Native American Literature Symposium

Home , Allen Dale June, Gordon Henry (poet)

The Native American Literature Symposium

March 21-23, 2013 Minneapolis, MN

The Native American Literature Symposium is organized by an independent group of Indigenous scholars committed to making a place where Native voices can be heard.

Since 2001, we have brought together some of the most influential voices in Native America to share our stories—in art, prose, poetry, film, religion, history, politics, music, philosophy, and science—from our worldview.

Gwen N. Westerman, Director Minnesota State University, Mankato

Virginia Carney, Tribal College Liaison Leech Lake Tribal College

P. Jane Hafen, Awards Chair University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Gordon Henry, Jr., Publications Editor Michigan State University

Patrice Hollrah, Vendor/Press Coordinator University of Nevada, Las Vegas

LeAnne Howe, Arts Liaison University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Denise Cummings, Film Wrangler Rollins College

Theo Van Alst, Film Wrangler Yale

Jodi Byrd University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jill Doerfler University of Minnesota, Duluth

James Sinclair University of Manitoba

Jason Zahn, Assistant to the Director Minnesota State University, Mankato

The Native American Literature Symposium PO Box 541 Mankato, MN 56002-0541 www.mnsu.edu/nativelit

Minneapolis, Minnesota 1 Wopida, Miigwech, Mvto, Wado, Ahe’ee, Yakoke

We thank the sponsors of the 2013 Symposium for their generous funding and continued support that made everything possible.

The People of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community ???

The Redd Center for Western Studies

Mystic Lake Casino Hotel ???, CEO

The American Indian Studies Series, Michigan State University Press

The Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures

Michigan State University Press

University of Nebraska Press

We also extend our gratitude to the following people who work behind the scenes at Minnesota State University, Mankato to keep everything functioning and who provide invaluable encouragement for our cause:

Department of English Kate Voight, Office Manager John Banschbach, Chair

College of Arts and Humanities Walter Zakahi, Dean

And we appreciate the kindness of the following people who contributed support for our student participants:

TBA

2 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 21 March 2013

Minneapolis, Minnesota 3 Book Exhibits and Vendors

Visit the vendors and book exhibits in Grand Ballroom B Thursday and Friday 10:00 am to 5 pm Saturday 10 am to 2 pm

Thank you to the following presses and vendors for their contributions:

Presses TBA

Vendors TBA

5 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Thursday, March 21

Registration (until 4 pm) 8:00 Welcome and Traditional Blessing 8:45

Vendors and Exhibits (until 5 pm) 10:00 Session 1: Plenary Engaging Resistance in the Reddest of Red States Red (Artists) on Red The Red Dirt Beneath Ugido Wado, Mr. Roboto Response: Poetry in (Folks) in Red (State Our Feet: LeAnne Howe Scott Andrews Oklahoma, Poetry in Oklahoma) and Don L. Birchfield’s U. of California, Oklahoma Tol Foster Indigenous Oklahoma Northridge LeAnne Howe, Marquette University Steven Sexton University of Illinois at 8:30 - 9:45 University of Oklahoma Urbana-Champaign

Dean Rader, U. of San Francisco

Session 2 A (Little Crow I) B (Little Crow II) C (Wabasha I) Canoes, Buses, and Hitchhiking, Reclaiming Literary Genres Shaping/Shifting/Forming or, the Planes, Trains, and Identities Automobiles of Indigenous Literatures

Songs Her Paddle Sings: “Move Over, Tony Hillerman!”: The Terror Dream in Sherman E. Pauline Johnson’s Sovereign Decolonizing American Indian Alexie’s Post-9/11 Fiction Canoes Mystery Writing Levin Arnsperger, Susan Bernardin, Connie Jacobs, Emory University SUNY-Oneonta San Juan College “The Lamanites shall blossom as The Trail of the Thunderbird: Indigenous Fluency: Articulating the rose”: Racial Formations and 10:00 - 11:15 Production of an American Indian Mobility in The Exiles Mormon Colonialism Anthology Elise Boxer, Laura Furlan, Grace Chaillier University of Utah U. of Massachusetts, Amherst Northern Michigan University Walking the Roads Between Louis Riel and Metis Self- Worlds in Louise Erdrich’s Novels Identification Survival in Amy Hamilton, the Evolution of Canadian Northern Michigan State U. Nationhood Robin White, Goldsmiths, University of London

