Speaker Series
January 4,5,10,17,24,26, 2012
4:00-5:30pm
Linnaeus Arboretum, Gustavus Adolphus College campus.
All lectures are free and open to the public.
Jan 4
Dr. John Peacock
"War of Words: Writings by Dakota People In Their Own Language and Later in English During and After the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862."
Dr. John Peacock is Rinehart Critic-in-Residence and Professor of Language, Literature, and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. He is a former Wesleyan University Mellon Fellow, University of Antwerp Fulbright Lecturer, and grantee of the American Philosophical Society and the Montgomery Council Maryland Arts and Humanities Council. An enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation in Fort Totten, North Dakota, his writing in English and the endangered Dakota language has been exhibited at the Minnesota History Center and published in American Indian Quarterly and in Studies in American Indian Literatures.
Jan. 5
Glenn Wasicuna
"A Dakota Way of Life"
Glen Wasicuna is the Director of Dakota Studies, Tiospa Zina Tribal School for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. Glenn has taught the Dakota language at tribal colleges, Gustavus Adolphus College, and served as a consultant to the University of Minnesota on the Dakota language. He was the Editor/Publisher of The Dakota Times, a Canadian newspaper, for more than a dozen years. He will discuss every day Dakota culture, customs, and world view.
Jan. 10
Dr. Gary Clayton Anderson
"The Dakota War Trials: Travesty of Justice or Reasonable Retribution."
Gary Clayton Anderson is George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma. He is considered the foremost historian on the US-Dakota War. His books include The Indian Southwest 1580-1830: Ethnogenesis and Cultural Reinvention, Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood , Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650-1862, and Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862. Professor Anderson is currently working on a book on Indians and the Great Plains Wars, 1830-1890.
Jan.17
Thomas Maltman
"Based on a True Story: Researching a Controversial History to Create Fiction"
Thomas Maltman's essays, poetry, and fiction have recently been published in Georgetown Review, Great River Review, and Main Channel Voices, among other journals. He has a BA from Eastern Washington University and an MFA from Minnesota State University/Mankato. His debut novel, The Night Birds, was released by Soho Press in August of 2008 and won an Alex Award from the American Library Association. He is currently the Visiting Artist in Creative Writing at Normandale Community College. Thomas Maltman's forthcoming second novel, Little Wolves, is a contemporary mystery that takes place in the same prairie country as The Night Birds.
Jan. 24
Corinne Marz
"From the Acton Incident to the Internment Camp:Examining the aftermath in light of the war and its beginnings"
Researcher and author Corinne Monjeau-Marz has devoted her latest efforts to exploring the extraordinarily challenging and culturally catastrophic transition the Dakota people experienced during the time of early European settlement in Minnesota. Marz will share her recent research and discuss her work on "Alexander Ramsey's Words of War" from the first issue of Minnesota's Heritage magazine. She will also discuss her book, The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling, 1862-1864, as well as her contributions to Trail of Tears: Minnesota's Dakota Indian Exile Begins.
Jan. 26
Dr. Gwen Westerman-Wasicuna
"We Are Still Here"
Dr. Westerman serves as the Director of the Native American Literature Symposium, is the recipient of several prestigious grants, and has published widely on contemporary American Indian literature. She is a poet and artist and has published her poetry in "Yellow Medicine Review," "Water-Stone Review," and other journals; she has also displayed her quilts in many venues. Gwen Westerman-Wasicuna is an English professor at Minnesota State University-Mankato specializing in multi-cultural and Native American literature. Her lecture will focus on the lives of modern Dakota and their special place in Minnesota today.
For more information visit the Commemorating Controversy: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 Speaker Series web page.
For documents, photos and other resources about the U.S. Dakota War of 1862 please visit the CHGS web page.
