Center for Great Plains Studies: Recent Episodes
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Support the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Great Plains Art Museum during our seventh annual Glow Big Red, Feb 12–13.
The Sandhills of Nebraska are a unique ecosystem, containing 19,300 square miles of rolling grassy sand dunes in the heart of the state. The region has a fascinating and complex tapestry of culture, climate, geology, water, economics, and more — all of which are examined in “The Nebraska Sandhills,” a new book from the University of Nebraska Press. Contributors to the book spoke about the past, present, and future of this iconic Great Plains landscape. Panelists include Kim Hachiya, Sarah Sortum, Ted LaGrange, and Sheri Fritz along with moderator Mike Boehm.
Dear Great Plains is a postcard-writing campaign created by 2023-24 Student Storyteller in Residence Karla Hernandez Torrijos. This is an audio version of the postcard exhibition.
As part of the Center for Great Plains Studies’ new Student Storyteller in Residence initiative, Husker student Karla Hernandez Torrijos spent the past year asking people to write postcards to the Great Plains. With those postcards, she created a collaborative, community storytelling project that will be on view at the Great Plains Art Museum starting Nov. 1. Learn more at https://news.unl.edu/article/dear-great-plains-opens-nov-1-at-great-plains-art-museum
Dr. Thomas C. Gannon, the winner of the 2024 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize for “Birding While Indian: A Mixed-Blood Memoir” spoke at the Center for Great Plains Studies on Oct. 15. The Center’s book prize celebrates the most outstanding work about the Great Plains during the past year, chosen by an independent group of scholars. Gannon is a Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Associate Director of Ethnic Studies. This marks the first time the book prize has been awarded to a UNL faculty member and current Great Plains Fellow. Gannon, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, specializes in Native American literatures, critical/eco-theory, and the representations of birds and other non-human animals in discourse.
Otoe-Missouria Day video played live at the Sept. 20 Nebraska football game, followed by the on-field honoring of Chairman John Shotton.
The “Contemporary Indigeneity 2024” jurors and Ashley Wilkinson, Director & Curator of the Great Plains Art Museum, discuss the exhibition and Indigenous art. Jurors include: Mary V. Bordeaux (Sicangu Oglala Lakota), Chelsea M. Herr (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), and Tarah Hogue (Métis).
During the first week of her residency, 2024 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Angela Two Stars worked on an artwork for the museum's permanent collection, gave tours of her exhibition, and led group workshops.
Dr. Margaret Huettl (Anishinaabe) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. She gave a talk titled "Here Lies the Pioneer: (Re)Covering the Oregon Trail" at the 2024 Great Plains conference, "Confronting the Legendary Great Plains."
Paul Chaat Smith speaks at the 2024 Great Plains conference titled "Out of the Blue and into the Black: Are the Great Plains still Great?" Chaat Smith is a Comanche author, essayist, and curator. He joined the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in 2001.
In this episode, we talk with Dr. John DeLong about his work studying predator-prey interactions and climate adaptation, tracking how both adapt and evolve to better fit their surroundings, from the smallest microscopic creatures to large birds of prey. Dr. DeLong is an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is also the Director of the university's Cedar Point Biological Station.
A conversation between Dr. Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha), Associate Curator of Native American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Margaret Jacobs, Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies. Norby, the first full-time curator of Native art in The Met’s 153-year history, spoke about her vital curatorial work that foregrounds Indigenous perspectives and experiences. The “Centering Indigenous Voices in Museums" speaker series features Indigenous museum and cultural professionals who are working to change the narrative and elevate Native creative expression. This series is part of the “Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors: Re-Indigenizing Southeast Nebraska” project at the Center for Great Plains Studies, funded by the Mellon Foundation.
In this episode, Stephen Bridenstine, assistant director of the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas, talks about what the Flint Hills are, who cares for the land, and how people can experience this unique landscape. The Discovery Center's mission is to inspire people to celebrate, explore, and care for the Flint Hills with an array of exhibits and programs meant to educate about the geology, ecology, and cultural history of the area.