Minneapolis, Minnesota 6 Thursday, March 21 Sesson 3: Lunch A Conversation with Alex Smith and Andrew Smith Producers and Directors of Winter In The Blood

Twin brothers Alex Smith and Andrew Smith grew up in Missoula, Montana. They wrote the screenplay and filmed the adaptation of James Welch’s “Winter in the Blood” novel

11:30 - 1:00 in 2012. They also wrote “The Slaughter Rule” (2002) and “Career Opportunities in Poetry” (2008).The novel takes place on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and along the Hi-Line of Montana. The location is based on where Welch lived as a child.

Session 4 A B C Critical Collections Violence and Native Women International Study of American Indian Literature

Nancy Ward: The Canon Is Telling Bernice Bell’s Story: New Notions of Text: Expanding Incomplete Without Her Violence and Choctaw Women the Conversation in Our Kim Hales, in Twentieth Century Neshoba Indigenous Studies Classrooms Utah State University County, Mississippi Becca Gercken, Jacki Rand, University of Minnesota Morris “History, like geography, lives in University of Iowa the body”: History, Trauma and Stephanie Fitzgerald

1:30 - 2:45 the Corporeal Imagery in Linda “A Sweep of Sorrow”: Sexual University of Kansas Hogan’s The Woman Who Watches Violence in The Round House Over the World Julie Tharp, Julie Pelletier Joanna Ziarkowska, UW-Marshfield/Wood County University of Winnepeg University of Warsaw, Poland Nancy Peterson Hybridity and Womanhood: Purdue University Creating Story in Betty Louise Bell’s Faces in the Moon This roundtable is sponsored Elizabeth Toombs, by the Pedagogy Committee of University of Oklahoma ASAIL

Break Sponsored by the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures 3:00 - 3:30

7 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Thursday, March 21 Session 5 A B C California Indian Literatures Never Forget Portraying Relationships

Sovereignty in the Cahuilla Beyond Betwixt and Between Mikwendagzejek: Shared Storyway History and Liminal Space in Experience through Shared David J. Carlson, Sherman Alexie’s Flight Existence California State U., Thomas Krause, Michael Zimmerman Jr., San Bernardino University of Oklahoma Independent scholar

Mary Tall Mountain: A Life of Pauline in Tracks and Beloved Eric Gansworth Storying Survivance in Beloved as Characters Relationships into Being through Representing History in Danger of Wampum 3:30 - 4:45 Carol Zitzer Comfort California State U., Long Beach Being Forgotten Nicholle Dragone, Marie Nigro, Black Hills State University Californian Landscapes in the Lincoln University Work of Gerald Vizenor Storyteller: An Anthology of Okla James Mackay The Intimate Record The Use of Nowa (A People Walking) European University Cyprus Memory in American Indian and Greg Rodgers, Palestinian Literatures University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign Eman Ghanayem, Birzeit University, Jordan

Dinner on your own 5 - 6

Sesson 6 Film Screening and Teaching Demonstration: Winter in the Blood

Denise K. Cummings, Rollins College Theo Van Alst, Yale

Synopsis: Virgil First Raise wakes with a shiner and a hangover in a roadside ditch on the stark but beautiful plains of Montana. As he rises to face the day he sees a vision of his father lying dead at his feet. Impossible-- his father froze to death in a snowdrift years earlier. Virgil returns home to find that his wife, Agnes, has left him. Worse, she’s taken his electric razor and his 6:00 - 10:00 beloved rifle. Virgil sets out to find her--beginning a hi-line odyssey of inebriated encounters, sexual skirmishes, and improbable cloak-and-dagger intrigues with the mysterious ‘Airplane Man’. Virgil’s quest also brings him face-to-face with childhood memories Scene from Winter in the Blood and visions of his beloved, lost brother Mose--some glorious, some tragic. Only when Virgil seeks the counsel of an old, blind man named Yellow Calf, does he grasp the truth of his origins and begin to thaw the ice in his veins.

