Thursday, September 11, 2003 W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series Rethinking Souls of the Black Folk: Celebration, Content, and Context" 1:00 p.m. Johnston Hall (Middletown campus) 7:30 p.m. Hall Auditorium (Oxford campus) Co-sponsored by the Black World Studies Program and the Division of Student Affairs.

Manning Marable, professor and director of the African-American Studies Program at Columbia University, specializes in African-American history. He received his B.A. from Earlham College in 1971 and his Ph.D. from University of Maryland in 1976. His published works include Black Liberation in Conservative America (1997), Speaking Truth to Power: Essays on Race, Radicalism and Resistance (1996), Beyond Black and White (1995), The Crisis of Color and Democracy (1992), and Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945–1990 (1991). His forthcoming books for 1998 include Black Leadership: Ideology, Politics and Culture in African-American History, What Black America Thinks: Race, Ideology, and Political Power, and, co-edited with Leith Mullings, African American Thought.

To learn more about Dr. Marable please visit our Resources 2001 page.

John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies, Dr. Gilkes is also Director of African-American Studies Program at Colby College and assistant pastor of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass. Her work includes research in African-American religious history; race and ethnicity in the U.S.; comparative race relations; African-American women and social change; the sociology of religion; social problems and public policy. Recent publications include: “If It Wasn’t for the Women…”: Black Women’s Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community (2001); “The Sanctified Church and the Color Line: Reorganization, Social Change, and the African American Religious Experience” in Religion in a Changing World, Cousineau, ed. (1998); “The Margin as the Center of a Theory of History: African American Women, Social Change, and the Sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois” in W. E. B. Du Bois on Race and Culture: Philosophy, Politics, and Poetics, Bell, Grosholz, and Stewart, eds. (1996).

Friday, September 12, 2003 3 :30 p.m. Oxford Uptown Parks Rain location: Withrow Court (Oxford campus) An unforgettable opening event! An opportunity to enjoy Capoeira Angola workshops, movement and music. The group will be performing a Roda, and will offer workshops for children. Co-sponsored by Center for American and World Cultures, City of Oxford, Division of Student Affairs.

Grupo Acupe is dedicated to teaching the art of Capoeira Angola. Capoeira Angola is a cultural art form from Brazil which incorporates aspects of music, dance, martial arts, and gymnastics. Our teacher, Contra Mestre Iuri Hart Santos is from Salvador, Bahia and was raised in the cultures and traditions of Capoeira. Iuri has been teaching Capoeira in Indiana for over 4 years.

Source: Grupo Acupe's Website

Friday, September 12, 2003 5:30 Oxford Uptown Parks Rain location: Withrow Court (Oxford campus)

Sumakta is a group of musicians from Ecuador that brings you the spirit and energy of the Andes Mountains and magically transports you there through music played with unique and traditional instruments, so you can feel the ancient and present culture of the Inca Nation.

Friday, September 12, 2003 Latin Dance Party 7:00-11:00 p.m. Oxford Uptown Parks Rain location: Withrow Court (Oxford campus) Enjoy the beat of salsa! Professional Latin dance instructor, Salsa dance demonstrations, live music. Be the star of the night, there will be a dance contest with trophies for the winners! Co-sponsored by Center for American and World Cultures, City of Oxford, Division of Student Affairs.

Salsa Caliente! was formed in January 2001 by two friends with a passion for Latin music. Barry Miller, whose family is from Honduras, grew up in Tampa's Latin quarter, Ybor City, where he developed a passion for Latin-Caribbean music. Wilfredo Agosto played in Latin bands in Puerto Rico and Florida before moving to Cincinnati where he founded Orquesta Tempo. When the two first met in October 2000 they began to talk about forming an exciting new Latin band and within two months their idea became a reality. On February 23, 2001, Salsa Caliente! debuted to an SRO audience at the 20th Century Theater!

Source:http://www.salsa-caliente.com

Ms. Clara Inés Sánchez Arciniegas is a professor at the Universidad Externado de Colombia, School of Hotel and Tourism Management. She has worked extensively in the area of culture and tourism, for the private as well as the public sectors in Colombia. She is an expert in the subject of cultural and intellectual patrimony in Colombia. She has experience in the production of specialized publications, including tourism guides and text books. She has worked in tourism promotion projects with the Bogotá Mayor’s Office, Secretary of Culture (Ministerio de Cultura, República de Colombia), and the Colombian Tourism Promotion Fund (Fondo de Promoción Turística de Colombia). She has written tourism guides for most Colombian cities. She is the author of Patrimonio cultural y desarrollo turístico sostenible (Cultural Patrimony and Sustainable Tourism Development) in Patrimonio cultural y desarrollo sostenible (Cultural Patrimony and Sustainable Development), and Patrimonio cultural y turismo ético en América Latina y Colombia (Cultural Patrimony and Ethical Tourism in Latin America and Colombia).

The English Department at Miami University is proud to announce the first Marjorie Cook Poetry Festival & Conference.

In conjunction with the Marjorie Cook Poetry Festival of readings by nationally prominent African American poets, Miami University's creative writing program will host a conference on "Diversity in African American Poetry."

In a recent panel discussion regarding "What's African American about African American Poetry," poet-scholar Harryette Mullen warned: "In our anxiety to embody or represent authentic black identity, we may impoverish our cultural heritage and simplify the complexity of our historical experience. As poets and as people of African descent, we are in danger of only performing blackness, rather than exploring the infinite permutations of our lived experience and creative imagination as black people." Surveying the flourishing poetic landscape, we conclude that many American poets of African descent have negotiated such dangers successfully. All of the most visible schools of contemporary poetic practice include distinguished African-American poets. There are also many successful African American poets whose work does not fit easily within any of the categories by which American poetry has been sorted by critics and publicists. Our conference seeks to explore the complex variety of experiences, expressions, experiments, and influences represented in "African American poetry" and thus prevent this overarching category from obscuring the stylistic diversity of individual artists or imposing an identity politics upon those who may prefer to define their writing according to other criteria. Papers and panels that will help us foster an appreciation of diversity in African American poetry are welcome.

Cuban-born American novelist and journalist Cristina García established a reputation as an important new voice in Latin American literature with her debut novel Dreaming in Cuban (1992), in which she explores the displacement of personal and cultural identity of Cuban émigrés. Dreaming in Cuban, which was nominated for a National Book Award, chronicles the irrevocable effects of the Cuban revolution on the del Pino family from the 1930s to the early 1980s. García's second novel, The Agüero Sisters (1997), continues her exploration of the fracturing of identity and the quest for what constitutes Cuban-ness. Her latest novel, Monkey Hunting (2003), explores Cuban-Chinese identity, immigrant life, and the way family history evolves in a multicultural Cuba.