Legal experts Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) spoke at the Center for Great Plains Studies on Nov. 17 about racism and reconciliation on Canada’s Great Plains. Sniderman and Sanderson’s “Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation” (Harper Collins, 2022), is the winner of the 2023 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize.
Jodi Voice Yellowfish (Muscogee Creek, Oglala Lakota, and Cherokee) spoke about the history and current day realities of the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women crisis on Oct. 24, 2023.Yellowfish is founder and chair of the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women Texas Rematriate, a Dallas-based organization that helps Indigenous families search for and bring home missing and murdered relatives, to support and offer healing processes to the missing and murdered and their families, and to advocate for social change.
Rosalyn LaPier is an award winning Indigenous writer, environmental historian, ethnobotanist, and professor at the University of Illinois. She works within Indigenous communities to revitalize traditional ecological knowledge, to address the growing climate crisis, and to strengthen public policy around Indigenous languages. LaPier is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.
Erica Larsen-Dockray, Cybele Moon, Steph Coley, Eve LaFountain, and Marissa Magdalena Sykes will discuss the historical women that inspired their work, their personal experiences as female artists, and the creative process behind the collaborative exhibition “Threads & Trails: Contemplations of Our Herstories.” This exhibition and panel were made possible by the generous support of the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, Kimmel Charitable Foundation, Lincoln Community Foundation, Union Bank & Trust, UNL Research Council, and UNL Faculty Senate Convocations Committee.
The Center for Great Plains Studies and its Reconciliation Rising Project hosted the second annual Proclamation Day and Homecoming Ceremony for the Otoe-Missouria nation at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Sept. 21.
José Francisco García presents a historical and contemporary perspective on almost 500 years of the Mexican-American presence in Nebraska and the Great Plains, from early Spanish conquistadors and explorers to later years’ traders, settlers, and immigrants.
Members of the community rally around welcoming back indigenous people to their tribal homelands. Learn more about the 2023 Otoe-Missouria Proclamation Day on University of Nebraska–Lincoln's campus at https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/otoe-missouria-center-for-great-plains-studies-earn-mellon-funding/
Vagell is a meteorologist and storm chaser who travels the country documenting and researching severe weather. Previously he worked as a meteorologist for The Weather Channel and doing on-air broadcasting for TV. As a storm chaser for the last decade, Vagell has visited all but a handful of counties in the Great Plains. We spoke with him about severe weather and why the Great Plains is ideal for storm chasing.
This episode of Great Plains Anywhere features Carson Vaughan, the author of "Zoo Nebraska" and a journalist who covers the Great Plains region. His recent works include covering the October 2022 Bovee Fire at the Nebraska National Forest Bessey Ranger district and writing about author Mari Sandoz.
The Great Plains Art Museum will host Omaha-based artist Linda Rivera García as the 2023 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence. Rivera García is a Mexican-American Chicana artist, teacher, and storyteller who has been sharing her culture throughout Nebraska for decades. A graduate of Omaha's College of Saint Mary and a retired children's librarian, she is a multifaceted artist who works in painting, sculpture, printmaking, and with traditional Mexican art forms such as papel picado (cut paper) and repujado (metal embossing), among many others. A solo exhibition of Rivera García's artwork will be on view at the museum from March 24 to September 22, 2023.
"The Sociology of Soil and Water Conservation in Agriculture: What have we learned, and where are we headed?"Arbuckle will trace the history of social science research on farmer adoption of new agricultural technologies and practices from the 1940s to the present. In the past 80 years, agriculture has rapidly transformed from diverse production systems to highly specialized monocultures. In the 1980s, social scientists began to look at the adoption of soil and water conservation practices in response to major environmental impacts associated with specialized commodity production. Arbuckle identifies the facilitators of and barriers to farmer adoption of soil and water conservation practices and agroecological approaches to farming. He will discuss research gaps and future research directions to inform transformations that work better for people and planet. Arbuckle is professor and extension rural sociologist at Iowa State University focused on improving the environmental and social performance of agricultural systems. His primary areas of interest are drivers of farmer and agricultural stakeholder soil and water conservation behaviors, especially related to climate change adaptation and mitigation. He is director of the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, an annual survey of Iowa farmers.Part of the 2023 Great Plains conference.