Minneapolis, Minnesota 8 Friday, March 22

Registration (until 4 pm) 8:00

Vendors and Exhibits (until 5 pm) 10:00 Session 7 A B C Book Blitz Positioning Engaged Resistance to Colonizing Ideology in Indigenous Contemporary Culture Native American Video Games, Tootsie Roll Pops, Transnationalism in Sherman and Math Homework: Resisting Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary Colonizing Ideology and Cultural of a Part-Time Indian Appropriation Heongyun Rho, Brian J Twenter, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea The University of South Dakota

How Stories Move Readers Reimagining Resistance: The to Political Positioning and Novum in Birchfield’s Field of 8:00 - 9:15 Connection Sherman Alexie’s The Honor Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Miriam Brown Spiers Heaven University of Georgia, Athens Jessica Anderson, Marshall University This is Our Story: Healing Through the (Re)Narrativization Revenge, Restoration, and the of Indigenous Trauma Problem with the Postcolonial Angela Semple Architecture of Louise Erdrich’s Simon Fraser University Four Souls and Thomas King’s Truth & Bright Water David Stirrup, University of Kent

9 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Friday, March 22 Session 8 A B C Picturing Change: New Work on If You Haven’t Read Her Novels, Shifting the Lens Native American Picture Stories You Should: The Understated Brilliance of Frances Washburn Worth 1000 Words: Competing Of Women and Animals: Frances The Land of Infinite Variety On Histories in Plains Ledger Art and Washburn as an Indigenous the Rez with Frazier and Fraser 19th Century Advertising Ecofeminist Raul B. Moreno, Becca Gercken Brianna R. Burke, University of South Dakota University of Minnesota, Morris University of Iowa “First a story”: Aesthetics, Life Indigenous Literacy: The The Endless Adaptability of and Writing in the work of Craig 9:30 - 10:45 Continuous Narrative in Glyphs American Indian Literature Womack & Greg Sarris Denise Low Frances Washburn, Padraig Kirwan, Baker University Arizona State University Goldsmiths, University of London

Women and Ledger Art: Four The Presence of the Unspoken: Native American Women Artists Silence and Agency in Elsie’s Richard Pearce, Business Wheaton College, Mass. Trisha Henderson, Arizona State University

Minneapolis, Minnesota 10 Friday, March 22

Session 9 A B C Poem Films of Heid E. Erdrich Creating Story Teaching American Indian and Gordon Henry, Jr. Literatures Online Heid E. Erdrich, Semiotics of the Indigenous Text Teaching American Indian Independent Scholar K J Keller, Literatures Online California State U., Fresno Ellen Arnold, Gordon Henry, Jr. East Carolina University Michigan State University Ceremony’s Yellow Women Barbara Kernan, Janis Johnson Miriam Schacht U. of Wisconsin-Eau Claire University of Idaho University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh Orality Is Literature Because Susan Brill de Ramirez

11:00 - 12:15 Literature Is Knowledge Bradley University Melissa Michal Slocum, Pennsylvania State University Annette Van Dyke U. of Illinois at Springfield

This roundtable is sponsored by the Pedagogy Committee of ASAIL

Sesson 10: Lunch TBA 12 30 - 1:30

11 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Friday, March 22

Session 11: Plenary Ethics In Native Studies Roundtable LeAnne Howe, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jill Doerfler, University of Minnesota, Duluth

Patrice Hollrah, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

P. Jane Hafen, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 1:45 - 3:00

Gordon Henry, Jr., University of Michigan

Gwen Westerman, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Jodi Byrd, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Break 3 - 3:30

Session 12 A B C Shedding Skins: Identity and Gender Wellbound Storytellers Four Sioux Poets Construction Narrating a Committment to Health & Wellness in Indian Country Trevino Brings Plenty Writing Around: Embodied Barbara K Robins, Erotic Sovereignty in Two-Spirit University of Nebraska at Omaha Steve Pacheco Literature Scott R. Aichinger, Teresa Lamsam Kurt Shweigman University of Nebraska at Omaha University of Nebraska at Omaha

Joel Waters Gender Construction in Lakota Rhonda LaValdo 3:30 - 4:45 Literature Haskell Indian Nations U. Kathryn Shanley, University of Montana Stacy Braiuca U. of Kansas Medical Center Transcending Gender Confrontations: Gender Harmony Chantelle Yazzie in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Calvin College Ceremony and Storyteller Wenkai Kang, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications

Minneapolis, Minnesota 12 Saturday, March 23

Registration (until 4 pm) 8:00

Vendors and Exhibits (until 5 pm) 10:00

Session 14 A B C Anishinaabeg Legacy and Gerald International Views of Native Issues of Sovereignty Vizenor’s Bear Island American Literature Kimberly Blaeser, Emergence and Growth An Liberalism, Sovereign Immunities, U. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Overview of American Indian and, of course, Shell Shaker Literary Studies in China Joseph Bauerkemper, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair Wenshu Zhao, University of Minnesota, Duluth University of Manitoba Nanjing University/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Collaborative Sovereignty Brenda Child in Indigenous Young Adult University of Minnesota Perception of Native American Literature Literature in post-Soviet Literary Mandy Suhr-Sytsma,

8:00 - 9:15 Heid Erdrich Circles University of Connecticut Independent Scholar Yuliya Bjorgan, Independent Scholar Using Social Media in the Native Literature Classroom Parody, Rewriting and Survivance: Carrie Sheffield, An Interpretation of Vizenor’s University of Tennessee, Knoxville Hybridized Standpoint as Reflected in Griever and Heirs of Columbus Huiling Zou, Jiangsu Normal University

13 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Saturday, March 23

Session 15 A B C Legacies of Removal Theoretical Intrepretations Integral Enviromentalities Decolonizing The Autobiography Ways of Reading and Integral Epistemologies: of Delfina Cuero: A Kumeyaay Representing the Sun Dancer Indigenous Knowledge through Allegory of Cultural Survivance Karen Poremski, Language and Text in American Theresa Gregor, Ohio Wesleyan University Indian Literature University of San Diego Gordon Henry, Land/Language Speaking: Michigan State University “Children of Absent Mothers”: Heidegger, Native American Giving Voice to Residential and Philosophy, and Linda Hogan’s Gwen Westerman Boarding School Children, 1900- A Different Yield Minnesota State U., Mankato 2012 Jim Wohlpart,

9:30 - 10:45 Susan Dominguez, Florida Gulf Coast University Jesse Peters Case Western Reserve University, U. of North Carolina Pembroke Cleveland, OH Philosophy in Fiction Gerald Vizenor’s Interactions With Meg Noori Narrating Indigenous Postmodern Alphabet Soup University of Michigan Experiences: Native American Meghan R. Glass, Adoptees and the Activism of Durham University Michael Zimmerman the First Nations Repatriation Independent Scholar Institute Amy Lonetree, U. of California, Santa Cruz

Session 16: Plenary

Staged Reading of Indian Radio Days by LeAnne Howe & Roxy Gordon

Ryan Winn, College of Menominee Nation 11:00 - 12:15 LeAnne Howe, University of Illinois

Lunch on your own 12:15 - 1:30

Sesson 17

ASAIL Business Meeting (Room TBA) 12:15 - 1:30

Minneapolis, Minnesota 14 Saturday, March 23

Session 18 A B C Indigenous Knowledge Storytelling in Word and Image: In Another’s Eyes Teaching Native Graphic Novels

Wailing Tides of Voiced Realities Introduction: Building Audience, Selling Indians: How Covers, and Sacred Stories: Reviving Our Building Community Blurbs, and Headshots Market Roles as Keepers and Creators Linda Helstern, Native Authors of Sacred Knowledge in the North Dakota State University Kenneth Roemer, Indigenous Twenty-First Century University of Texas, Arlington Royce K. Freeman, Working Together: Governance University of Oklahoma and Communitism in Eric Standing at the Western Door: Gansworth’s Smoke Dancing Eric Gansworth as the Voice of Stories that Nourish: David Lemke the People Anishinaabe Wild Rice Narratives North Dakota State University Urszula Piasta-Mansfield, Amelia Katanski, University of Buffalo Kalamazoo College Survivance: Power, Desire, and

