2004-2005 Laura C. Harris Symposium

Identity, Gender & Politics

The Laura C. Harris Symposium on Native American Culture

Daystar Dance September 13, 2004

Daystar Rosalie Jones, Artistic Director
4:30pm, Slayter Auditorium

No Home But The Heart
From an early age, Daystar was intrigued by her mother’s stories of growing up in the Blackfeet Reservation. In No Home But The Heart, Daystar has drawn from events in the lives of her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother and tied them to historical events affecting the resettlement of native peoples in the late 19^th century. This work acknowledges the search for identity, family, and homeland.

Mounds, Moundbuilders & Social Activism_In Licking County September 23, 2004
4:00-5:30pm, Olin 114

What is the local – and international – significance of the American Indian Mounds in Licking County? What are the politics surrounding the mission and struggles of “The Friends of the Mounds”, a local grassroots political activists organization? Why should our local community be involved and invested in the preservation and care of the Mounds? What ethical considerations should be involved in our work to preserve and interpret the Mounds?

Bradley Lepper October 12, 2004
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

An Archaeologist’s Perspective On The Mounds
An internationally-recognized expert on the archaeology of the local earthworks, Dr. Bradley Lepper will provide an informative discussion of the mounds from an archaeologist’s perspective.

Paula Gunn Allen Keynote Speaker October 21, 2004
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Paula Gunn Allen is the daughter of a Lebanese-American father and a Pueblo-Sioux-Scots mother. She was raised near Laguna and Acoma Pueblo reservations and influenced by the matriarchal Pueblo culture. Her 1983 novel, The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, reflected her own upbringing. Her collections of poetry include Coyote’s Daylight Trip (1978), Shadow Country (1982), and Life is a Fatal Disease (1996). The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986) explores the importance of women in traditional Indian culture. Her latest work is Pocahontas: Medicine Women, Spy, Entrepeneur, Diplomat, a new look at Pocahontas through the eyes of a Native American woman.

Daystar Rosalie Jones-World Dance Concert November 5 & 6, 2004
8:00pm, Doane Dance Building

The Denison University Dance Department and Visiting Assistant Professor Daystar/Rosalie Jones will present students of the World Dance and Repertory program in a unique concert of Native American traditional and contemporary dance. Students will dance the traditional Plains Shawl Dance and Grass Dance and the Northwest Coast Blanket Dance. As contemporary choreography, they will perform Wolf: A Transformation and Prayer of the First Dancer from the repertoire of Daystar Dance Company and a new work, The Seventh Direction, a mediation on indigenous teachings.

A Festival of Native American Singing, November 16, 2004
Drumming & Dancing
7:30pm, Mitchell Center

Come see and participate in a night of Native American drumming, singing and dancing, representing several different American Indian traditions, such as the Cherokee Mingo, Lumbee, and Creek. Performers will include South Eastern Water Spider, and the Mingo River Singers. This will be an educational event as much as it will be an evening of cultural celebration. Dancers, drummers, and singers will be joined by a Native American educator, Jamie Oxendine of Bowling Green State University. You will be moved and regaled by a multi-tribal Grand Entry, reminiscent of a POW WOW’s opening ceremonial march, and will be invited to join in during other portions of the night’s festivities. These exhibitions and information sessions will provide an opportunity for people to learn about American Indian dance from two traditions.

Barbara Crandell and Helen Griffin February 1, 2005
4:00pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Conversations On Living Native Off A Reservation
“Living Native” carries a special meaning for American Indians who were not born and raised on a reservation. Everyday life experiences vary, as you might expect; but did you know that there were legal consequences to living off a reservation? What are the political realities for those who have no “reservation” versus those who do? In this small group presentation and discussion, Barbara Crandell, a Cherokee, and Helen Griffin, a Shawnee, will share over 100 years of their combined life experiences as Native American activists and Central Ohio citizens “living off a reservation”.

Winona LaDuke Keynote Speaker February 8, 2005
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

The Preservation of the American Indian Landscape
An Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe), Winona LaDuke is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservation. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth Fund, she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support and create funding for frontline Native Environmental groups. She also works as Founding Director for White Earth Land Recovery Project: a reservation-based non-profit focused on land, cultural and environmental issues. In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke ran as a Vice-Presidential candidate for the Green Party with Ralph Nader. She organized substantially to increase Native American and progressive order voter registration and activism. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and serves as co-chair of the Indigenous Women’s Network. In 1998, Ms. Magazine names her “Women of the Year” for her work with Honor the Earth. Also in 1997, her first novel, Last Standing Women, was published by Voyager Press. In 1999, South End Press published All Our Relations, a non-fiction book on Native environmental struggles.

Rebecca Benes March 7, 2005
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Native American Picture Books of Change, The Art of Historic Children’s Editions
Bene’s discussion of the federal government’s involvement in Indian education from 1920-1940 addresses Indian artists, indigenous languages, and even contemporary social politics. Gloria Emerson of the Indian American Materials Development center has described Bene’s work as “important research that adds to our own understanding of how Native American histories were intimately intertwined with the federal Indian policymakers and adiministrators”.

Joy Harjo March 30, 2005
4:30pm, Slayter Auditorium

How We Became Human
Joy Harjo has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Her prose, How We Became Humans: New and Selected Poems, won the 2003 Oklahoma Book Award for poetry. Harjo received the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award in 1990. Her work has been included in the Pushcart Prize Peotry Anthologies XV & XIII.

Tod Frolking April 13, 2005
4:00pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Licking County Landscapes and The Distribution Of Prehistoric Occupation Sites
How does the earth teach us about the Mounds and the people who created them? What tales does the soil tell?