"Through the Eyes of a Meatpacker's Daughter"Immigrants represent over 50% of Nebraska’s meatpacking workforce. At work, immigrant workers face unsafe working conditions while at home they face an immigration system threatening to tear their family apart. Godinez will relate the story of her families’ experience with and in the meatpacking industry. She will discuss how both the immigration process and the health and safety standards during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted advocacy across the state all the way to the nation’s capital. The advocacy opportunities do not stop there: Godinez will end her presentation with advocacy opportunities we can all undertake to support safe working meatpacking workers and their families.Godinez is Senior Legal and Policy Counsel for ACLU Nebraska. She was raised in Lexington and is the proud daughter of immigrants and former meatpacking plant workers. Godinez has been a strong advocate for workers’ rights and safety both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Part of the 2023 Great Plains Conference.
"The Farmer's Lawyer"In 1983, Vogel filed a lawsuit against USDA on behalf of nine North Dakota farmers, then expanded the lawsuit to protect 245,000 farmers across the United States. It was a David and Goliath fight, but it successfully stopped thousands of foreclosures and permanently changed the way USDA treated farmers. Vogel will show how the lessons learned in the 1930s and 1980s farm depressions are again relevant as drought, floods, low prices, high costs, corporate consolidation, and uncertain federal policies squeeze out family farmers today.Vogel, is an attorney, advocate, and author of The Farmer’s Lawyer, a memoir about her landmark class action lawsuit, Coleman v. Block. She brought this historic case against the federal government, on behalf of 240,000 family farmers facing foreclosure during the 1980s farm crisis. Vogel has spent most of her career as an advocate for family farmers, women, and Native Americans. She also served two terms as North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture, and was the first woman in U.S. history to be elected to this position in any state. She currently serves as a Member of the Agriculture Subcommittee to USDA Equity Commission.Part of the 2023 Great Plains Conference.
"Learning the Roots of the Plants We Live By: Perennial Cultures & Perennial Grains in the Great Plains"How do we build more just and enduring food cultures that are grounded in the sufficiency of the Great Plains? Our work begins in recognizing the few, mostly annual plants by which many of us currently live—and continues in remembering and restoring the diverse, mostly perennial plants our societies can live by for the long term. By creatively investigating the relational roots of the plants we live by in the Great Plains, we can find possibilities for a more just, perennial future in which grain crops and food systems feed people while sustaining land communities.Streit Krug is Director of Ecosphere Studies at The Land Institute, where she leads research into how humans can learn together to develop more just cultures while realizing diverse, perennial grain agricultures in the context of the ecosphere. Streit Krug holds a PhD in English & Great Plains Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Part of the 2023 Great Plains Conference.
"Sacred Seed: Indigenous Environmentalism and Living Red in the Postcolonial Era"Taylor Keen’s historical journey with Indigenous seed keeping has led him to understand some of the ancient tenets of Indigenous agricultural lifeways and Indigenous environmentalism. In this talk, Keen investigates new Indigenous philosophical theories of “Living Red” in today’s turbulent times. Keen is a full-time instructor at Creighton University and holds a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College as well as a Master of Business Administration and Master of Public Administration from Harvard University, where he served as a Fellow in the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Keen is the author of the manuscript Rediscovering America: Sacred Geography, the Ancient Earthen Works and an Indigenous History of Turtle Island. Keen carries the name “Bison Mane” of the Earthen Bison Clan of the Omaha Tribe, The People Who Move Against the Current. Taylor Keen is the founder of Sacred Seed, which educates and celebrates Indigenous agricultural lifeways.Part of the 2023 Great Plains Conference.
