Hotel Deal for Symposium Participants

Great News! Best Western University Lodge (Davis, CA) is offering a low rate of $99/night for the dates of our symposium. All you have to do is call them at (530) 756-7890 to make your reservations, but you must mention that you will be in town for the 5th Annual NAS Grad Symposium. The deal ends April 22, 2016 so please be sure to call and make your reservations before then. 

Registration

The symposium is free and open to the public.
​Register for the 5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium here: http://goo.gl/forms/9dhpFzrTfj

Schedule

5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium
Transitioning from the Fifth Sun: Global Indigenous Movements
Thursday – May 5, 2016 ​-- Memorial Union II (UC Davis)

 10:00-10:30 am
Welcome & Opening Remarks – Dr. Zoila Mendoza (Native American Studies Department Chair, UC Davis)
Opening Blessing – Cuāuhtemōc Quintero Lule (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
 
10:35-11:30 am
Session 1 – Engaging the Enemy: Tribal Participation and Circumnavigation of State Structures and Processes
  • Navigating Neoliberal Climate Solutions: Yurok Land Acquisition through the California Carbon Credit Market – Kaitlin Reed (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
  • Reckoning with the Legacies of American Settler Colonialism in the Great Plains: the Indian Claims Commission; as a Failure of Truth & Reconciliation – Baligh (Native American History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
  • Do local comprehensive plans support the Kichwa of the Ecuadorian Amazon in reaching their collective rights? – Fredy Grefa (Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)*
 
11:35am-12:30pm
Session 2 – Rendering Reclamation: Indigenous Revitalization in Visual Media
  • Audiovisualizing Indigenous Futurities: Sonic Imagery in "Children of the Northern Lights"  – Spencer Mann (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
  • Re-Imag(in)ing Fourth World Authenticities – Reema Rajbanshi (UC San Diego)
  • Weaving a new reality: Indigenous Tattoo Revival – Dion Kaszas (Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies, University of British Columbia)
 
12:35-2:10 pm
Lunch and Creative Hour
 
2:15-3:25 pm
Session 3 – Words Rise Up: Cultural Revitalization through Language, Music and Literature
  • Words Rise Up: The Zapatistas and Contemporary Mayan Literature — Sean Sell (Comparative Literature, UC Davis)
  • Contemporary Language Policy and Practice on the Colville Indian Reservation – SimHayKin (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
  • Oral Traditions As Resistance: Luanko’s Rap in the Chile-Mapuche Struggle – Alejandro Rossi-Brotfeld (Spanish, UC Davis)
  • Mapuche Hip-Hop: A Pedagogy of Cultural Transmission and Language Revitalization -- Daniel "Ahuicapatzin" Cornejo (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
 
3:30-4:30 pm
Session 4 – Messengers of the Sun and of Guadalupe: Yaqui Leaders, Ancestral Territory, and Revolution in 19th-Century Sonora (Please note: Panel Presentation is bilingual [Spanish & English])
  • Cajema héroe, Cajeme torocoyori. Historiografía e historia oral en torno al jefe yaqui -- Benjamín Alonso (Journalism, Crónica Sonora)
  • Enchanted Bee, Talking Tree, and the Raccoon: Yaqui Resilience and the Moving Power of Storytelling ​-- Cuāuhtemōc Quintero Lule (Native American Studies, UC Davis)

End of first day of the 5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium

 5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium
Transitioning from the Fifth Sun: Global Indigenous Movements
Friday – May 6, 2016 -- Memorial Union II (UC Davis)

10:00-10:30 am
Opening Remarks  & Blessing – Angel Hinzo (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
 
10:35-11:30 am
Session 5  -- Reclaiming Our Bodies: Indigenous Peoples, Gender, and Sexuality
  • Indigenous Migrants: Racial Trajectories and Female Empowerment in Urban Peru – Carmen Valdivia (Spanish, UC Davis)
  • Impact of Settler Colonialism and Christianity on Two Spirit People – Trudie Jackson (American Indian Studies, Arizona State University)
  • Processing Trauma: A filmmaker emphasizes the symptoms and healing methods of a Mixtecan illness – Candy Martinez (Latin American and Latina/o Studies, UC Santa Cruz)
 
11:35 am-12:30 pm
Session 6 – Indigenous Spiritualities and Knowledge Systems
  • Healing to Learn: Learning to Heal—A Chicana and Chicano Indigenous Decolonizing Pedagogical Framework – Silvia E. Toscano (Chicano and Chicano Studies, UC Santa Barbara)*
  • Basketry as Methodology: Weaving Land and Knowledge – Vanessa Esquivido-Meza (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
  • The many aspects of Mayan spirituality – Leonzo Barreno (Indigenous Studies, University of Saskatchewan)*
12:35-2:10 pm
Keynote Luncheon & Book Signing – Dr. Dian Million (Associate Professor, American Indian Studies -- University of Washington)
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Dr. Dian Million (Tanana Athabascan) has been teaching in AIS since 2002. Dr. Million received her M. A. in Ethnic Studies in 1998 and her Ph. D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 2004. Currently Dr. Million is an Associate Professor in American Indian Studies and an Affiliated faculty in Canadian Studies, the Comparative History of Ideas Program, and the English Department at UW. Dian Million’s most recent research explores the politics of mental and physical health with attention to affect as it informs race, class, and gender in Indian Country. She is the author of Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights (University of Arizona Press, Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies Series, 2013) as well as articles, chapters, and poems. Therapeutic Nations is a discussion of trauma as a political narrative in the struggle for Indigenous self-determination in an era of global neoliberalism. Reading unprecedented violence against Indigenous women and all women as more than a byproduct of global contention Therapeutic Nations makes an argument for the constitutive role violence takes in the now quicksilver transmutations of capitalist development. As an active writer and poet she strives to bring experiential and felt thought to classrooms. Dian Million has been part of an ongoing Indigenous conversation on theory and Native studies. Million is the author of “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History,” “Intense Dreaming: Theories, Narratives and Our Search for Home,” and most recently “A River Runs Through Me: Theory from Life” in Theorizing Native Studies (Audra Simpson and Andrea Smith, Eds., Duke University Press, 2013). She teaches courses on Indigenous politics, literatures, feminisms and social issues.
2:15-3:10 pm
Session 7  – Decolonizing Soundscapes: Tanya Tagaq and Nanook of the North  (Panel Presentation)
  • Luis Chavez (Ethnomusicology, UC Davis)
  • Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
  • Lynette Haberman (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
 
