ASAIL Notes

Announcements of jobs and fellowships in the field of American Indian literatures
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Calls for papers
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Forthcoming conferences
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AMERICAN NATIVE PRESS ARCHIVES:  the American Native Press Archives' website carries a number of features of interest to students and scholars in American Indian studies. These include a bibliography, hard-to-find texts, indexes to Native newspapers, and other features.
        The bibliography of Native American writers, 1772 to the present, aims to be comprehensive. 13,000 plus citations are annotated, and the bibliography is searchable by author, title, subject, time period, and tribal affiliation. This fall, First Nation writers from Canada will be added as well. The bibliography is open, that is, new citations are being added all the time.
        Native Writers Digital Text Project is another feature on the website. Introduced in summer, 2000, the project's purpose is to publish hard-to-find texts by American Indian and Alaska Native writers. The first digital texts that are available online are the poems of John Rollin Ridge and selected works of Charles Gibson. Ridge is the nineteenth-century Cherokee novelist, journalist, and poet whose verse has been out of print for over a hundred years. Gibson is the Muscogee humorist, folklorist, and historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose works appeared in newspapers and magazines.
In another activity, the archives is preparing indices to important Native newspapers and other serial publications. Among the first to go on line is an index to the complete run of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first tribal newspaper, published at New Echota, Cherokee Nation, from 1828 to 1834.
        Other features have appeared on the website over the past few years and still accessible, including those on Indian-Black history and Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary. Currently, a chronicle of Indian removal is being prepared, including texts of contemporary news and other accounts of what later became known as the Trail of Tears.
Please come to www.anpa.ualr.edu for these features and other information. Comments and suggestions are welcome: contact
                 Dan Littlefield or Jim Parins at anpa@ualr.edu or at
                 American Native Press Archives
                 UALR English Department
                 2801 S. University Ave.
                 Little Rock, AR 72204

UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO

The Department of Cinematic Arts at the University of New Mexico, College of Fine Arts, invites applications for an assistant professorship in film history, criticism, and theory, with expertise in the history of silent and sound cinema, and in comparative foreign film. Our successful candidate will teach introductory and advanced courses in moving image arts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Responsibilities include service on various committees at the university, college, and department levels. Minimum qualifications: Ph.D. in Cinema/Media Studies, or in a related interdisciplinary field, by August 2008.
     Preferred Qualifications: We are searching for a person with a comprehensive background in contemporary criticism, theory, and cultural studies vis--vis cinema. We prefer to hire a scholar who has 1) university-level teaching experience in early and sound cinema history; 2) ability to offer specialized courses that engage at least three national cinemas; 3) a record as an excellent and experienced instructor able to teach high-enrollment introductory and advanced courses; 4) excellent publications and/or captivating dissertation in these fields; 5) a record of service to students; 6) demonstrated engagement with the interlocking diversities represented in the cinematic arts; 7) understanding of the political and material structures that inform visual/aural aesthetics; 8) expertise in articulating formalist critiques.
     Please send 1) a hard copy of your current cv; 2) a signed letter of application; 3) one sample course syllabus; 4) copies of formal student evaluations of teaching (concise format); 5) two confidential letters of recommendation (may be sent with application, sealed by recommender, or mailed under separate cover); and 6) a sample of recent work, or excerpts from the dissertation (40 pages maximum). For best consideration, mail completed, hard-copy applications to arrive to the address below by April 21, 2008. Position will remain open until filled.

Susan Dever, Chair, Department of Cinematic Arts, College of Fine Arts
MSC04 2570
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001
Tel: (505) 277-9745, Department Administrator Christine Polansky; Fax: (505) 277-6314

The 8th Annual Sequoyah Research Center Symposium is set for October 16-18 this year in Little Rock. The Symposium is a gathering of Native writers, teachers, service providers, storytellers, and other thinkers who meet to discuss issues of importance in Native communities and to share their work and ideas. The setting is informal, and unlike at academic conferences, presentations are given rather than papers read. If you would like to present or attend, please contact Bob Sanderson at the SRC, resanderson@ualr.edu. Information on previous symposia is available at http://anpa.ualr.edu. Registration information is available at http://ualr.edu/sequoyahcenter/. If you have any questions, please drop me a line or two.