Today's guest is John Wunder, Emeritus Professor of History and former Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies. Though he spent his career studying the history and cultures of the Plains, his recent work has shifted into creative prose poetry about growing up in the region. We talked with Professor Wunder and asked him to share a poem about Great Plains tornadoes.
Nebraska is home to the largest hand-planted forest in the Western Hemisphere, the Bessey Ranger District of the Nebraska National Forest and Grasslands. The Great Plains Art Museum is currently displaying an exhibition of photographs of the forest by UNL Art Professor Dana Fritz through March 11. The forest and the photographs was the topic of a panel discussion at the Museum on Feb. 23. Fritz’s new book, “Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape,” combines her photos with environmental essays, maps, and historical photographs that delve into the natural history of the site. It also features essays by Katie Anania, assistant professor of art history; Rebecca Buller, associate professor of practice in geography; and Rose-Marie Muzika, director of science at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, as well as maps and a timeline by Salvador Lindquist, assistant professor of landscape architecture. The panel, featuring Fritz, Anania, Buller, Muzika and Lindquist, will be moderated by author and journalist Carson Vaughan, who covered the Bovee Fire which burned more than 18,000 acres in and around the forest in 2022. This event received funding support from the UNL Faculty Senate Convocations Committee.
In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with Taylor Brorby, the author of "Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land" and co-editor of "Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America." He regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change. Brorby is the Annie Tanner Clark Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Justice at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah.
Historian Andrew Graybill traces one early effort to give the Great Plains its due. In his most important book, “The Great Plains” (1931), leading western historian Walter Prescott Webb (1888-1963) emphasized the significance of the environment as a historical actor in its own right. Yet the book is marred by several shortcomings, among them Webb’s wincing racism. In his talk highlighting the new 2022 edition of the book (University of Nebraska Press), Graybill explores the book’s considerable limitations while arguing for its enduring vitality.Graybill is a professor of history and director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is the author or editor of four books, including “The Red and the White: A Family Saga of the American West” (Liveright, 2013). He taught at UNL from 2003-11 and is an Affiliate Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies.This event is part of the Center for Great Plains Studies’ Paul A. Olson lecture series and is free and open to the public. This lecture is supported by UNL History Department, the University of Nebraska Press and the UNL Faculty Senate Convocations Committee.
In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with Ted Hibbeler, Tribal Extension Educator at UNL and a member of the Iron Shell family from the Rosebud Sioux Nation in South Dakota. Through the Native American Coalition, Hibbeler is working with the Nebraska Tribal communities and schools in the areas of food sustainability, economic development, career development, conservation and leadership.
In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk John O'Keefe, a professor of Theology and Journalism at Creighton University and the documentary filmmaker behind the film "The Last Prairie." The film examines Nebraska's Sandhills through the perspectives of ecologists, the people who live and work there, and the Lakota people whose ancestors were driven off the land. The Center is hosting a screening of the film on March 30 in Lincoln, Neb., at the Great Plains Art Museum. Details to be announced next early next year.
The Center recently provided support to five projects aiming to gather stories on the impact of Covid-19 on the people of the region focused on those disproportionately affected by the pandemic, including Latinx, new mothers, Indigenous communities, and immigrant communities as well as workers from the healthcare and meatpacking fields. Panelists shared stories from community members affected by Covid-19 in this discussion.
Dr. Kalenda Eaton and Dr. Heidi Dodson of the Oklahoma Black Homesteader Project research talk about their new research on Black homesteaders in Oklahoma Territory. The presentation discusses the process of researching and locating specific homesteading families with a preview of new archival research that expands common understandings of the Black homesteading experience.
In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with Beth Dotan a Ph.D. candidate in Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education at UNL. Dotan helps lead a multidisciplinary digital humanities project to document and tell the stories of Nebraskans during World War II titled "Nebraska Stories of Humanity: Holocaust Survivors and World War II Veterans."
Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot will speak at the Center for Great Plains Studies on reconciliation efforts in Canada as part of the Center’s year-long focus on reckoning and reconciliation in the Great Plains. This event is presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada in Minneapolis, which represents Canada in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Sept. 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. The talk is titled “An Invitation to Boldness: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the Framework for Reconciliation in Canada.” In its 2015 final report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada issued an invitation to boldness, calling on all levels of government and civil society to fully implement the Declaration in Canada. By linking reconciliation exclusively to the implementation of the UNDRIP, the collective vision of what is possible has significantly expanded, and many sectors of Canadian government and society have embraced this opportunity for transformative thinking.
Lightfoot (Anishinaabe, Lake Superior Band) is Canada Research Chair of Global Indigenous Rights and Politics at the University of British Columbia, where she holds faculty appointments in Political Science and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs as well as an association with the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies. She serves as the Vice Chair and North American Member on the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) as well as Senior Advisor to the UBC President on Indigenous Affairs, where she is the lead on UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan and directs the Office of Indigenous Strategic Initiatives. She is currently President of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). Her research focuses on Indigenous global politics, especially Indigenous rights and their implementation in global, national and regional contexts.
Reckoning and Reconciliation in Education, Sept. 15, 2022. Samuel B. Torres and Stephen R. Curley from the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. Title: "The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition's Work for Transformative Justice"
Reckoning and Reconciliation in Education, Sept. 15, 2022 Dr. Mirelsie Velázquez, an associate professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Rainbolt Family Endowed Education Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma. Title: "En el centro también vivimos: Latina/o/x Histories, Memory, and Community Building Beyond the Coasts"
The Center is seeking submissions for creative nonfiction pieces for Great Plains Quarterly. We talked with editor Ramón Guerra and Robert James Russell, author of GPQ's first creative nonfiction piece, about the new feature and Russell's article.
The winner of the 2022 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize is author Alaina E. Roberts for "I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). Dr. Roberts is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh who studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to the modern day. She spoke at the Center for Great Plains Studies on Sept. 7, 2022.
Sarah Rowe is an Omaha-based multimedia artist of Lakota and Ponca descent whose work opens cross-cultural dialogues by utilizing methods of painting, casting, fiber arts, performance, and Native American ceremony in unconventional ways.
A monthly series hosted by the Center for Great Plains Studies Graduate Fellows. This installment will highlight the ongoing work of groups involved in wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, pet rescue, and education.
Part 1: Voices in Great Plains Conservation and International Ecosystems (45 minutes)
In this part one, Jazmin Castillo will discuss the application of Great Plains habitat and natural resources conservation to international ecosystems, from the perspective of an early career BIPOC scientist. Castillo is a B.S. and M.S. graduate of the School of Natural Resources at UNL. She did her master's research on hyena population dynamics in Botswana through a multidisciplinary National Science Foundation fellowship focused on the ecological resilience of agroecosystems. She has recently translated her skills to a position working on the national trails system with the United States Forest Service based out of Washington, D.C. and is planning to continue her career with the Forest Service.
Part 2: Voices of Heartland Immigrant and Refugee Communities (45 minutes)
Given the rich history of the Great Plains as a site of significant immigrant and refugee resettlement, Part 2 is a discussion centering the intersections of immigrant experience, place-based education, and advocacy work across local communities. The guest speaker is Maysaa Khalaf, who is majoring in business administration with a concentration in international business and economy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She was born in Sinjar, Nineveh, Iraq, and is part of the Yazidi community/religion. Upon moving to the U.S., Khalaf restarted high school and graduated in 3 years. She is a first generation student and earned a Buffett scholarship. Khalaf is currently interning with the Nebraska Department of Economic Development on the international business team. She is the president of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization (CEO) at UNO. Her current project is promoting communities within the state of Nebraska.
