Message from UC Davis Chancellor Katehi:

This year's Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium, Remaking the Indigenous Universe: Vision, Praxis, and Tradition, was an immense success. Thanks to the hard work of the symposium's planning committee, this event was able to bring graduate students from all throughout the country to join in important discussions regarding Indigenous peoples issues, concerns, and lives. Therefore, a big, warm "THANK YOU!" is due to the amazing committee members: Vanessa Esquivido-Meza, Angel Hinzo, Cutcha Risling Baldy, Stephanie Lumsden, Daniel Cornejo, Spencer Mann, SimHayKin Jack, Kaitlin Reed, Rachael Nez, Deserea Langley and Rebeca Figueroa. Also, this event could not have been possible without our supportive and amazing sponsors who provided funds to ensure that we can continue this amazing symposium, which is the only one in the country that is exclusive to graduate students who are engaged in the field of Indigenous/Native American Studies.

Our symposium is continuously expanding every year, in order to make sure that it continues to be an annual event. We had a major impact on our home campus, UC Davis. We even received a personalized thank you note from our Chancellor. Please read the message below: 

Dear Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium Committee,

Thank you so much for all you did to make this year’s symposium such an extraordinary event! I was delighted to hear of your success, and of the way that the interdisciplinary dialogue at this year’s gathering brought together scholars from across the country.

Sharing research and ideas with a large community of student and scholars can lead to unusually productive and dynamic collaborations, and I am pleased that you brought such enthusiasm and excitement to the symposium. Those who attended undoubtedly enjoyed the sense of energy and wonderful collaborative spirit that are hallmarks of our UC Davis community.

Again, thank you and congratulations on a very successful event.

Sincerely,
Linda Katehi

We are so excited to know that our work is impacting administrators (and beyond!) on this campus. This comes to show that our symposium is here to stay. Our graduate students will soon begin the planning process for the 5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium. We hope that you will all be able to join us for our next year's awesome symposium. We will be posting any updates and information regarding the next year's symposium on this site, so please be sure to check back with us soon! 

Thank you.

4th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium
Remaking the Indigenous Universe: Vision, Praxis, and Tradition
April 23-24, 2015
UC Davis

We are pleased to announce the 4th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium, to be held on the UC Davis campus on April 23-24th, 2015. We welcome proposals from current graduate students whose research critically addresses the issues, concerns, and lives of Indigenous peoples worldwide.

This year’s theme is “Remaking the Indigenous Universe: Vision, Praxis, and Tradition.” Native peoples have survived the near annihilation of their worlds in both a material and metaphysical sense. The violence of colonization has stripped Indigenous peoples of their land, languages, and histories yet Native nations continue to exist and are resisting the ongoing process of settler colonialism. The theme of this year’s symposium seeks to engage with the ways that Native peoples are remaking the Indigenous universe by making tradition critical in new ways. Much like how an artist envisions a new pattern in which to sew beads, Native peoples are mapping out their desires for a future. With regards to Native American Studies and Indigenous research, some of the questions we seek to engage with throughout our two-day symposium include, but are not limited to: How does Native women’s work reproduce Indigenous communities and cultures?; How do Native nations address a multiplicity of visions for the future?; What does it look like to make Indigenous traditions critical to resisting settler colonialism?; How can academic research aid the process of remaking the Indigenous universe?; How can methodologies be informed by tradition?

Graduate students from all disciplines from universities worldwide are encouraged to participate in this hemispheric dialogue. Papers should be in English and 12-15 minutes in length.

Possible areas of interest may include (but are not limited to):

● Arts/Artists                                                                                   ● Structural Inequalities
● Colonization/Internal Colonization/Decolonization           ● Survivance
● Community Development/Empowerment                             ● Teaching in Native American Studies
● Critical Theory/Philosophy/Worldviews                                ● Tourism and Native Communities
● Culture/Language Preservations                                              ● Histories
● Animal Studies and NAS Intersections                                   ● Performance/Theater and NAS       
● Indigenous Methodologies/Interpretative Frameworks     ● Queer Theory and NAS Intersections
● Women/Gender and NAS Intersections                                 ● Literatures
● Racial/physical/economic/political borders                          ● Sovereignties/Autonomies
● Representations in popular culture                                        
● Social medias/technologies                                                        ● Other topics welcomed
● Creative expressions (Poetry readings, Art)                                                                                                 

Diverse presentation formats are encouraged:

● Paper or oral presentations                                                           ● Workshops
● Roundtables or panels                                                                     ● Showcasing creative work

PLEASE NOTE: 
UC Riverside and UC San Diego students,

There is financial support available to you for your travels. For the UC Riverside students, please contact Professor Head from the History department for more information. For UC San Diego students, please contact Assistant Dean from the Division of Arts and Humanities, Alma Palazzolo. 