Arturo Arias is Director of Latin American Studies at the University of Redlands. Co-writer for the screenplay for the film El Norte (1984), his most recent novel in English is titled After the Bombs (Curbstone Press, 1990). Author of five novels in Spanish: Despues de las bombas (1979), Itzam Na (1981), Jaguar en Llamas (1989), Los caminos de Paxil (1991) and Cascabel (1998), and winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize and the Anna Seghers Scholarship for two of them, he is a specialist on ethnic issues and subaltern identity, a subject that is a central theme in both his fiction and his academic work. In 1998 he published two books of literary criticism, one on Guatemalan 20th Century fiction, La identidad de la palabra (The Identity of the Word), and another one on contemporary Central American fiction, Gestos Ceremoniales (Ceremonial Gestures). He has finished a new novel in Spanish, Sopa de caracol, and in 2001 published a critical edition of Miguel Angel Asturias's Mulata, and The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, dealing with the recent polemic about Rigoberta Menchú testimonial. He has served as President of the Latin American Studies Association for 2001-2003.

Source: http://www.curbstone.org

featuring Mr. Made Lasmawan

The term gamelan identifies music unique to Indonesia as well as a collection of instruments that consist of metallophones, tuned and untuned gongs, drums, flutes, and a stringed instrument. The English translation for gamelan is somewhat equivalent to band or orchestra. In Western culture, band can refer to a musical instrumentation, style, or genre (e.g. marching band, concert band, rock band, etc.). The Gamelan Gong Kebjar is the specific type of gamelan set purchased by Miami University consisting of 30 different instruments. It is currently the most popular type of Balinese gamelan. Miami's set of instruments have forty-year-old bronze keys and gongs which are mounted on newly carved wooden frames. The appearance of the instruments is as aesthetically appealing as the music produced.

Source: Miami University, School of Fine Arts Curriculum Guide, Spring 2003.

Glen Velez is an internationally recognized frame drummer, composer, scholar, and teacher. Velez has created his own musical style inspired by both Western percussion and frame drum performance styles from around the world. His concerts include a beautiful array of instruments such as the Egyptian riq, (a small, intricately inlaid tambourine), the Irish bodhran, (a large single-headed drum), and the North African tar (often seen in the hands of desert nomads).

Source: Glen Velez's Website.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Eguie Castrillo is an accomplished percussionist who has toured extensively around the world. Performances with Tito Puente, Arturo Sandoval, Steve Winwood, Michael Brecker, Ruben Blades, Paquito D' Rivera, Michel Camilo, KC and the Sunshine Band, Dave Valentin, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Jennifer Lopez. Recordings include Hot House, with Arturo Sandoval, The Latin Train, with Arturo Sandoval, sound track The Perez Family, for MGM, Get Down Live!, with KC and the Sunshine Band, and A GRP Celebration of the Songs of the Beatles. Currently an associate Professor at Berklee College of Music. Eguie Castrillo is endorsed by Toca Percussion.

Source: www.neemaproductions.com

Kanniks Kannikeswaran is an Engineer by education and an IT consultant (Business Intelligence) by profession. He is also a writer, musician, composer and music educator with several albums, productions and scores to his credit. His work - in Templenet as well as in other projects draws upon his technical skills, and his strong background in Indian culture and music traditions.

Source: http://www.templenet.com/Press/kanniks.html

The Cincinnati Klezmer Project was founded by pianist Dr. Josh Moss in 1995. Professor Michèle Gingras of Miami University joined as lead clarinetist in 1996. The group performs in most of the Jewish celebrations in the Cincinnati and tri-state area, and was a performing guest at the International Clarinet Association in Belgium, Indiana University, University of Denver, University of Oklahoma, Cornell University, World JamFest in Cincinnati, the Berklee Performance Center, and many others. Their CD, "Klezmer's Greatest Hits" is available after the performance or by writing to Michèle Gingras at gingram@muohio.edu.

A. Saravanan is a young talented exponent of the Tavil, percussion instrument of South India. He learned the instrument from his father Sri A. Agoram and from Sri T. R. Subramanyam. He has toured India and the Far East, accompanying many fine musicians on the classical concert stage, including appearances with the Ghatam Vidwan, Shri T. H. Vinayakram.

Source: http://www.imsom.org/events/20020502.html

PANSY CHANG, violoncellist, is presently Assistant Professor of Violoncello at Miami University of Ohio. She has performed in North America, Europe, Asia, and Israel as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Chamber Music Northwest, on Bob Sherman's "Listening Room" - WQXR New York, and in both the Yale University Spectrum Series and the Yale Faculty Artist Series in New Haven. Concerto appearances include performances with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC, the Oregon Symphony, and many regional orchestras in the Washington, DC and Portland metropolitan areas. In 1992 Ms. Chang was awarded a Fulbright Grant for study in the United Kingdom, and was a semi-finalist in the 1993 Leonard Rose International Cello Competition. Prior to joining the Miami University music faculty, she served for two years as Assistant to Professor Aldo Parisot and Lecturer in Violoncello at Yale University School of Music, and for four years as a member of the Oregon Symphony. Ms. Chang earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at the University of Southern California and Yale University School of Music, respectively, and principal teachers include Aldo Parisot, William Pleeth, Eleonore Schoenfeld, Evelyn Elsing, and Susan Kelly.

There is little doubt that jazz guitar has entered a new and exciting realm when Dan Faehnle takes the stage. With the technical prowess of a jazz giant, Ohio native Faehnle has taken the West Coast by storm since moving to the Pacific Northwest's jazz hot spot, Portland, Oregon.

From an uptempo bebop anthem to a languid, emotional reading of a ballad, Faehnle's nimble fingers caress his guitar. Whether dazzling his jazz club audiences or adding the perfect support to a recording project, this young jazz artist is destined to put his name alongside the other guitar greats.

Beginning in 2000, Faehnle stepped into the guitar chair with Diana Krall, performing on numerous world tours, television shows, radio and media events. He continues to be an integral part of the Diana Krall quartet on her current “Look of Love” world tour, receiving accolades from such publications as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, JazzTimes and Downbeat magazines, as well as many international publications.

While based in Portland, Dan established relationships with such legendary jazz artists as Leroy Vinnegar, Chuck Israels, Dave Frishberg and Dick Berk. His ongoing association with these musicians has led to numerous live performances and CD recordings. Faehnle has also worked with such noted musicians as Eddie Harris, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Jeff Hamilton and Rob McConnell. Other significant colleagues have been Mel Brown, Ron Steen, Nancy King, Dave Friesen and Rebecca Kilgore.

Faehnle’s recording credits begin with his own debut release, “My Ideal”, a straight ahead jazz CD which showcases Faehnle’s strength of melodic content and groove. “My Ideal” also features longtime friend and pianist Larry Fuller (now touring with Ray Brown), bassist Ed Bennett, pianist Tony Pacini, and Mel Brown on drums. Other recording credits include CDs with Leroy Vinnegar, Chuck Israels, Dave Frishberg, Rebecca Kilgore, Ben Wolfe, Dick Berk and Tom Grant. Dan also appears on the CD “Sympathique” with the popular band Pink Martini.

Influenced by bebop pioneer saxophonist Charlie Parker and such diverse guitarists as George Benson and Wes Montgomery, Faehnle displays the versatility of a well-studied artist, “but within that tradition makes a compelling, up-to-the-minute statement.”