Marty Ramirez (retired psychologist), Rebecca Gonzalez (community activist), Yolanda Nuncio (community activist), Maria Elena Villasante (doctoral student, behavioral health consultant/community activist), Olga Kanne (community activist)
Historically, the question of how immigrants came to Nebraska has been a point of interest. With the recent discussion on immigration reform, this question from a historical perspective has ignited a renewed discussion. How Mexicans and other Latinos arrived to Nebraska has generated little attention. Thus a "Latino Voice" has been invisible, silent and forgotten. In 2018, a few Latinos began to organize a group, LAS VOCES, (The Voices) to once again address current and past issues facing Latinos throughout Nebraska. The mission of Las Voces is to advocate and inspire positive change in the Latino/Hispanic community of Nebraska by addressing social justice issues through leadership, civic engagement, and collaboration. (Moderator: Michelle Warren) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Bernard Flaman (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada)
Ready-Made Farms on the Canadian Prairie Through the Lens of Reconciliation In the 1980's, my father added the last plot of land to our family farm in Saskatchewan and it came with a compelling abandoned house. It was a ready-made farm constructed circa 1912 by the William Pearson Co of Winnipeg. The company archive consists only of maps, marketing brochures and several boxes of glass slides. This material was used to market property via "land seeker" excursions originating in Minneapolis to mainly American settlers, in a voracious pursuit of land and profit. This presentation will review these items in the light of reconciliation and as an illustration of what was mistakenly construed as terra nullius. What might be portrayed as a triumphant settlement story, must now be viewed as one that came at great expense and suffering to indigenous peoples.
Lily Nagengast (Georgetown University)
Heartland and Plains Women Sarah Smarsh's Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth is the latest work in the burgeoning genre of rural memoir. Published in 2018, Smarsh's memoir recounts her upbringing as a fifth-generation Kansas wheat farmer and the child of generations of teenage mothers. Alongside her family's narrative of struggle on the Great Plains, Smarsh maps out the destruction of the working class wrought by public policy. Despite Heartland's success, no scholarship exists on it, and little scholarship exists on rural literature in general. This presentation situates itself in this significant gap in American literary studies. Instead of casting rural women's memoir as a subgenre of women's memoir, I place the two side-by-side to see where they intersect, rub against each other, and where they vastly differ.
Tom Lynch (Professor, UNL)
Eco-memoir, Bioregionalism, and Uncanny Settler Belonging in Jerry Wilson's Waiting for Coyote's Call Environmentally attuned people of settler ancestry often feel they lack a deep belonging to place. Bioregionalism developed out of such circumstances. This paper examines the role of the bioregional eco-memoir as a sometimes problematic settler colonial response to this condition. Early bioregional thinkers drew inspiration from Indigenous peoples and bioregional texts evince a palpable envy for the deep connections Indigenous people have, and these members of settler cultures wish they had, with their local ecology. At the same time as these memoirs seek a form of settler belonging that is environmentally responsible, however, they nevertheless often recirculate tropes of pioneering settlement and often struggle to meaningfully engage with the Indigenous displacement from the very lands to which they themselves are seeking to belong.
(Moderator: Melissa Homestead) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Todd Richardson (Professor, UNO)
Indigenous Pop Art and Reckoning with Settler Colonialism An exhibition featuring the artistic work of Tom Farris (Otoe-Missouria/Cherokee) will open at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in spring 2022. This will be the first time Farris's work, which challenges static notions of Indigenous culture by blending traditional and pop mythologies together, is shown in Nebraska. This is notable because Nebraska is ancestral home to the Otoe and Farris is a member of the Otoe-Missouri Tribe, yet he has never before set foot in the state. In April 2022, Dina Gilio-Whitaker will visit UNO in conjunction with this exhibition of Farris's work. Author of As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock, Gilio-Whitaker will address the ethics of living on stolen land, providing another opportunity for reckoning with the settler colonialism of the Great Plains. Richardson will discuss both of these events in the context of how Indigenous Pop Art and the Indigenization of pop mythologies offer unique opportunities for reckoning with colonial violence.