Best,
NAS Graduate Student Symposium Committee

(Possible) Hotel Reservations

Great News! Best Western University Lodge (Davis, CA) is offering a low rate of $95/night for a room with one queen sized bed and $99/night for a room with two double beds for the dates of our symposium. All you have to do is call them at (530) 756-7890 to make the reservations, but you must mention that you will be in town for the 4th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium.  

Schedule

Thursday April 23, 2015

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8:30-9:00 am
Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:00-10:20 am
Session 1 - Educating the Next Generation: Resistance, Development, and Water
  • "Documenting our Past, Remembering Our Future," Indigenous Activism and Public History in California -- Brittani R. Orona (California State University, Sacramento)
  • Herbal Sovereignty or Green Development?: Marijuana Cultivation in Yurok Country --Kaitlin Reed (UC Davis)
  • Mama Pacha: Resistance and Remaking of the Andean Indigenous Universe -- Cecilia Titizano (Graduate Theological Union)
  • "...this water is worth more than gold": Teaching American Indian Water Rights in an Undergraduate Writing Program -- Paulina M. Gonzales (UC San Diego)

10:30-11:50 am
Session 2 - Queering the Indigenous Universe: Theory & Praxis
  • Envisioning LGBTQ2 Community Spaces in Tribal Colleges -- Deserea Langley (UC Davis)
  • Against Erasure: Towards a Pedagogical Strategy for (Re)Claiming GLBTQ2 Epistemologies -- Dani "Ahuicapahtzin" Cornejo (UC Davis)
  • Erotic Enclosures: Same-Sex Marriage, Tribal Sovereignty, and Federal Bureaucracy -- Spencer Mann (UC Davis)

12:00-1:20 pm
Keynote Luncheon -- Dr. Amy Lonetree

Amy Lonetree is an enrolled citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation and an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002. Her scholarly research focuses on Indigenous history, visual culture studies, and museum studies, and she has received fellowships in support of this work from the School for Advanced Research, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center, the Institute of American Cultures at UCLA, and the University of California, Berkeley Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Her publications include, Decolonizing Museums:  Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums (University of North Carolina Press, 2012); a co-edited book with Amanda J. Cobb, The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations (University of Nebraska Press, 2008); and a co-authored volume, People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1942 (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2011).She is currently working on two new projects.  The first is a visual history of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin drawing upon two historic photography collections, and the second is a historical study documenting the adoption of Indigenous children throughout the twentieth century.

1:30-2:15 pm
Session 3 - Health, Healing, and Tradition
  • Cross Cultural Mental Health Implications Among Indigenous People of Latin America -- Catarina Juan Simon (Alliant International University Los Angeles)
  • Doubled Expectations: An Exploration of Academic and Tribal Views on Research in Developing a Behavioral Health Based Research Project -- Kehli A. Henry (Michigan State University)

2:25-3:45 pm
Session 4 - Engaging Indigeneity in Texts: Critical Innovations in Intersectionality
  • Comparative Indigeneities, Distinctive Subalternities: The Guarani Land Movement in "Birdwatchers" and The Rabha Witch Hunt in "We Want to Live" -- Reema Rajbanshi (UC San Diego)
  • Advocating for an Intersectional Approach: Literal and Metaphorical Confinement in The Jailing of Cecelia Capture -- Tria Andrews (UC Berkeley)
  • Re-sounding Frank Day: A Missed Translation through Metaphor in Four Parts -- Ryan Rhadigan (UC Berkeley)
  • The White Page as Indigenous Place: Orlando White's Formally Innovative Poetry as a micrOpOetic Resistance -- DeNNiS SOmeRa (UC Davis)

3:55-4:55 pm
Session 5 - Bringing the Indigenous Knowledge Full Circle: Survival in the 21st Century
  • "I have not told thy words to the strangers": Bringing Salvage Ethnography Full Circle -- Susan M. Wood (UC Riverside)
  • Native Hymns: Sources of Lasting Resistance and Persistence -- Margaret McMurtrey (UC Santa Barbara)
  • Memory and Performance of a Massacre in the Vencedores de Ayacucho Carnival in Lima, Peru -- Renzo Aroni (UC Davis)

5:30-7:30 pm
Banquet & Creative Hour
Hosted by Dr. Alicia Cox (UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow)
Join us for an evening of sharing creative works.

Friday April 24, 2015
2015 Symposium Artwork
Click to read about our symposium art work this year made by NAS Grad Student Angel Hinzo!