Tuesday, October 7, 2003 "Negotiating Culture on the Border: Tijuana as a Case Study" 4:00 p.m. 46 Culler Hall (Oxford campus). Co-sponsored by the Department of Anhropology and Latin American Studies Program (LAS).

Contrary to its popular image, Tijuana is not simply a city of crime, vice, and tourist traps. Indeed, this is a city that has received international attention for its booming cultural life and for the ways that it is forging a cutting-edge identity for itself. Because of the creative ways that Tijuana has negotiated and built upon its border identity, it is the perfect example of what that area can and does contribute to the wider Mexican cultural scene. Its proximity to the United States also has
made it a rich exporter of cultural products to museums, music and arts
festivals and literary circles on the other side. In this talk, Professor Nigro will explore this diverse cultural production, explicating its relationship to the historical and political realities of Tijuana.

Adjunct Professor of African American Studies. Jean Gimbel Lane Professor of the Humanities (2000-2001). Ph.D. Yale University. Areas of interest include Nietzsche, Du Bois, critical race theory, African-American political thought, nineteenth century philosophy, existentialism, and philosophy as/and literature. Before coming to Northwestern, Gooding-Williams was George Lyman Crosby 1896 Professor of Philosophy at Amherst College. He is the author of Zarathustra's Dionysian Modernism (Stanford, 2001). He is also the editor of Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising (Routledge, 1993); editor of the Massachusetts Review special issue on Du Bois (Spring-Summer 1994); and co-editor of the Bedford Books edition of The Souls of Black Folk (1997). Gooding-Williams's essay, "Race, Multiculturalism and Democracy " (Constellations, Spring 1998), was selected for publication in the Philosopher's Annual, Volume XXI, a collection of the "ten best" articles to appear in a journal of philosophy in 1998. Another essay, "Du Bois's Counter-Sublime," was selected for inclusion in the Norton Critical Edition of The Souls of Black Folk.

The internationally-acclaimed Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit will perform the world debut of this original theatre and music performance piece on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Detroit to Dakar is based on the real-life experiences of fourteen teenagers from Mosaic who traveled this summer to Dakar, Senegal in Africa to perform and participate in a cultural exchange with the African Roots Choir. Drawn from the diaries of these teenagers, the performance piece focuses on the powerful life-changing experiences of the journey: the tears and laughter, the cultural clashes and cross-cultural connections, and the blending of music from two continents. Like past productions brought to Miami University, Detroit to Dakar will feature Mosaic’s trademark dynamic combination of high-energy dramatic performance and breathtaking musical harmonies. Mosaic’s award-winning performances have toured throughout the U.S. and to Europe, Asia and Africa.

Dr. Naidoo will reflect on his journey as a black psychologist within the context of apartheid South Africa; coming to the USA as a Fulbright scholar and completing his internship training at Miami's Student Counseling Service; and his return home to be part of the transformation of his country's divided and traumatized society. His presentation will focus on his transition as an activist at a historically black
university to being the first black professor at an historically white university and will reflect both developmental and multi-cultural narratives.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003 Service Learning Workshop (Latin American Studies Program, Department of Spanish and Portuguese) Thursday, October 16, 2003 Service Learning Workshop (Foreign Languages) Co-sponsored by Center for American and World Cultures and the Office of Service-Learning and Civic Leadership. For more information, please contact, Dr. Mary Jane Berman, Director, Center for American and World Cultures (bermanmj@muohio.edu)

Dr. David C. Julseth, during his undergraduate studies, spent a year at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain. He then completed his B.A. in International Relations and Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he also received an M.A. in Hispanic Literature and Linguistics. At the University of Texas-Austin, where he did his Ph.D. in Spanish, Dr. Julseth accompanied groups of students to Guanajuato, Mexico. His doctoral dissertation combined his love of Spain and Mexico, Art and Literature through a study of the influence of a painting by Hieronymous Bosch in Terra Nostra by the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes.

At Belmont University, Dr. Julseth enjoys organizing activities with the B.U. Spanish Club and the Casa Española. He teaches Spanish at all levels and literature courses on both Hispanic American and Peninsular themes. Lately, his professional research and study abroad programs have led him to Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, and Argentina. Ask him about jungle safaris and Tango dancing!

Source: Belmont University's Website

Wednesday, October 22, 2003 "Multiple Maya: Multiethnicity, Mobility, and the Collapse of Maya Civilization" 4:00 -6:00 p.m. The Great Room, MacMillan Hall (Oxford campus) Co-sponsored by the Center for American and World Cultures and Lectures in Contemporary Anthropology.

The spectacular achievements of the ancient Maya in science, hieroglyphics, art, and architecture have fascinated archaeologists for over a century. Archaeological descriptions of the ancient Maya tend to treat them as relatively homogenous and immobile, despite the diversity of contemporary Maya groups across Mexico and Central America and their well-documented historical migrations. Can we see precursors to the historical diversity and mobility of the Maya in the archaeological record? The collapse of Maya civilization in the Belize Valley (ca. A.D. 800-1050) represents a period of rapid and dramatic change in
settlement, architecture, and artifacts. Many stylistic changes at this time fused exotic elements with local styles and techniques, suggesting substantial interregional interaction in a time of crisis. The Maya collapse in the Belize Valley presents an opportunity to explore contemporary issues including the politics of identity, the dynamics of population movement, identity on frontiers and boundaries, and varied models of assimilation, conflict, and sociopolitical change.

Monday, October 27, 2003 "Anti-racism, Anti-colonialism, and Social Justice Activism: Ideological Reorientation and Life Choices in Social Movement Mobilization" 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. Leonard Theatre, 121 Peabody Hall (Oxford campus) Tuesday, October 28, 2003 Brown Bag Luchtime Discussion Noon - 1:00 p.m. 115 MacMillan Hall (Oxford campus) Mr. Mann will discuss his latest (2002) book, Dispatches from Durban: Firsthand Commentaries on the World Conference Against Racism and Post-September 11 Movement Strategies. To pick up your copy, please come to the Center for American and World Cultures. Please contact Dorothy Falke (falkeda@muohio.edu) or call 529-8309 to register to participate. Tuesday, October 28, 2003 "Fighting Back Against the Empire: Antiracist, Environmental Justice, and Anti-Imperialist Strategies for the 21st Century" 8:00 p.m. Hall Auditorium (Oxford campus) Book signing and sale of Mr. Mann's (2002) book, Dispatches from Durban: Firsthand Commentaries on the World Conference Against Racism and Post-September 11 Movement Strategies, following lecture. Co-sponsored by the Black World Studies Program, Center for American and World Cultures, Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine, Center for Education and Cultural Studies, Department of Educational Leadership, and Institute of Environmental Sciences.