George De Medts (Aix-Marseille University, France)
Truth as Weapon and Medicine in Georgina Lightning's Older than America Older than America (2008) written, produced, directed and starred by Canadian Cree filmmaker, Georgina Lightning, focuses on the devastating consequences of trauma caused by the Native boarding school system in North America. Dedicated to the director's father and inspired by his personal story, the film looks at the young victims of psychological, physical and sexual abuses practiced in these institutions. However, Older than America is not a period drama retelling the story. Instead, Georgina Lightning places the action of her suspense drama in the present, in order to underline the trauma's intergenerational impact. Permeated with Native spirituality, Older than America exemplifies how art could help in healing from the wounds caused by the decades of violence, forced acculturation and assimilation by bringing awareness about the truth and promoting Indigenous traditions.
Clementine Bordeaux (University of California, Los Angeles)
AIM and the Politics of Nostalgia: Indigenous Representation from Wounded Knee to Standing Rock Founded in 1968, the American Indian Movement is a source of complicated nostalgia for Indigenous activists today. AIM orchestrated many actions that remain instructive touchstones, including the 1973 occupation at Wounded Knee, but the organization has also been characterized by a masculinism often found in its iconography. During the 2016 #NoDAPL mobilization, common invocations of AIM by mainstream media revealed the contrast between these moments of struggle. Analyzing this contrast through the visual record, Bordeaux argues that a dual nostalgia for AIM presents an opportunity to work through the colonial imposition of hetero-patriarchal norms. Current Indigenous media-makers have begun the work to demonstrate emancipatory gender politics that provide an elaboration of Indigenous representations of relationality, attesting to the connection between feminist, queer, and other-than-human kinship. Foregrounding the importance of tribal specificity, the author focuses on media produced on and of Lakota tribal homelands.
(Moderator: Rebekka Schlichting) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Marty Ramirez, Greg Rodriguez, Joe Perez, Gavino Saldivar (all Vietnam Era, Veteran, community activists)
Veterans Day and Memorial Day are celebrated annually throughout our country and while these days honor veterans who served, little has been done to recognize the contributions of Chicano/Mexican American veterans from the Scottsbluff/North Platte Valley in western Nebraska. Many veterans come from humble beginnings and from a culture where patriotism was strong, which led many to serve. The history of Chicano/Mexican American in the military has been excluded from the historical consciousness of the country. (Moderator: Laura Muñoz) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Keshia Talking Waters De Freece Lawrence (Ramapough Lenape International Law scholar) and Isabella Knife (Indigenous Activist from the Ihanktonwan Dakota Nation, of the Feather Necklace Tiospaye)
This presentation will discuss, and layout the treaty history of the so-called United States with Indigenous nations, and examine this history in relation to international law, self-determination, ecocide, environmental sovereignty and indigenous autonomy. Presenters will also discuss the current stance of 'Blockadia,' the international environmental justice movement happening across Turtle Island. In addition, this presentation will critique climate change education systems, and the lack of transparency presented towards Indigenous nations with regards to land and water uses, and STEM research. (Moderator: Chris Steinke) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Jeffrey Shepherd (Professor, University of Texas at El Paso)
Racial Violence, Settler Colonial Memory Making, and Indigenous Views on the Washita "Battlefield" National Historic Site As locations of public memory, our national monuments, memorials, and historic sites hold great promise as spaces of reconciliation and healing. Far too often, however, the narratives they foreground privilege settler-colonial visions of the past that justify conquest and Indigenous dispossession from aboriginal homelands. In doing so, these public sites of history perpetuate another form of violence in the present, by silencing the pain and suffering of Indigenous peoples caused by their erasure in dominant national histories. Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Tarah Hogue (Curator (Indigenous Art) at Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Canada), Adrian Stimson (Artist, Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation), Ernie Walker (Professor, University of Saskatchewan)
This roundtables features perspectives from the Northern Plains on the work of (re)conciliation in collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural contexts. In September 2021, Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation artist Adrian Stimson was artist-in-residence at Wanuskewin Heritage Park near Saskatoon, Canada. Wanuskewin is a significant cultural gathering place and archaeological site comprising aspects of habitation and spirituality. In 2019, Wanuskewin reintroduced buffalo and a calf was born during Stimson's residency. In April 2022, an exhibition of Stimson's work, including new works arising from the residency, will be mounted at Remai Modern in Saskatoon. The confluence of activities—archaeological, ecological and cultural—that Wanuskewin enables will ground a discussion of the work of (re)conciliation across an arts and science context. (Moderator: Annika Johnson) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Garret Zastoupil (University of Wisconsin)
Regenerative Communities, Settler Colonialism, Decolonial Futures in North Dakota Coal Country In the 1970s, the North Plains experienced rapid industrial development through the emergence of coal mining and power production. This growth was precipitated by increased demand on rural electrical cooperatives driven by the dual pressures of suburbanization and industrialized farming. This presentation will present a portion of a study examining how rural residents are (or are not) creating post-coal futures and enacting a just transition on the Northern Plains.
