Sherman Alexie
Great Lakes History Conference: Sherman Alexie & Ned Blackhawk
When
Friday, November 13, 2009
7:00 PM
Where
GVSU Eberhard Center, 301 W. Fulton, Pew Grand Rapids Campus
Category
Humanities,
Literary Arts
Description
The 34th annual Great Lakes History Conference, sponsored by Grand Valley State University's Department of History, will focus on the theme "Indigenous Peoples of the Globe: Colonization and Adaptation."
Along with exchanging ideas and research, a series of panels will focus on innovative ways of teaching this year's topic to students at every level. The two-day conference will feature keynote speakers Sherman Alexie on November 13 and Ned Blackhawk on November 14.
Alexie is an author, poet, and screenwriter. He was named one of The New Yorker's 20 top writers for the 21st century. The New York Times Book Review described him as "one of the major lyric voices of our time." He has written several books including Reservation Blues, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. He also wrote and produced the film, Smoke Signals.
Blackhawk will be the keynote speaker at noon on Saturday, November 14th. Dr. Ned Blackhawk is a professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. He holds graduate degrees in history from the University of Washington and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of the award-winning study Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the early American West. Professor Blackhawk has written and lectured widely on issues regarding American Indian history. An enrolled member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada, he taught for ten years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before joining the faculty at Yale.
Blackhawk has won the following awards for his book Violence over the Land:
2006 William P. Clements Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book on Southwestern America
2007 Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians
2007 Robert M. Utley Award, sponsored by the Western History Association
2007 Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Book Award, American Society of Ethnohistory
2007 Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize, American Studies Association
2008 John C. Ewers Western History Association Prize
For more information call the GVSU History Department at (616) 331-3298, or visit
www.gvsu.edu/history.