Sponsors

UC President Napolitano 
UC Davis Office of the Chancellor 

UC Berkeley
Division of Social Sciences

UC Riverside
Department of Ethnic Studies 

UC Davis Office of the Provost

Yocha Dehe Endowed Chair in California Indian Studies

Planning Committee

Angel Hinzo
Cutcha Risling Baldy
Daniel Cornejo
Deserea Langley
Kaitlin Reed
Rachael Nez
Rebeca Figueroa
Sim Hay Kin Jack
Spencer Mann
Stephanie Lumsden
Vanessa Esquivido

2012 Symposium
2013 Symposium
2014 Symposium 

Call For Papers
Download File

2015 Submission Form
Download File

    Have any Questions? 
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8:30-8:50 am
Welcoming Session & Opening Remarks

9:00-10:20 am
Session 6 - Visual Representations of an Indigenous Universe
  • No Silent Apologies: Decolonial Approaches to Political Dialogue in Layli Longsoldier's Installation "Whereas We Respond" -- Patricia Killelea (UC Davis)
  • Indigenous Expression in Urban Spatiality: Little Earth of United Tribes -- Rachel E. Hill (UC Los Angeles)
  • Visual Sovereignty: Two Pictures of Diane Batres (Martin) -- Vanessa Esquivido-Meza (UC Davis)
  • "México” - A Conversation Between Flutes -- Cuauhtemoc Quintero Lule (UC Davis)

10:30-11:50 am
Session 7 - Looking Back: Historical Resistance of Settler Colonialism
  • Flowing Blood and Mining Gold: The Campaigns of Extermination in Mariposa and El Dorado Counties, 1850-1851 -- Andrew Shaler (UC Riverside)
  • Intertribal Activism in Contemporary Ho-Chunk/Winnebago History -- Angel Hinzo (UC Davis)
  • How the Seven Nations of Canada Resisted Encroachment During the American Revolution -- Loren Michael Mortimer (UC Davis)
  • Space and Nourishment: The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and Subsistence Economies -- Jennifer Smith (UC Berkeley)

12:00-1:20 pm
Keynote Luncheon -- Vincent Medina

I was born in my ancestral Jalquin Ohlone homeland. Strongly aware and proud of my Ohlone identity, I work to educate others of a continuous Ohlone presence and to dispel negative stereotypes of my people. While living in two worlds, both contemporary and traditional, I strive to bring Ohlone culture into the modern era in multiple ways, including working diligently to reawaken my native Chochenyo Ohlone language, and I am seeing meaningful success. In the last year, I have been a language teacher in my community as part of a multigenerational effort to bring our language back home. I work at Mission Dolores in San Francisco, where I have developed a fair, honest portrayal of the effects of the Missions on Ohlone people and the cultural resistance that came with that, straying away from misconceptions and lies to focus on a truthful story of Indian experiences during the Mission period. I serve on the Board of Directors for the Advocates of Indigenous California Language Survival, a statewide organization that aims to foster the restoration and revitalization of California Indian languages, and I was recently brought on to Yocha Dehe’s Living Language Circle Board, which connects teachers of California Indian languages together. To outreach to the broader community, I work at Heyday Books, a publishing company that has produced several books by and about Ohlones and other California Indians, such asThe Ohlone Way, and the magazine News from Native California. In my spare time, I share my personal experiences through social media on my blog Being Ohlone in the 21st Century.

1:30-2:15 pm
Session 8 - Envisioning New Patterns: Undergraduate Research and Perspectives
  • PORK, the fountain of youth: Okinawan Foodways as Cultural Preservation -- Rachel Rockholt (UC Davis)
  • Problematic Pedagogy: Examining Cultural Competency, Critical Race Theory and the Presence of Native American Studies Topics in 4th Grade Classrooms -- Valentin Sierra (UC Davis)

2:25-3:45 pm
Session 9 - Native Futurities: Sharing Indigenous Knowledges Through Social Media
  • "The Memory is in the Land" - Mapping for Mapuche Autonomy and Cultural Recovery -- Cinthya Ammerman (UC Davis)
  • Navajo Storyteller's Experience of Graduate School -- Franklin Sage (University of North Dakota)
  • Indigenous Language Revitalization in the Media -- SimHayKin S. Jack (UC Davis)
  • Buzzfeeding my research: Engaging Indigenous Methodologies and Native American Studies in Popular Media Formats or Lessons Learned from the Blogosphere -- Cutcha Risling Baldy (UC Davis)

3:55 - 4:55 pm
Session 10 - Ascendant Indigenous Alliances: Identities in Dialogue
  • Reclaiming Dakota Identity: Language and Oral History -- Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (UC Davis)
  • "Ethnic Indians": Rights and Responsibilities of de-Indigenized Peoples -- Rebeca Figueroa (UC Davis)
  • Decolonizing Academia: How Changing Theoretical and Practical Applications of Anthropology Can Aid Native American Communities in Remaking the Indigenous Universe -- Dayna Y. Barrios (Cal State Sacramento)