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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Ashley Torres Carrasquillo will establish a project that seeks to counter the levels of violence and poverty experienced by mainly Black, disabled, and LGBTQ+ youth in public housing in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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Dr. Yesika Ordaz has been accepted for a summer fellowship program at Duke University called, Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement (SITPA). 

Congrats Dr. Ordaz!

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Dr. Rabaka has been appointed Research Fellow in the College of Human Sciences at UNISA, Nelson Mandela's alma mater.

Congrats, Dr. Rabaka!

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Congratulations to Professor Medak-Saltzman, who won the 2015 Ford Post-Doctoral Fellowship, one of twenty-three postdoctoral fellowships awarded nationally across all disciplines! Faculty at the University of British Columbia in the Department of History and the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program will host Dr. Medak-Saltzman for the 2015-2016 academic year. 

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Dr. Kwame Holmes was recently awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the (CAUSE). Congrats, Professor Holmes!

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