3:15-4:25 pm
Session  8 – Narratives of Resistance: Restorative Native Histories
  • Reckoning with the Trickster: Wabanaki and Kanien'kehá:ka Diplomacy on the Northern Borderlands, 1759-1775 – Loren Michael Mortimer (History, UC Davis)
  • Lower Creek and Seminole Law in the Late Colonial Spanish Florida Borderlands – Nancy O. Gallman (Early American History, UC Davis)
  • Voicing Across Space: Ho-Chunk Removal and Subversion -- Angel Hinzo (Native American Studies, UC Davis)
  • The Creolized Kitchen: Interpreting the Life of a Catawba Pan Found in Urban Charleston, 1785-1830 -- Kelly Kean (History, UC Davis)

Closing blessing – Cuāuhtemōc Quintero Lule
End of the 5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium

2016_schedule_nassymposium_updated2.pdf
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2016 Symposium Artwork

The 2016 symposium artwork was created by UC Davis Native American Studies graduate student Spencer Mann. 

​Sponsors

We sincerely thank all of the sponsors who have generously contributed to this year's UC Davis Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium. 
UC Davis Office of the Chancellor
Office of the Provost
Yocha Dehe Endowed Chair in California Indian Studies 
UC Riverside
​Department of Ethnic Studies
UC Berkeley
​Division of Social Sciences
UC Davis
​Office for Research
UC Davis
​Division of Student Affairs
UC Davis Interim Dean of Humanities,
​Arts, and Cultural Studies
UC Santa Barbara Associate Dean of Social Sciences
UC Merced, Vice Provost and Graduate Dean

2016 NAS Grad Student Symposium Planning Committee

Cinthya Ammerman
Kaitlin Reed
Vanessa Esquivido-Meza
Ashlee Bird
Angel Hinzo
Deserea Langley
Anthony Burris
Rebeca Figueroa
SimHayKin Jack
Spencer Mann
Cuāuhtemōc Quintero Lule

For information regarding previous symposiums, please see the following links:
​2013 Symposium
2014 Symposium 
2015 Symposium

    Have any questions?

CALL FOR PAPERS:
Due: March 13, 2016
5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium
Transitioning from the Fifth Sun: Global Indigenous Movements
May 5-6, 2016
UC Davis

We are pleased to announce the 5th Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium, to be held on the UC Davis campus on May 5-6th, 2016. We welcome proposals from current graduate and tribal college students whose research critically addresses the issues, concerns, and lives of Indigenous peoples worldwide.

This year’s theme is “Transitioning from the Fifth Sun: Global Indigenous Movements”, a title that draws inspiration and guidance from Nahua cosmology and the story of the Five Suns. At the heart of many indigenous wisdom traditions lies an understanding of time and existence that is both cyclical and transformative in nature. Similar to the manner in which the rosy light of dawn permeates and colors the horizon in the moments before the sun's arrival, prophesizing the emergence and trajectory of the forthcoming day, so too is the transitional phase between spiritual epochs a vibrant and dynamic process. The radiant onset of a new age of peace and solidarity, far from being an instantaneous occurrence spanning a single human lifespan, is preceded by an interim age of collective healing, envisioning, sacrifice, and rebirth. Here, amidst this transitory crossroads that we currently inhabit, our theme hopes to contemplate and map the footprints to the next world. How do Native American Studies and indigenous research methodologies continuously illuminate the pathways towards the new sunrise? How do we embrace and relay our stories of healing? How do we creatively interact and express ourselves in our languages and through our knowledge systems? How do we honor the sacrifices of our ancestors and reimagine our histories? How do we work together to create a sacred space for intellectual metamorphosis? These and many other questions call upon the wisdom and efforts of our diverse communities and relatives.

Graduate students from all disciplines from universities worldwide are encouraged to participate in this hemispheric dialogue. We will also be accepting applications from students at tribal colleges who are interested in participating in this symposium. We hope that participation of tribal college students will help develop networks and future collaborations between UC Davis and tribal colleges. Papers should be 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                                                        ● Animal Studies and NAS Intersections
● Histories                                                                                                         ● Performance/Theater and NAS       
● Indigenous Methodologies/Interpretative Frameworks           ● Queer Theory and NAS Intersections
● Literatures                                                                                                     ● Women/Gender and NAS Intersections
● Racial/physical/economic/political borders                                  ● Creative expressions (Poetry readings, Art 
● Representations in popular culture                                      
● Social medias/technologies                                                                    ● Other topics welcomed
● Sovereignties/Autonomies                                                                                             

Diverse presentation formats are encouraged:
● Paper or oral presentations                                                          ● Workshops
● Roundtables or panels                                                                    ● Showcasing creative work
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