Featuring:
Chris Pexa, American Indian Studies, CLA
Jim Rock, Dakhóta scholar
Waŋblí Mayášleča (Francis Yellow), Lakȟóta Wičaȟčala

This event is an open conversation around Chris Pexa’s book, Translated Nation: Rewriting the Dakhóta Oyáte, which examines literary works and oral histories by Dakhóta intellectuals and is a critical tool for correcting the misrepresentations these communities have endured within the violent settler colonial state.
 

Pexa will give an overview and the context of his book (about the allotment and assimilation era typically regarded with the opening of the Carlisle Indian School in 1879 and with Congress’s passage of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934), followed by a conversation with Dakhóta and Lakȟóta scholars and artists Jim Rock and Lakȟóta Wičaȟčala (Francis Yellow) on the enduring meanings of thióšpaye kinship, art, and activism for the Ochéti Šakówiŋ Oyáte (People of the Seven Council Fires, or Dakhóta/Lakȟóta/Nakhóta) today.  

The discussion will offer a view to the ways in which Očhéti Šakówiŋ intellectuals took American settler-colonial demands and translated, or critically reframed, these into terms and uses consistent with tribal ethics, gender understandings, and social practices of the thióšpaye, or extended family.

After a discussion as a group, the three will open the event for conversations and questions from attendees.

Christopher Pexa is an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Nation and assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota.

NOTE: As a follow up to this event, the IAS will be hosting an informal reading group to discuss Translated Nation: Rewriting the Dakhóta Oyáte, on Friday, March 19. You can find the event details here.