James W. Parins
Professor, Department of English
Associate Director, Sequoyah Research Center
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
301A Ottenheimer Library
2801 S. University Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72204
(501)569-8336

AMERICAN INDIAN PERFORMING ARTS: CRITICAL DIRECTIONS
Book Collection in the Project HOOP Critical Studies And Performance Series
UCLA American Indian Studies Center

Weighing in on "nativist" calls for a theory that eschews Western-based methodologies in favor of culturally and community-based theories, Jace Weaver outlines five components of a Native theory, which he argues is: (1) "interdisciplinary"; (2) "comparative in nature," due to the 600 "extant tribal traditions and eight major language families in the United States alone"; (3) written "from the perspective" of Native peoples; (4) "committed to Native community"; and (5) "borderless," accompanying multiple communities. ("More Light Than Heat: The Current State of Native American Studies," AIQ 31.2 [2007], 233-255).
     This collection of essays will analyze various aspects of Native theater and the performing arts through indigenous critical lenses. The editors seek submissions that examine American Indian theater, music, dance, and performance from within Native cultural and artistic landscapes. Papers are invited to address a broad range of performance issues and practices both inside and outside the theatrical setting, drawing on Native critical theories. Questions to consider may include the following: How do Native theater, dance, or music performances "re-present," to borrow Kathryn Shanley's term, American Indian history, culture, art forms, spiritual traditions, and/or contemporary issues? What role does ceremony play in performance? How do Native performing arts imagine and construct liberatory identities, community, and/or nation? The editors welcome a range of submissions in all areas of Native theater and performing arts.
     Please email a 500-word abstract and brief biography to editors Jaye Darby (jdarby@ucla.edu) and Hanay Geiogamah (hgeiog@ucla.edu) by April 5, 2008.

MULTICULTURALISMS AND THE ARTS
School of Art Studies, University of Turku, Finland
August 29-30, 2008

The concept of multiculturalism has acquired many different (even opposite) meanings in diverse contexts since its inception in the wake of the social movements of the 1960s. Multifarious concepts of multiculturalism are reflected, reproduced, questioned or contested in literature, music, the visual arts, and the media. The purpose of this conference is to analyze different forms of multiculturalisms and their representations. Workshop presentations will also address multiculturalisms in the Nordic countries. Confirmed keynote speakers: Anne-Marie Fortier, Lancaster University; Jocelyne Guilbault, University of California, Berkeley; David Leiwei Li, University of Oregon; Maria Roth-Lauret, Sussex University. Possible paper topics for twenty-minute presentations include (but are not limited to) the following:
     - representations of multiculturalisms
     - multiculturalisms in the arts
     - multiculturalisms and the media
     - gender, sexuality and multiculturalisms
     - aesthetics, genre and multiculturalisms
     - multiculturalisms in the Nordic countries
Abstracts in English of no more than 250 words should be received by the Conference Secretary, Outi Hakola (outi.hakola@utu.fi) by May 15, 2008. Acceptance messages will be sent by the end of May 2008.
     The conference is being organized by the School of Art Studies (Art History, Comparative Literature, Finnish Literature, Media Studies, Musicology and Women's Studies), the International Institute for Popular Culture at the University of Turku, and the Department of Musicology, Åbo Akademi University.

DOCUMENTARIES ON NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
Call for Reviewers

The National Film Board of Canada is seeking qualified reviewers to write academic reviews (like a book review) about the following documentary films, and place the review in an academic journal, newsletter, website, etc. The NFB cannot contact journal editors and place the review: This will be the responsibility of the writer. Please contact me directly off-list for further information, thank you.