1:45 - 3:00 Resistance in Eric Gansworth’s Civilization? A Glimpse of English I Have Written This in Dakota Smoke Dancing and French Cultures through Myself: An Exploration of Dakota Emily Bartz Ojibwa and Iowa Eyes Language Literacy since the 1830s North Dakota State University Birgit Hans, Jameson R. Sweet, University of North Dakota University of Minnesota Laughing in Safe Spaces: Community, Violations, and Native Humor in The Dead DOG Cafe Comedy Hour Davin Waite North Dakota State University

Respondant Susan Bernardin SUNY-Oneonta

15 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Preliminary Program - Draft Document Saturday, March 23

Session 19 A B C New Native American Film Readings Parody

Martha Viehmann, Spirits of Allen, S.D. LeAnne Howe’s Hollywood Sinclair Community College Monica Jackson, Indians and Other Simulations Univ. of Texas, Arlington Kirstin Squint, Channette Romero High Point University University of Georgia Bad Indians: A Memoir Deborah Miranda, Against Appropriation: Lynn Washington and Lee University Riggs and the Politics of Allusion

3:00 - 4:45 Elizabeth Barnett, Vanderbilt University

Challenges for an Indigenous Hemispheric Turn: NMAI, Joy Harjo, Rigoberta Menchú Tum and the Problematic of Borders Reginald Dyck, Capital University

Sesson 20: Dinner TBA 6:00 - 10:00

Minneapolis, Minnesota 16 We Remember Those Who Have Made the Road Easier For Us

Phillip Martin (1926 - 2010), longtime chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and visionary who lifted the tribe from stifling poverty with casinos and other businesses.

Martin’s 28-year tenure saw the construction of an industrial park and the $750 million Pearl River Resort, complete with two casinos, a golf club and a water park, on tribal land in rural east central Mississippi, about 65 miles northeast of Jackson. He was praised for creating thousands of jobs. He also set up a scholarship that pays 100 percent of college costs for tribal youth.

Max Mazzetti (1921 - 2010), one of the founders of the National Congress of American Indians, Inter-Tribal Council of California and many other Indian rights organizations. He is best remembered for his leadership and commitment to stopping the takeover of Indian lands by the state of California, dissolution of tribal governments, and removal of 117 California tribes from federal trust, ending all federal funding and tribal support programs.

Lolly Vegas (1939 - 2010), the lead singer and guitarist for Redbone, a Native American rock band that had a million-selling hit in 1974 with "Come and Get Your Love." In 1973, Redbone released “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” which charted in Europe and reached #1 in The Netherlands. The song was initially withheld from the release and banned by several radio stations in the U.S.

Helen Scheirbeck (1935-2010), an activist who expanded educational opportunities and led efforts for greater self-determination by American Indians, and who later became a top official of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.

Dr. Scheirbeck, a member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, began working for the rights of American Indians in the early 1960s, when she was a staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She helped gain recognition for Native Americans in the War on Poverty of the 1960s and led efforts to establish Indian educational programs, from Head Start to tribal colleges. Allen Dale June (1921 - 2010), one of the 29 original Navajo code talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language. Several hundred Navajos served as code talkers during the war, but a group of 29 that included Mr. June developed the code based on their native language. Their role in the war was not declassified until 1968.

Mr. June attained the rank of sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. He and other original code talkers received Congressional Gold Medals in 2001.

17 The Native American Literature Symposium 2013 Allen Dale June (1921 - 2010), one of the 29 original Navajo code talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language. Several hundred Navajos served as code talkers during the war, but a group of 29 that included Mr. June developed the code based on their native language. Their role in the war was not declassified until 1968.

Mr. June attained the rank of sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. He and other original code talkers received Congressional Gold Medals in 2001.

Phillip Martin (1926 - 2010), longtime chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and visionary who lifted the tribe from stifling poverty with casinos and other businesses.

John T. Williams (1950 - 2010), was a seventh-generation woodcarver of the Ditidaht tribe on Vancouver Island. He lived in Seattle, in housing created by the Downtown Emergency Center and was deaf. He was shot and killed by a police officer on his way to sell his art at Pike Place Market.

Minneapolis, Minnesota 18 List of Presenters

Minneapolis, Minnesota 1 March 20 Pre-Conference Workshop

List of Events

Minneapolis, Minnesota 1 Statement on Ethnic Fraud

Minneapolis, Minnesota 1