Eric Mann is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. He has been a civil rights, anti-Vietnam war, labor, and environmental organizer for 35 years with the Congress of Racial Equality, the Students for a Democratic Society, the League of Revolutionary Struggle (ML), and the United Auto Workers, including eight years on auto assembly lines. He was the lead organizer of the labor/community campaign to Keep General Motors Van Nuys Open that stopped GM from closing the auto plant for ten years. He is the author of three books, Comrade George: An Investigation into the Life, Political Thought, and Assassination of George Jackson; Taking on General Motors: A Case Study of the UAW Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open; and L.A.’s Lethal Air: New Strategies for Environmental Organizing. He is a founding member of the Strategy Center and of the Bus Riders Union (BRU) and sits on the BRU Planning Committee.
In recent years, he has focused on the training of a new generation of organizers, where he runs the “Organizers Exchange” at the Center’s National School for Strategic Organizing. The Center has recruited and trained more than 50 young organizers, all of whom are active in social movements, over the past 5 years. All of his work is centered on the strategy of building the “antiracist, anti-imperialist united front.” Within that strategy, he focuses on what he calls “transformative” organizing, a theory and strategy that is in sharp contradiction to the more traditional “bread and butter,” narrow issue-oriented and self-interested theories that are rooted in “American pragmatism,” which is usually code for U.S. imperialism. His effort to raise his theory to the level of practice is reflected in recent articles, The 2000 Presidential Election and the Anti-Imperialist Left, with Lian Hurst Mann, (Ahora Now publications), Class, Community and Empire: Towards an Anti-Imperialist Strategy for Labor (published in Rising from the Ashes “A Race Struggle, a Class Struggle, a Women’s Struggle All at the Same Time: Lessons from the Buses of Los Angeles” in Socialist Register 2001; and “Towards the Anti-Racist, Anti-Imperialist United Front: Lessons from L.A. Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union" (published in Souls, a Journal of Black Politics and Culture). Eric participated in the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa where he played an active role in the U.S. NGO delegation. His articles and analyses of the South African liberation struggle and the world antiracist Left, Dispatches from Durban, is now available at www.frontlinespress.com.
His main work since 1994 has been building the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a multi-racial antiracist organization of 250 active members, 3,000 dues paying members, and 50,000 bus riders supporters, building a grassroots base focusing on the low-wage working class of color and antiracist whites. The Bus Riders Union/Sindicato de Pasajeros is now holding membership meetings in English, Spanish, and Korean, has won major legal victories in its landmark civil rights case, Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union v. Los Angeles MTA, and is the recognized class representative of 400,000 L.A. bus riders—where they have turned the buses of Los Angeles into a moving site of contestation. The Strategy Center and BRU are working to help support and encourage other urban anti-racist movements and institutions throughout the U.S.

Monday, October 27, 2003 Brownbag Lunchtime Discussion "Women Hold Up Half the Sky: In the Workplace, in Communities, and at Home, What Do We Want to Teach Our Daughters About Imperialism?" Noon-1:00 p.m. Women's Center, 210 MacMillan Hall (Oxford campus) Monday, October 27, 2003 "Ideological Reorientation in a School of Social Life: Practicing Equality of Languages in Building the Bus Riders Union" 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. 124 Irvin Hall (Oxford campus)

The National School for Strategic Organizing, housed at the Labor/Community Strategy Center, is a site of learning inside a social movement. We call it a "school of social life." Learning is generated by daily organizing practice in the mega-city of
Los Angeles--a hot spot in the transnational processes that characterize imperialism. Knowledge is created through action and reflection in a multiracial, multinational, and multilingual movement of working class women and men. Prominent here is the Bus Riders Union, which has taken on the equality of languages as central to its mass campaign. Seminar type discussion, facilitated by Dr. Lian Hurst Mann.

Alina Troyano, Cuban-born writer and performance artist, is the recipient of a 1999 Obie award for Sustained Excellence of Performance, and named by el Diario as "una de las mujeres mas destacadas de 1998." She has presented her work nationally and internationally in both English and Spanish.
As a writer she has distinguished herself since 1985, when she was selected to participate in Intars musical Theatre Labs under the direction of Graciela Daniele and George Ferrencz. She has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts for Performance Art, as well as for screenwriting and playwriting. She has received a CINTAS Foundation fellowship for her literary work, as well as a 2001 writing fellowship from The Mark Taper Forum, a 2002 writing fellowship from the Cuban Arts Foundation, and in 2003 the Plumed Warrior writing award from LLEGO, a National Latin Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Organization.
In 2000, Beacon Press published I, Carmelita Tropicana: Performing Between Cultures, a Lambda Award nominee for theatre, which offers the first comprehensive collection of work that includes plays and scripts from Memories of the Revolution, (written with Uzi Parnes), to Your Kunst is Your Waffen, (written with film director Ela Troyano). A review of the book appears in the Women & Performance: Journal of Feminist Theory (2000), Issue #22: "Holy Terrors, Latin American Women Performers." Her acclaimed solo Milk of Amnesia was first reprinted in The Drama Review, along with an interview and feature essay, and has subsequently appeared in Latinas On Stage, eds. by A. Arrizon & L. Manzor, and in the award winning anthology O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance (1998), eds. by D. Roman & H. Hughes. Memorias de la Revolucion/Memories of the Revolution was published in Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology, eds. by A. Sandoval & N. Sternbach. Carnaval, a play written with Uzi Parnes appeared as an excerpt in the "Bridges to Cuba" issue of The Michigan Quarterly Review (Fall 1994), eds. R. Behar & J. Leon.
In addition, her work appears in the following publications: In a Different Light, eds. N. Blake, L. Rinder, A. Scholder, City Lights; Adventures in Lesbian Reading, (1995) eds. E. Myles & L. Kotz; Cooking with Honey:What Literary Lesbians Eat (1996), ed. A. Scholder; Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age, ed. E. Shohat; Corpus Delecti - Performance Art of the Americas, ed. C. Fusco: The Queerest Art: Essays on Lesbian and Gay Theatre (2002), eds. Alisa Solomon & Framji Minwalla. A number of academic scholars have made her work the subject of theoretical essays, including José Esteban Muñoz in Disidentifications, Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999); Sally Banes in Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism, (1994); Alicia Arrizon in Latina Performance: Traversing the Stage, (2000) and Lourdes Torres & Immaculada Pertusa in Tortilleras: Hispanic and U.S. Latina Lesbian Expression (2003). Ms. Troyano is a veteran performer. In 1990 she was one of the artists selected to present work at "The Decade Show," an important survey of art dealing with identity politics sponsored by The Museum of Hispanic Art, the Studio Museum of Harlem, The New Museum of Contemporary Art. As a member of Tour de Fuerza, Nuevo Latino Dance and Performance group, sponsored by Dance Theatre Workshop, she toured with the multi-media piece, Candela (a collaboration with Uzi Parnes and Ela Troyano), with presentations at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York City, Dance Umbrella in Boston, the Kimo Theater in Albuquerque, Teatro Lazo in Mexico City, from 1989-90. She has presented her solo, Milk of Amnesia (directed by Ela Troyano ) from 1994 to the present, in numerous theatres and museums, including The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, Centre de Cultura Contemporanea in Barcelona (as part of the art exhibit, "Cuba la Isla Posible"); the Menead Theatre in Calgary, the ATHE conference in New York City, the American Studies conference in Montreal, Performance Space 122 in New York City, The Theater Offensive in Boston, New World Theater in Amherst, Duke University, Cornell University,and Rutgers University. Single Wet Female (2002), co-written with Marga Gomez, was presented as a work in progress at the Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco and in New York City at Performance Space 122. It was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding New York Theatre: Off Off Broadway.
Her performance art pieces have also been presented extensively. Chicken Sushi (1987) was part of New York Funk and Comedy Night and was shown in Munich, Erlangen and in the Thalia Theatre of Hamburg. Bon Bon New York (2000) (in Spanish) was presented at the Hispanic Literature Conference in Madrid. Lesbian Genders was featured for a panel at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Opinions of the Hoi Polloi (1997) was part of a cabaret at The Public Theatre in New York City. In 2003 her performances included: A Tail of Two Cities (excerpt) at the Brava Theatre in San Francisco and Stanford University; Comedy Por Favor! at Somarts, San Francisco; Latina Think Tank at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics Virgin Cabaret at the Kimmel Center in New York City.
The film Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen, a collaboration with film director Ela Troyano, was funded by Independent television services, aired in 1995, and continues to be shown on the public broadcasting service PBS. The film won for best short at the Berlin Film Festival and the audience award at the 18th International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. The film --and its star-- toured Germany as a double feature with the Cuban film, "Strawberry and Chocolate."
Ms. Troyano has a variety of teaching experiences: Instructor of Performance, in The Experimental Theatre Wing of New York University and in the Masters Program of Performance Studies at New York University; Instructor of writing at the Institute of the Arts, European Dance Development Center, Arnhem, Holland. She has taught writing and performance workshops at: Northwestern University, Hampshire College, Tulane University, Esperanza Center of San Antonio, Vassar College, Sarah Lawrence, Smith and acted as Dramaturge to children at Andies Playhouse in New Hampshire and to High School students in the Diva Project of the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey.
Her future projects include a play about Sor Juana (based on the 17th century Mexican poet), and a book she is editing with Holly Hughes documenting the first 10 years of the WOW theatre, forthcoming from Michigan Press.
Ms. Troyano is a member of New York Citys wider cultural scene, serving on the Board of Directors of Performance Space 122, and is also a member of SAG, and AEA.

