes and constructed Indian identities such as those in the Twilight saga films. Join us for screenings of segments from Native Voices’ recent films that provide a counterpoint to racism in the media, and a discussion about imagery, authenticity and real-world implications of misrepresentation.
Free with museum admission.
Registration required if planning to attend.
Cinema of Sovereignty: Tracy Deer (UW Event)
| May 3, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
Friday, May 13th, Forest Club Room, Anderson Hall 207: 7:00 PM
An evening with Tracy Deer
Screening: Club Native (documentary, Deer, Canada, 2008, 90:00)
Saturday, May 14th, 10:00 AM – 12:00 (Noon): COM 306
…Special Master Class with Tracy Deer
[There is a STRICT limit of 20 people for the master class. Please call Canadian Studies Center at (206) 221 - 6374 or Email: canada@uw.edu for reservations.]
Facebook event page here.
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Mohawk filmmaker Tracey Deer is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of Canada’s finest chroniclers of modern Aboriginal life. She co-directed the feature-length documentary One More River (Rezolution Pictures) about the 2003 agreement between the Cree and Quebec. In 2004, she made Mohawk Girls (Rezolution Pictures/The National Film Board of Canada), a moving portrait of three teenage girls coming of age on her home reserve of Kahnawake, just outside of Montreal.
With numerous projects completed and in development, Tracey is one of the rising stars of Canadian cinema. “Tracey represents the next wave of native filmmaking,” says Adam Symansky, NFB producer of Mohawk Girl and Club Native. “It isn’t based on the past so much as on native communities taking responsibility and control of their future. That is the challenge she is putting out in her films.”
Friday, May 13th, Forest Club Room, Anderson Hall 207, 7:00 PM
An Evening with Tracey Deer
Club Native (documentary, Deer, Canada, 2008, 90:00)
In Club Native, Deer looks deeply into the history and present-day reality of Aboriginal identity. With moving stories from a range of characters from her Kahnawake Reserve – characters on both sides of the critical blood-quantum line – she reveals the divisive legacy of more than a hundred years of discriminatory and sexist government policy and reveals the lingering “blood quantum” ideals, snobby attitudes and outright racism that threaten to destroy the fabric of her community.
Saturday, May 14th, 10:00 – 12:00, COM 306
Special Master Class with Tracey Deer.
Mohawk Girls (the series, Deer, Canada, 2011, 30:00)
Mohawk Girls is a new half-hour dramatic comedy about four young women figuring out how to be Mohawk in the 21st century. The series centers around four twenty-something Mohawk women trying to find their place in the world. But in a small world where you or your friends have dated everyone on the rez, or the hot new guy turns out to be your cousin, it ain’t that simple. Torn between family pressure, tradition, obligation and the intoxicating freedom of the “outside world,” this fabulous foursome is on a mission to find happiness… and to find themselves.
There is a strict limit to this class of 20. Please call the Canadian Studies Center at (206) 221-6374 or email canada@uw.edu for reservations.
Indigenous Knowledge Systems – 10th Annual NASAA Symposium
| May 2, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
Please join Native American Students in Advanced Academia (NASAA) for their 10th Annual Symposium of Native and Indigenous graduate research. The theme of this year is Indigenous Knowledge Systems.
Indigenous knowledge systems are represented in many ways. Concepts of relatedness and interconnectedness are embedded in the creation, production and sharing of ways of knowing. These systems inform Indigenous research, scholarship and activism. We invite you to learn as Indigenous and Native graduate students and faculty discuss their work at our 10th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium.
May 13th, 2011–The 10th Annual Symposium. Anderson Hall, The Forest Club Room (Room 207) from 9-4:30.
The keynote will be delivered by Dr. Stephanie Fryberg, Tulalip, from the University of Arizona. Graduate students from several institutions will be presenting their work.
May 13, 2011–Film screening of Club Native by Mohawk filmmaker Tracey Deer at 7 pm in Anderson Hall (Room 207). May 14, 2011–The Master Class with Tracey Deer will be held in Kane Hall (Walker-Ames Room) from 10 am-2 pm.
The Autumn course listings are up!
| April 25, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Advising, Uncategorized |
Even though Seattle isn’t even feeling truly springlike yet (the cherry blossoms on the quad don’t really cancel out the near-constant rain for me), the autumn 2011 course listings are up!
Registration starts on May 6 for graduating seniors (those students who have submitted graduation applications for autumn 2011 or winter 2012), so in ten days, these classes are going to start filling up. Here’s what we’ve got on the books right now:
AIS 102 – Intro to American Indian Studies (Colonnese/Washuta)
AIS 230 – Indian Gaming and Casinos (Wright)
AIS 271 – Native Peoples of the Intermountain West (Wright)
AIS 335 – American Indians and the Law (Cote)
AIS 378 – Northwest Contemporary American Indian Literature (Million)
AIS 451 – Critical AIS Issues
AIS 475A – California Indians (Dartt-Newton)
AIS 475B – Representations of Native Americans in the Media and Popular Culture (Dartt-Newton)
None of these classes require an add code. They’re open to all students, no prerequisites. Don’t wait to register!
Interesting objects from the AIS office, #1
| April 22, 2011 | Posted by elissa under Uncategorized |
In the lounge, there’s a box of 48 old LP’s from the “Folk Music of the United States” series from the Library of Congress Music Division’s recording laboratory.
Sample record titles:
“Songs of the Michigan Lumberjacks”
“American Sea Songs and Shanties”
“Animal Tales Told in the Gullah Dialect”
“Seneca Songs from Coldspring Longhouse”
“Songs from the Iroquois Longhouse”
“Songs of the Papago”
“Indian Songs of Today”
We also have a very cool USB turntable, so eventually, two years ago, I decided to put it to use and digitize some records. I managed to digitize “Sounds of the Sioux” before giving up–I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to figure out when one song ended and another began. I’m curious about the “Songs of the Anthracite Miners,” though, so maybe I’ll take the USB turntable out again soon.
Until then, check out “Song of the Grass Dance” (link opens an mp3).