Scott Richard Lyons, Associate Professor
Department of English and American Indian Studies, Syracuse University
“The History and Theory of Boozhoo: Encountering Indigenous Culture, Language, and Conflict in the University”
Traditional Native cultures have long fascinated American intellectuals and academics. Cooper fictionalized them, Morgan analyzed them, Boas defended them, Rothenberg imitated them, and today there are many who would seek to reclaim, restore, and revitalize them. But what really happens when traditional Native cultures are brought into the pedagogical, extracurricular, and critical spaces of the modern university, an institution defined in large measure by a paradoxical claim to both secularism and multiculturalism? This talk will examine two sites where traditional Ojibwe culture has recently appeared in academic contexts — a university-sponsored powwow in Minnesota, and tribal-nationalist criticism in Native literary studies—producing conflict, confusion, and sometimes cultural disappearance. Such sites tend to be patrolled by “culture cops” (to use reservation parlance) whose appearance at this moment in history raises important questions for scholars and universities seeking to become more culturally sensitive, inclusive, and just. Finally, since no discussion of indigenous cultural revitalization can ignore the simultaneous renewal of Native languages, we will consider the “culture words” of Ojibwemowin, the Ojibwe language, to see what they might suggest about the meanings and implications of “Ojibwe culture.”
Department of English and American Indian Studies, Syracuse University
“The History and Theory of Boozhoo: Encountering Indigenous Culture, Language, and Conflict in the University”
Traditional Native cultures have long fascinated American intellectuals and academics. Cooper fictionalized them, Morgan analyzed them, Boas defended them, Rothenberg imitated them, and today there are many who would seek to reclaim, restore, and revitalize them. But what really happens when traditional Native cultures are brought into the pedagogical, extracurricular, and critical spaces of the modern university, an institution defined in large measure by a paradoxical claim to both secularism and multiculturalism? This talk will examine two sites where traditional Ojibwe culture has recently appeared in academic contexts — a university-sponsored powwow in Minnesota, and tribal-nationalist criticism in Native literary studies—producing conflict, confusion, and sometimes cultural disappearance. Such sites tend to be patrolled by “culture cops” (to use reservation parlance) whose appearance at this moment in history raises important questions for scholars and universities seeking to become more culturally sensitive, inclusive, and just. Finally, since no discussion of indigenous cultural revitalization can ignore the simultaneous renewal of Native languages, we will consider the “culture words” of Ojibwemowin, the Ojibwe language, to see what they might suggest about the meanings and implications of “Ojibwe culture.”
No comments:
Post a Comment