Photograph courtesy of Uzi Parnes.

Saturday, November 22, 2003 Hall Auditorium Dinner served after the program at the Talawanda Middle School.

Diwali, the Hindu "festival of lights," is the best known of Hindu festivals and certainly the brightest. Amid the dark skies of autumn, lights illumine homes throughout India and its diaspora, while families celebrate with visits, gifts, and feasts. Diwali generally lasts for five days, beginning on the 14th day of the dark half of the Hindu calendar month of Asvina.

Diwali's name comes from the Sanskrit deepavali, row of lights. According to tradition, Diwali celebrates the joyous homecoming of Lord Rama, hero of the epic poem the Ramayana, after 14 years of exile. When Lord Rama and his wife Sita returned to rule their country, their people lit the way with small oil lamps called diye.

Like other aspects of Hinduism- the worlds oldest religion-the origins of Diwali are remote. The celebration probably has its roots in ancient harvest festivals. And like Hinduism, observance of Diwali is richly varied among the faiths 800 million adherents.
Source: 2000-2002 Family Education Network

"Making a Life"

Dr. Appiah will talk about the role of our social identities in structuring the ethical project of planning our lives. He explores the work of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), who believed that each of us should play the central part in planning and managing our own lives. This ideal of individuality is essentially an idea in the ancient field of ethics, as Aristotle understood that term, because Aristotle meant by ethics something like 'normative reflection on the making of our lives.’ Making a life requires not only attention to our obligations to other people (and, of course, to animals and, perhaps, various aspects of the natural world) but also the evaluation of projects -- among them friendship, marriage, career, vocation -- whose success or failure will determine whether our lives, taken as a whole, are successful.

Dr. K. Anthony Appiah specializes in moral and political philosophy, African and African-American Studies, literary theory and criticism, and issues of personal and political identity, multiculturalism and nationalism. His writings include books, essays and articles along with reviews, short fiction, three novels and a volume of poetry. With Amy Gutmann, Appiah wrote Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race, which won the Annual Book Award of the North American Society for Social
Philosophy, the Ralph J. Bunche Award of the American Political Science Association and the Gustavus Myers Award for the Study of Human Rights. His book In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture was honored by the African Studies Association, the Cleveland Foundation and the Modern Language Association. Appiah also is co-editor, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience and the Encarta Africana CD-ROM. His most recent projects are a set of Tanner Lectures on human Values and an annotated collection of proverbs from his homeland, Asante, Ghana, on which he collaborated with his mother. Appiah received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Clare College, Cambridge University.

Formerly a professor at Harvard, Dr. Appiah now teaches philosophy and Afro-American studies at Princeton University. His philosophical research concerns the relationship between language and the mind, but he also writes frequently on African and African-American intellectual history and political philosophy.
Among his books are For Truth in Semantics; In My Father's House: Africa in The Philosophy of Culture, which was listed as a NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book in 1992; and Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race. His newest work, Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, will appear from Oxford University Press in 2003. He has also published three mystery novels.

Appiah has been chairman of the Joint Committee on African Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is currently an editor of Transition magazine, associate director of the Black periodical Literature Project, president of the Society for African Philosophy in North America, and a board member of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute.

Born to a Ghanaian father and a British mother but now a US citizen, Appiah holds the distinction of being the first person of African descent to earn a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in England.

ALAS (Association of Latin and American Students), BSAA (Black Student Action Association), MSPA (Minority Students' Professional Association) are proud to present: "African American and Latino Intercultural Relations"

Rosa Alicia Clemente is a Black Puerto Rican grassroots organizer, hip hop activist, journalist, and entrepreneur. Founder of Know Thyself Productions, Rosa has created two successful college/university tours "Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win, Speak Truth to Power" and the ACLU College Freedom Tour. Currently she is a co-host/co-producer for WBAI's "Where We Live", and is writing a novel titled "Siempre Palante; Young Lords and the Legacy of Youth Activism and Resistance."

"Modern-Day Slavery in the Sudan: Impact on the Education of Southern Sudanese Children"

Dr. Poggo is an Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies at Ohio State University (Mansfield Campus). He received his B.Ed. from the University of Juba (Sudan) in 1986, Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Polytechnic (United Kingdom) in 1990, M.A. in African History from Memphis State University (USA) in 1992, and PhD. in African History from the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA) in 1999.

Dr. Poggo’s research focuses on the Sudan. He is currently working on two manuscripts. The first one is on Sudan’s First Civil War (under review), and the second one is on “Kuku Oral History and Culture.”

Thursday, February 19, 2004 "Sexuality and Its Discontents: What's Race, Class, and War Got to Do with It?" 8:00 p.m. Hall Auditorium (Oxford campus) Co-sponsored by the Center for American and World Cultures, SPECTRUM, and the Women's Center.

Urvashi Vaid is a community organizer and grass-roots activist who has been involved in the gay/lesbian and feminist movements since the early 1980s. Her most prominent position was as executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), one of the nation's oldest and most influential gay rights organizations. She served as executive director for three years and worked as that organization's director of public information for an additional three years.