Waban-aki: People From Where The Sun Rises
Yvonne M'Sadoques rocks forward in her chair. She's lived in the Abenaki community of Odanak for over a century - and has no shortage of stories to tell. "The priest would march into our home and order us to stop dancing. We were going to the devil, he said." She pauses, a humorous glint in her eye. "But you know - I don't really believe in the devil. Do you?" M'Sadoques is in conversation with Alanis Obomsawin, another of Odanak's proud daughters - and one of Canada's leading documentary filmmakers.

Wapos Bay Series
Includes English and Cree versions. Six half hour episodes in the animated (stopmotion) series on portraits of life on a fictional Cree reserve in Northern Saskatchewan. It deals with contemporary issues for aboriginal people from a child's point of view.

Finding Dawn
Dawn Crey. Ramona Wilson. Daleen Kay Bosse. These are just three of the estimated 500 Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the past thirty years. Directed by acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh, Finding Dawn is a compelling documentary that puts a human face to this tragedy. Along the road we uncover reason for hope. It lives in Native rights activists Professor Janice Acoose and Fay Blaney. It drives events such as the annual Women's Memorial March and inspires communities all along the length of Highway 16 to come together to demand change. Finding Dawn illustrates the deep historical, social and economic factors that contribute to the epidemic of violence against Native women in this country. It goes further to present the ultimate message that stopping the violence is everyone's responsibility.

First Stories Volumes 1 and 2 (Society for Visual Anthropology Winner)
In First Stories - Volume 1, four Aboriginal filmmakers explore the realities of their lives in 21st century Canada. With humor and compassion, their films deal with a range of topics including Native culture/identity, Native traditions, Native art and street gangs.

First Stories - Volume II features The Power of a Horse, Life Givers: Honouring Our Elders and Children, O Mother, Where Art Thou? and ati-wîcahsin (It's Getting Easier), four new short films from four emerging Saskatchewan filmmakers - Tessa Desnomie, Cory Generoux, Jainine Windolph and Paul John Swiderski.

Gang Aftermath
Gang Aftermath follows the lives of former gang members and gang associates who have put their destructive pasts behind them while, at the same time, telling their stories to prevent others from making similar mistakes. Best Public Service Award at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.

Flight From Darkness
From a remote Dene community in Saskatchewan, Percy Paul excelled in school and sports, and eventually made it to Princeton, working alongside one of the world's leading authorities on string theory, black holes and quantum field theory. But all this changed when he turned 28. Percy became an alcoholic in an effort to cope with his extreme mood swings. After a failed suicide attempt, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Dylan Maddox McGinty
National Film Board of Canada
1123 Broadway, Suite 307
New York, NY 10010 
     Tel 212 629 8890
     Fax 212 629 8502
     Mob 347 873 5160
        d.mcginty@nfb.ca

AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL: POETRY

The American Indian Culture and Research Journal is actively seeking submissions of original poetry for future journal issues. Payment in tear sheets and one copy of the journal. Please send two copies of each submission to: Poetry Editor, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, American Indian Studies Center, 3220 Campbell Hall, Box 951548, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1548

RETURNING THE GIFT: Conference for Native Writers
March 13-15, 2008 / Michigan State University

A total of 24 workshops to choose from, with 4 themes: New Media; Traditional Storytelling and Traditional Languages; Literature and Poetry; Critical and Academic Writing. Invited readings on Thursday Night, Open-Mic on Friday Night, and a Banquet with music by Asani on Saturday Night. Cost: $20 for students, $40 for all others (includes workshops, Friday lunch and Saturday banquet).
        Workshop Presenters include: Daryl Baldwin, Brenda Child, Anthony Tyeeme Clark, Ellen Cushman, Qwo-Li Driskill, Eric Gansworth, Angela Haas, LeAnne Howe, Daniel Heath Justice, Scott Lyons, John Norder, Jim Northrup, William Penn, Pun Plamondon, Malea Powell, Debbie Reese, Helen Roy, LaVonne Ruoff, Anton Treuer, David Treuer, Richard Van Camp, Charlene Winger-Bearskin.
        Registration, workshop abstracts and further information will be available on our website later this fall: http://aisp.msu.edu.

NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE SYMPOSIUM
March 27-29, 2008 / Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, Prior Lake MN
Many Voices, One Center

Featured Speakers: Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo), author, teacher, and advocate for accurate portrayals of American Indians in children's literature; Eric Gansworth (Onondaga), poet, novelist, artist, winner of Pen Oakland Awardfor his novel Mending Skins; Jim Denomie (Ojibwe) & Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Band of Chippewa), artists, provocative and powerful visual storytellers.
        With literature as a crossroads where many forms of knowledge meet--art, history, politics, science, religion--we welcome once again spirited participation on all aspects of Native American studies. We invite proposals for individual papers, panel discussions, readings, exhibits, demonstrations, and workshops. All queries, proposals, registration forms, and checks should be sent to the Program Director:
        Dr. Gwen Griffin
        Native American Literature Symposium
        English Department
        230 Armstrong Hall
        Minnesota State University, Mankato
        Mankato, MN 56001
              E-mail: gwen.griffin@mnsu.edu
              (507) 389-2117
              (507) 389-5362 (fax)

PROPHETSTOWN REVISITED

In April 2008, Purdue will host a conference on early Native American studies that may be of interest to some of you. The title of the symposium is "Prophetstown Revisited," and it will commemorate the 200-year anniversary of the founding of Prophetstown along the banks of the Wabash River by Tecumseh and his brother, the Shawnee Prophet. Confirmed keynote speakers include Rick West, Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, and Gregory Evans Dowd, Director of Native American Studies at the University of Michigan, and author of A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815 and War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, & the British Empire.
         To complete registration online, please go to www.conf.purdue.edu/prophetstown/. For more information about the conference go to http://www.matrix.msu.edu/ptown2008/.

SUMMER SEMINAR IN LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES
5-8 June 2008 / West Virginia University
"Exploring the Family Drama: Race, Gender, Memory, and Narrative"

The histories of specific families have offered writers evocative passageways, leading to a past that transcends the biographical, yet remains at a more intimate scale than that commonly employed in broad social and cultural analysis. With a structure that allows focused explorations of particular times and places, family history also allows extended consideration of change over time and the relations between the "small" of the family and the "large" of social and cultural context. At their best, family histories can sometimes offer stories that tell their own analysis, allowing the power of the narrative to replace the voice of scholarly or literary interpretation. In this seminar, we will dwell on race and gender in recent family history narrative. Beginning with questions of "mixed race" among American Indian people--long figured as a white-Indian history--we will also consider crossings along the Native-African American "color line," paying particular attention to the gender relations that simultaneously structure these histories.

Seminar Leader
Philip J. Deloria is Professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan. He specializes in issues of culture and representation as well as environmental and Western American history. He has published a number of books and essays, including Indians in Unexpected Places (University Press of Kansas, 2004) and Playing Indian (Yale University Press, 1998).

Format
The seminar will begin with a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and conclude at noon on Sunday. There are five two-hour sessions during the seminar. In late April, registered participants will be provided with a list of readings to be completed before arrival at the seminar. Seminar sessions will be devoted to intensive discussion of the readings, with ample opportunities for further reading and informal discussions between sessions.

Seminar Site
West Virginia University is located in scenic north central West Virginia about 75 miles south of Pittsburgh, PA, and 200 miles west of Washington, DC. Rooms are available in Stalnaker Hall. Built in 1919 and renovated in 1993, this residence hall is on the National Historic Register. The hall features suites of two double rooms with a common bathroom. One local hotel is within walking distance for those who prefer non-dormitory housing.
        Registration fees: Graduate Students $250, Faculty $350. Limited scholarships may be available. The seminar is limited to 50 participants. To reserve a place in the seminar, a $100 deposit must be received by Friday, April 25, 2008. For further information, please see: http://english.wvu.edu/about_the_department/summer_seminar

Contact: Robert Nelson
This page was last modified on: 8 January 2008