Angelica Lawson, Ethnic Studies and Cinema & Moving Image Studies Assistant Professor, has been awardedan the Inaugural Reparative Faculty Fellowship to Address Settler Colonialism from the Center for Humanities and the Arts (CHA). “Enacting Our Futures: Resistance and Resilience in Indigenous Women’s Resurgence Media,” explores the intersections of Indigenous digital studies, literature, and ecocinema through Native American women’s creative works using resurgence theory—an Indigenous feminist framework most notably developed in the work of Anishinaabe scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Indigenous resurgence specifically refers to political strategies and cultural practices aimed at strengthening Indigenous peoplehood in ways that elevate Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies while interrogating legacies of colonialism in our societies, especially inequities along lines of gender and sexuality. Historically, art served both practical and ceremonial purposes, richly layered with symbolic meaning and deeply rooted in Indigenous thought systems. Today’s writers and filmmakers are doing similar work, invoking new modes for insuring continuance, and while the last three decades have seen a proliferation of Indigenous women’s literature, film, and digital media using Indigenous languages created by women who are heavily invested in community engagement—both of which are elements central to Indigenous resurgence, these works have received scant attention in literary and film scholarship. Dr. Lawson's project seeks to reverse this trend, and to contribute to Indigenous feminist resurgence theory by engaging the work of four lesser-known Native women writers and filmmakers. She demonstrates how, through their community engagement and creative cultural productions, they assert Indigenous presence and futurity in the face of ongoing settler-colonial forces of erasure.

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Department of Ethnic Studies Professor Jessica Ordaz, Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies, is hosting a monthly coffee hour for department majors, minors, and prospective students. Stop by Ketchum (KTCH) 277 between 10-11am on October 3 and November 7 to grab some coffee, pastries (vegan + GF options) and connect with other students and faculty. We look forward to seeing you there! 

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Huge congratulations to Dr. Seema Sohi for receiving the prestigious ! The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program provides philanthropic support for scholarship in the humanities and social sciences that addresses important and enduring issues confronting our society. The award is for a period of up to two years and its anticipated result is a book or major study. The criteria prioritize the originality and promise of the research, its potential impact on the field, and the scholar’s plans for communicating the findings to a broad audience.

Dr. Sohi's project, "We Are Each Other’s Magnitude and Bond: A History of Climate Justice from Warren County to the Sunrise Movement,” will investigate the intersection of the climate crisis, democracy, and political polarization. The first comprehensive history of the climate justice movement in the United States, it centers the work of Black, Indigenous, Latina, and Asian American women who have been unrecognized in environmental history, and yet who have played a leading role in the struggle to advance climate justice and, with it, the struggle to realize the promises of a multiracial and sustainable American democracy.

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Department of Ethnic Studies professor, Dr. S.N. Nyeck, has been awarded the . This program funded by the Carnegie Corporation supports projects that allow African scholars in the U.S. to invest in Higher Education in Africa. Professor Nyeck's fellowship will contribute to womanist curriculum co-development that will strengthen the mission and vision of the Center for Women and Gender Studies (Mandela University, South Africa) and the SARCHI Chair in Sexualities, Gender, and Queer Studies (University of Fort Hare, South Africa). Congratulations, Dr. Nyeck!  

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