Vaid has not limited her community service to gay/lesbian rights, however. She is a former staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she worked on behalf of prisoners in the ACLU's National Prison Project. She described what she sees as the nature of her work for Vanity Fair, explaining, "The movement I work in might be called a gay and lesbian movement, but its mission is the liberation of all people. To me, my mission is about ending sexism, about ending racism, and about ending homophobia."

Like nearly all lesbians and gays, Vaid has felt the terror of coming out of the closet (admitting her sexuality to her family, friends, and society at large). When she told her family, her father was not surprised, but her mother was devastated. Vaid told Vanity Fair, "I think I would have been a lesbian whether I grew up in India or America. Eventually I would have found it. This is how I feel about my sexuality. It's very very deep in me, and it was formed at an early age, and once I could name it and accept it, it became fixed."

Keynote speakers are AnaLouise Keating, coeditor of This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation and associate professor of Women's Studies at Texas Women's College, and Itumeleng Kimane, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Anthropology/Sociology, National University of Lesotho, Liaison for the OSSRESA. Her presentations include "HIV/AIDS and Gender" and "A Southern African Challenge: Information System, Data Bases and Sustaining Institutional Capacity."

Dr. Nancy "Rusty" Barceló is the Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity at the University of Washington. Dr. Barceló provides leadership in enhancing excellence through diversity by ensuring that minority and diversity interests are reflected in all aspects of university life. Through policy development, faculty development, community outreach and student services, she helps to shape an inclusive vision for students and faculty in higher education. She holds a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Iowa. Dr. Barceló has lectured throughout the country on such topics as multiculturalism, racism, gender identity, sexual orientation and the Latino experience. She has also taken her message abroad, including a 1998 tour to South Africa as a member of the delegation of the National Center for Urban Partnerships. As a panelist, committee member, keynote speaker and author, Dr Barceló has been instrumental in implementing effective solutions to the issues of diversity in higher education.

Dr. David Levering Lewis is Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor in the history department at Rutgers University. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Educated at Fisk and Columbia Universities and the London School of Economics and Political Science, Mr. Lewis is the author of several acclaimed books, including King, A Biography, When Harlem Was in Vogue, The Race to Fashoda, and W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1968-1919, which won the Pulitzer, Parkman, and Bancroft prizes, and was a finalist for The National Book Award and The National Book Critics Circle Award. He and his wife live in Manhattan.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004 8:00 p.m. Hall Auditorium (Oxford campus) Co-sponsored by the Center for American and World Cultures and the Women's Center.

"I am simply a vessel between Creator and this sacred instrument, the Native American Flute. Listen with an open heart and you will hear the whispers of the Ancient Ones. May their timeless voices soothe your soul." Mary Youngblood

A flutist of Aleut and Seminole ancestry, Mary Youngblood is one of the first Native American women to play the wooden flute, an instrument played traditionally by men. In recognition of her work, Youngblood has received numerous awards. In 1998 she was the first Native American woman to win the “Flutist of the Year” award, an honor bestowed upon her again in 1999. In 2000 she won the “Best Female Artist” award at the Native American Music Awards, and in 2002 she won the Grammy Award for the “Best Native American Music Album.”

Each of Youngblood’s recordings is unique and combines sounds and melodies derived from a variety of instrument and sources. She recorded her debut album, “The Offering’ in the huge underground chamber. She used the cave’s natural acoustics to produce haunting sounds rendered surreal by the sounds of dripping water.

In ‘Heart of the World’, she was accompanied by other musical instruments and Joanne Shenandoah’s singing. The inspiration for this album comes from the U’wa of the Colombian rainforest, whose precious land and resources are being threatened by oil companies. “Heart of the World” is the name given by the U’wa to their forest home. The earnings from the sale of each recording go to help them halt the drilling and destruction.

The Grammy winning, ‘Beneath the Raven Moon’ features Native American flute performances, as well as examples from Classical and Blues genres. The title of each track is a line fro one of her poems. Youngblood also sings on the album.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship Keynote Address Title: "Loosing and Reclaiming Indigineous Languages: a California Perspective"

Ph.D., Linguistics, University of California, San Diego, 1975. Director, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, and editor of the occasional monograph series, “Reports from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages.” She strongly supports interdisciplinary approaches to linguistics, and linguistic research that relates to community needs and interests, as well as to theory. She is the author of FLUTES OF FIRE—ESSAYS ON CALIFORNIA INDIAN LANGUAGES (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1994), SOUND SYMBOLISM (ed. with Johanna Nichols and John Ohala, Cambridge University Press, 1994), STUDIES IN AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES: DESCRIPTION AND THEORY (ed. with Pamela Munro, Berkeley: UC Press, 1998), THE GREEN BOOK OF LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION IN PRACTICE (ed. with Ken Hale, Academic Press, 2001), and HOW TO KEEP YOUR LANGUAGE ALIVE (Heyday Books, 2002).

Abstract:

In California, one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world, indigenous languages are almost lost. At least 35 of the original 80 or so languages have no native speakers left at all; perhaps 20 languages have a few elderly fluent speakers, and most of the rest have people who only remember some words and phrases. But like Myaamia, there are a growing number of people who are trying to reclaim their languages. In this talk, I will discuss the many ways California Indians are working to regain their languages, and why they are inspired to do so.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "Myaamia in the Home – Comments on a Research Program in Language Renewal and Language Change"

Wesley Leonard academic interests are in language revitalization, Algonquian linguistics, sociolinguistics, Japanese linguistics, and how language policy and community issues affect minority languages. His primary research looks at the real situation of his own tribe – the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma – and how its language was lost but is now being brought back.

Abstract:
As the last fluent speakers of the Myaamia language passed away in the 1960’s, the efforts of the Baldwin family represent a situation of language renewal in an environment with no “native speakers” to consult, no known significant sound recordings, and certain gaps in the written records of vocabulary and points of grammar. This situation of language renewal in the home presents an opportunity to investigate a number of questions:

• What is the appropriate balance of “teaching” versus just “using” the language in this situation?
• How is modern Myaamia going to be different in grammar, pronunciation, and usage patterns from the historically spoken language, and are those differences “normal”?
• How does one create a word when it isn’t in the records?
• How are Myaamia and English going to affect each other in this kind of situation?

and especially,

• What are the social factors that affect language renewal?

In my talk, I will outline my program of research with the Baldwin family, which involves documenting their process of bringing Myaamia into their home and then utilizing that research to answer the questions posed above. I will briefly describe my methodology and will touch briefly on all of the research questions, bringing in illustrative examples where possible.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "Building Bridges: Historical Archaeology and the Miami"

Dr. Warner received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1998 and M.A.A. (Masters of Applied Anthropology) from the University of Maryland in 1990. His major research focus lies in exploring questions of minority group identity. His dissertation work was based on excavations of an historic African American household in Annapolis, Maryland. More recently, he has initiated a collaborative project with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, exploring their history following their forced relocation from Ohio to Oklahoma via Kansas. Mark Warner also does faunal analysis. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Annapolis Pasts: Historical Archaeology in Annapolis, Maryland, published by the University of Tennessee Press.

Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first, and most significant, objective is to share some aspects of Miami lifeways in Oklahoma as understood through archaeology. To accomplish this I will be discussing the excavations that have taken place on the Drake-Olds farmstead in Miami, Oklahoma. For the artifacts recovered from this household tell some of the unwritten story of Miami life after removal. The second purpose of this paper is to talk briefly about the relationship between Indians and archaeology. This is relationship has been historically acrimonious, but it is also a relationship which has been transformed over the last decade or so, and in the case of the Miami Tribe, one which has improved considerably in recent years – and one which we hope continues to be mutually beneficial.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "A Talk About Language"

Melissa Rinehart’s background entails a longstanding interest for Indiana and Native histories. Her research has focused on Miami history especially during the removal era and has since expanded to language ideologies or the ways in which people think and talk about language. Ms. Rinehart is most interested in how and why Miami language usage faded by the mid-twentieth century and how these investigations could possibly enhance language reclamation programming within the tribe and elsewhere. She is currently enrolled in the doctoral program for cultural anthropology at Michigan State University and employed as a social worker for the YWCA. She has taught at several post-secondary institutions in Indiana, Arizona and Nevada and has a desire to continue as an educator and researcher of Native Studies as well as to continue working with the Miami Tribe.

Abstract:
Indigenous language recovery warrants great discussion in native studies today. The statistical losses of indigenous languages around the world are staggering as language revitalization efforts are struggling to stay one step ahead. There is an abundance of literature concerning language recovery but there is little to no information on language loss itself. The forces of assimilation or acculturation are typically assigned as reasons for language loss but Native American tribes were not affected in the same manner by these forces nor did all tribes respond in similar fashion. The Miami Indians are one group, which in spite of extensive early contact with French Jesuits and fur traders, exogamous marriage practices, significant land loss and removal managed to maintain language fluency for several hundred years post contact. But, from the earlier part of the 20th century until the late 1980s Miami language usage nonetheless faded. It was not until 1997 that Miami communities from Indiana and Oklahoma launched a cooperative language reclamation effort. Since this time some language fluency, especially among children and adolescents, has been achieved. It is the contention of this author that when the specific factors involved with language loss are known, or in other words when the historical context for language loss is determined, language revitalization efforts, whose successes are often difficult to gauge, will demonstrate increased success in language programming and application.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "Miami Identity: Then and Now"

Beverly Rodgers completed her BA in sociology from Missouri Southern State College, 1993, MA in cultural anthropology, 1995 and Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, 2000, earning both graduate degrees from Ohio State University. Beverly's work has focused primarily on the Miami and neighboring Native communities of northeastern Oklahoma. Particular interests have been issues of contemporary Native identity. Previous conference presentations and papers have included Miami Mortuary Customs, NAGPRA Workshop, Historic Homelands of the Miami, and Identity Within the Indian Community in Northeastern Oklahoma. Beverly has taught at Ohio State University, Columbus State Community College, and is currently a visiting professor at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Abstract:
Research completed during an extended living experience in Ottawa County, Oklahoma in the mid 1990s, organized and analyzed in the form of a Ph.D. dissertation in 2000 concluded the dominant identity of many Miami Tribe members was one of “Indian” rather than being specifically Miami. To some extent this conclusion is still valid. However, new data gathered from attending Miami language camps, presentations, and other Miami Tribe functions, as well as the functions of other area tribes, would suggest the conclusions needs to be supplemented. There is a new, Miami specific, identity emerging.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "Aramiaioni: Reading and Interpreting Early Christian Prayers in Miami-Illinois"

Tracy Neal Leavelle joined the Department of History as an assistant professor in 2003. He came to Creighton University from Smith College, where he was the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities for 2001-2003. There, he taught in the American Studies Program and participated in the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute project on "Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Ancient and Modern Worlds." He completed his undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology and Native American studies at Dartmouth College and attended Arizona State University, where he earned his Ph.D. in history. His teaching and research interests include early American, American Indian, and religious history. His current research examines the nature of spiritual encounters between Catholic missionaries and American Indians in colonial North America, exploring such issues as the translation and reception of religious concepts, the impact of gender and generational differences on Native responses to Christianity, and the role of religion in shaping colonial geographies. The working title of his book is Encounters of Spirit: Religion, Culture, and Community in French and Indian North America. Other works in progress include a study of conflicts over Native American cultural landscapes and sacred sites and an interview with a Cree ceremonial leader that examines issues of religious tolerance and intolerance.

Abstract:
The Gravier dictionary of the Miami-Illinois language, compiled in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, includes the term araminai8ni and provides a translation that reads priere, prayer in English. The term and the act that it described were central to the mission of the Jesuits, who hoped to turn the Illinois and other Native peoples toward lives of Christian discipline and ritual. To this end, the missionaries compiled word lists and dictionaries, assembled detailed grammars, and produced prayer books, catechisms, and hymnals. Yet, analysis of surviving religious manuscripts prepared by the Jesuits in Miami-Illinois demonstrates that translation between languages created space for the negotiation of meaning, a place where diverse definitions and contrasting cultural expressions intersected to produce new interpretations over time. Missionaries maintained authority over their chapels and the holy sacraments, but they could not impose or limit meaning. A dynamic language environment, constructed on shared experience and a common quest for mutual understanding, stimulated linguistic exchange and creativity. These interactions promoted the emergence and articulation of a uniquely Illinois form of Christianity. Miami-Illinois prayers reveal, then, that translation allowed the Illinois to make Christianity their own, to shape the Christian faith and traditions to their evolving experiences, distinctive cultural requirements, and specific spiritual needs.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "The 'New' French-Illinois Dictionary of Saint-Jerome"

David J. Costa works as a linguistic consultant in Native language revitalization, with a specialization in Algonquian languages. He has studied the Miami-Illinois language since 1988, and has worked with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma on their language revitalization program since 1995. He published Iilaataweeyankwi: Our Language. A Handbook of the Miami Language in 1997, The Kinship Terminology of the Miami-Illinois Language in 1999, and in 2003 his full grammar, the Miami-Illinois Language. He is currently working with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma on a student dictionary and collection of texts in Miami, both due to be published in 2004. Dr. Costa has also been studying the Shawnee language since 1993, and the Mohegan-Pequot language since 2001. He received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1994, and is a third-generation northern Californian.

Abstract:
While it might seem impossible that new sources of data on the Miami-Illinois language are still being found, in 1999 a new French-Illinois dictionary was discovered at the Archives des Peres Jesuites de la Fontaine at Saint-Jerome, Quebec. This manuscript increases by at least a third our knowledge of the old Illinois language as spoken 300 years ago. It consists of about 570 pages, contains a large number of example sentences, and has a good deal of vocabulary not found in either the other two known Illinois dictionaries. Also in contrast with the other Illinois dictionaries, the St.-Jerome manuscript appears to be a rough, first-draft field lexicon organized by semantic fields, rather than a polished, alphabetically-ordered dictionary. Now that this manuscript has been filmed, it can be fully analyzed by Miami language scholars and realize its full potential in the study of the Miami-Illinois language. In this paper, I will share the results of my initial examination of this manuscript, and discuss what it can contribute to the ongoing project of the reconstruction and revitalization of the Miami language.

