2019 Native American Symposium

9 am – Native Literature Here and Abroad – Student Union Auditorium 213

Marija Krivokapic, University of Montenegro, “Teaching Native American Literature in Montenegro”  

Frederic Murray and Marc DiPaolo, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, “Validity & Voice in Native Comics: Kiowa Dinosaur Hunters, Trickster Tales & Moonshots”  

9 am – Native Student Writing – Student Union 323

Tara Hembrough and Amy Madewell, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “A Study of Rural and Native-American Students’ Military Identities, and Reading and Writing Interests in a Military-friendly, Military-themed Composition Course”   

Tara Hembrough, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “Utilizing Digital Storytelling in Composing Apocalyptic and Post-apocalyptic Fiction for Digital Storybooks: A Case Study of Rural and Native American College Students”  

9 am – Native Art and Aesthetics – Student Union 303

Amy Gantt, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “Native Women in the Arts”

Timothy Petete, University of Central Oklahoma, “Restless Natives: Indigenous Aesthetic Engagement in the 21st Century”  

10 am – Native Violence – Student Union Auditorium 213

David Michael Smith, Emeritus, University of Houston-Downtown, “The Violence Has Never Stopped: Police Murders and Mistreatment of Indigenous People in the Twenty-First Century”

Matthew J. Sparacio, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “The Gendered Violence of Settler Colonialism Across Centuries”  

10 am – Native Assimilation – Student Union 323

Stevie N. Jackson III, Southern Nazarene University, “Creek Freedmen: A Struggle for Acceptance and Citizenship”  

Keisha Morris, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “Finding Identity: Life Branded by a Blue Tattoo”  

10 am – Native Ways of Knowing and Being – Student Union 303

B. Steve Csaki, Independent Scholar, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge”  

Tricia Hornback, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “Leadership, Decolonization and Survivance”  

10 am – Native Colonization – Student Union 202

Samantha Stevens, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, “Exporting the White Saviour: The Colonial Textual Influence on Canadian/Indigenous Relationships”

Craig A. Meyer, Texas A&M University – Kingsville, “Considering Ethos as Haunt and Wound: An Opportunity to Heal”  

11 am – Native History – Student Union Auditorium 213 

Gretchen Cassel Eick, Emerita, Friends University and Visiting Professor at Dzemal Bijedic University, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Looking Back at U.S. Indian Policy from a Front Row Seat, 1880- 1935: Elaine Goodale Eastman’s Perspective”  

Meta G. Carstarphen, University of Oklahoma, “What, Then, Is A Treaty? Examining the Rhetoric of Trans-Negotiation   

11 am – Native Existentialism – Student Union 323

Cassandra Hembree, East Central University, “Tewa Culture through an Existential Lens”  

Emily Angell, East Central University, “Storytelling as Revolt”

11 am – Native Film – Student Union 303

Jennifer McMahon, East Central University, “Cowboy, ‘Indian’, Rider: Deconstructing Dichotomous Stereotypes in The Rider”

Tanja Bakic and Marija Krivokapic, University of Montenegro, “Tribal Resolutions: “Dead Man” Case in Montenegro”

11 am – Native Literature and Feminism – Student Union 202

Courtney Lynn Whited, Oklahoma State University, “(Re)Indigenizing Feminist Futures: Present and Future Possibilities in Erika Wurth’s Prose”

12 pm – Lunch in the Loft 

1 pm – Featured Speaker –  Jane Semple Umsted – Student Union Auditorium 213  

The Choctaw painter and sculptor Jane Semple Umsted will discuss the new Native American Art Museum currently under construction to permanently house Southeastern’s two major Native art collections, for which her family is the principal benefactor, along with the new Cultural Center being built by the Choctaw Nation.

1:45 pm – Original Poetry and Prose – Student Union Auditorium 213 

Jeffrey DeLotto, Texas Wesleyan University, “A Caddo’s Way”  

Ron Wallace, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “Poems from The Last Blue Sky”

1:45 pm – Native Identities – Student Union 323

Mike Taylor, University of Mary, “The Red & Green ‘Problem’ Peoples: Shared Cross Cultural Affinity of Native Americans and Irish”  

Stanley Rice, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “When To Be Cherokee and When Not To Be Cherokee” 

Rolando Diaz, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, “Mechica: Indigenous Origin of the Chicano Hybrid Identity”  

Rodrigo Pereyra, Southeastern Louisiana University, “The Tlaxcaltecas Are Still to Blame: The Assimilation Problem”

1:45 pm – Native Economics – Student Union 303

Stephen L. Egbert, University of Kansas, “The Indian Industrial Surveys of 1922 –   Assessing Progress to Assimilation”  

Megan Baker, UCLA, “Building More than an Economy: ‘Poverty’ and Choctaw Economic Development in Southeastern Oklahoma”

Terrie A. Becerra, Christine Pappas, Heather Hall, East Central University, “Water as a Cultural Resource: A Qualitative Look at Tribal and Non-Tribal Stakeholders”  

3:15 pm – Film Showing – Before Tomorrow– Student Union Auditorium 213

Before Tomorrow is the third film in the Inuit trilogy that began with Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) and The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006). Directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu, and based on the novel Før Morgendagen by the Danish writer Jorn Riel, it is set in the Nunavik region of northern Quebec during the 1840s and tells the lyrical and poignant tale of an Inuk elder and her grandson after the rest of their community perishes from smallpox contracted from European traders.

Symposium Image 

The image for this year’s symposium is the painting “Long Journey, Many Tears” by Jane Semple Umsted.