Myaamiaki: The Miami People  A Conference on Current Miami Tribe Scholarship "Myaamia Ethnobotany"

Mike is currently a PhD. candidate at Miami University, studying the ethnobotany of the Miami Nation, under the auspices of the Myaamia Project. His research with the Miami in Oklahoma and Indiana documents the traditional uses of wild plants and other traditional ecological knowledge. He is also conducting experiments studying the effects of traditional Miami harvesting practices on wild plant populations in order to evaluate the potential of these traditions as contemporary resource management tools.
Prior to his PhD research Mike conducted academic and professional research centered mostly on the conservation and ecological restoration of public lands in the West, working with The Wilderness Society, the California Wilderness Coalition, and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service as a botanist. He has conducted ethnobotanical research with native Hawaiians of Kauai, the Kitanemuk of southern California, and the Q’eqchi’ Mayans of Guatemala. He lives with his wife, Elisabeth and two daughters, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Abstract:
Documentation of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) holds particular value for indigenous communities pursuing academic venues of cultural education and for determining the applicability of TEK to conservation on tribal lands. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma has formalized their desire to document plant-related TEK and other cultural information in the formation of the Myaamia Project. Ethnographic research on ethnobotanical TEK of the Miami and interviews with tribal members has been initiated to document cultural uses of plants. Gathered data includes over 200 culturally important plant species, and related TEK, organized into an ethnobotanical database. Specific applications of ethnobotanical Miami TEK are being investigated through experiments reintroducing the traditional harvesting regimes on two prairie plants, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum). Experimental data are predicted to help management of these culturally important plants and ensure that their historic abundances remain available for use in contemporary Miami cultural practices.

"Ethnobotany and Local Empowerment in a Canadian Indigenous Community"

This spring the Hansen Lecture will be given by Dr. Nancy J. Turner. Dr. Turner will be visiting Miami University April 6 and 7. Dr. Turner is a distinguished internationally recognized ethnobotanist who has received many honors and awards including election to the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Botanical Association's Lawson Medal as the outstanding researcher in Canada in 2002, the Order of British Colombia, the Richard Evans Schultes Award, and named as one of the "Top Ten Thinkers of British Colombia" by the Vancouver Sun in 2000. Dr. Turner is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and serves on the Board of Trustee of the American Botanical Council. She is the past president of the Society of Ethnobiology. Her research and scholarship has ranged across a number of areas but focuses primarily on the ethnobotany of the native peoples of the Pacific northwest.

Dr. Turner is a professor at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Canada, as well as a research associate at the Royal British Columbia Museum. She is the author of numerous publications on the ethnobotany of First Nations in British Columbia, including three major surveys: Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples, Food Plants of Interior First Peoples, and Plant Technology of First Peoples in British Columbia. She is one of the authors of Ulkatcho Food and Medicine Plants and Thompson Ethnobotany: Knowledge and Usage of Plants by the Thompson Indians of British Columbia (Turner et al.), Burning Mountain Sides for Better Crops: Aboriginal Landscape Burning in British Columbia, and Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples.

"An Evening with Madame F" Thursday, April 8, 2004 7:00 p.m. Hall Auditorium (Oxford campus) Co-sponsored by the Center for American and World Cultures and the Jewish Studies Program

An Evening with Madame F is a work of musical drama created by Claudia Stevens for her one-person performance as pianist, singer, and actor. Adopting the persona of Fania Fenelon, a French cabaret singer who became a member of the all-female orchestra at Auschwitz, Ms. Stevens uses music and personal accounts to depict the struggle and moral dilemma of camp inmates who survived by prostituting their art. The horror and guilt experienced by Fenelon and other Jewish musicians confined to concentration camps during World War II is palpable in this riveting performance. Ms. Stevens' narrative, with music composed and arranged by Fred Cohen, is interspersed with segments of songs and numbers that were actually played in the concentration camps. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Claudia Stevens also meditates on the issue of treating the Holocaust as the subject for artistic expression.

One of the most honored Holocaust-related performances before the public, An Evening with Madame F has been presented in over one hundred communities, including Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., as well as by leading universities, including Cornell, Vanderbilt, Brown, Emory, and Duke. Originally commissioned by the Richmond, VA, Jewish Federation, this play has been produced for television by PBS affiliate WCVE and broadcast over "Voice of America."

The Graduate Students of Color Association is happy to inform you of The Dr. Cheryl Burgan Evans Graduate Conference on Multicultural Research to be held at Miami University on April 10th, 2004 in the Great Room of the Center for American and World Cultures. This event is the first of its kind and was created to showcase the extraordinary research and scholarship facilitated by the strong graduate scholars of color at Miami University. For the past 20 years, Dr. Cheryl Burgan Evans, The Graduate School and the various Graduate Programs of the University have spent great time, money, and effort in diversifying our graduate population. This conference is in celebration of the wonderful success and notable accomplishments that have precipitated from this collective effort.
Cheryl Burgan Evans, the Associate Dean of The Graduate School, has been a long time faculty member and administrator at Miami. She has dedicated her career to recruiting, retaining, and promoting graduate student research and evolvement; especially among graduate students of color. Her tireless work and advocacy on behalf of graduate students has produced tremendous results. At Miami University, the graduate population is the most ethnically, racially and nationally diverse population in the institution. And Dr. Burgan Evans is the impetus for much of this fact. This annual graduate conference is in acknowledgment of all that she has done on behalf of the University, the Graduate School and the graduate students who hold such a special place in her life.
Please encourage your Masters and Ph.D. students of color to submit their seminar papers, ongoing research, thesis or dissertation chapters and creative contributions for consideration to this conference. Several monetary scholarships will be awarded to the finest scholastic achievements and artistic presentations submitted in various academic fields. The conference committee hopes to encourage, reward and promote the exceptional research of the graduate students of color at our beloved Miami University.

For guidelines and more information go to The Dr. Cheryl Burgan Evans Graduate Conference on Multicultural Research.

Performing Artist Thomas Mapfumo, African musician from Zimbabwe, will be performing Chimurenga music, which is composed of a tremendous blend of African chants and songs, incorporating the mbira (thumb piano) with electric guitars and drums. He is Zimbabwe’s biggest selling musician and is known throughout the world for his music as a voice of resistance to oppressive regimes.

"Early Holocaust Cinema and the Vanishing Jews"

Stuart Liebman is Professor of the Department of Media Studies at City University of New York Queens. He was the founding Coordinator of the Film Certificate Program at the CUNY Graduate School and University Center and served in that capacity from January 1993 through June of 2000. An internationally renowned scholar and translator, Dr. Liebman has published widely on French, German, and East European cinema and critical theory. The special issue of October (No. 72) entitled "Berlin 1945: War and Rape," which he co-edited with Annette Michelson, received the Association of American Publishers prize for the best single issue of a scholarly journal in 1995. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the critical journal October. Dr. Liebman is spending February 1, 2004 to June 1, 2004 as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington, D.C. , where he is pursuing his current project, "The Construction of the Holocaust in Cinema, 1944-1949."

Source: Faculty at CUNY's webpage