Jess Shoemaker (Professor, UNL) and Anthony Schutz (Professor, UNL)
The Rural Reconciliation Project This presentation will explore how a reckoning and reconciliation framework might inform broader work on the future of rural people and places, which are now often situated on the losing side of a perceived rural/urban divide. This divide is frequently imagined as situating significant social, economic, political, and racial differences along geographic lines, and dialogue about these differences tend to take on a universalized sense of gospel, without enough room for more nuanced and complex questions about the past, present, and future of rural landscapes and communities.
(Moderator: Peter Longo) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Justin Curtis (Assistant Professor, Chadron State College), Matthew Evertson (Professor, Chadron State College), Shannon Smith (Independent Historian and Executive Director Emeritus, Wyoming Humanities Council), Tishina Mindemann (Instructional Technology and Design Specialist, Chadron State College)
Chadron State College offers many courses and some programs that address the legacy of conflict and abuse in the resettlement of the region. However, CSC does not currently offer any formal acknowledgement or statement of the dispossession of lands and people in the region, or of conflicts past and present worthy of reconciliation. Faculty from Chadron State College will discuss the institution's progress toward creating a land-acknowledgement statement by engaging the many groups in the region impacted by our colonial past and by the present activities of the college. (Moderator Margaret Huettl) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Barbara Hewins-Maroney (Associate Professor, UNO), Cynthia Robinson (Associate Professor, UNO)
2021 is the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Black Studies Department at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Begun during a time of social unrest in the country, the department has weathered attacks on its curriculum and its focus of uplifting the achievements of African Americans. As the department was being organized, the North Omaha community was being assaulted and vilified. The killing of a 14-year-old teenager Vivian Strong by a white Omaha policeman and his acquittal of her murder by an all-white jury sent the black North Omaha community into an uproar. Three days of civil unrest resulted in the destruction of property, arrests, and the entrenchment of black power ideologies throughout the community. Now 50 years later, the UNO Black Studies Department survives but is assaulted by disparate funding strategies, schemes to strip the department of its status, and on-going threats regarding its curriculum and viability. (Moderator: Eric Ewing) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
Paul Olson (Professor Emeritus, UNL), Kathleen Rutledge (retired editor, Lincoln Journal Star), Margaret Jacobs (Professor, UNL), Dewayne Mays (President of the Lincoln Branch of the NAACP), Kevin Abourezk (Lincoln Indian Center)
The panel will describe what presenters believe to be a somewhat effective beginning to a "truth and reconciliation project" that began in Nebraska in 2015, one exploring what the history of racism directed against several groups has been in the state and the possible institutional remedies that would work toward reconciliation. (Moderator: Paul Olson) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Paula Palmer and Jerilyn DeCoteau (Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples)
What would “right relationship” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in our community look like? How can we learn about the Indigenous people — past and present — in our community? What steps can we take to start building right relationship? What are some examples of right relationship? (Moderator: Kevin Abourezk) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Jeannette Gabriel (UNO), Christina Dando (Professor, UNO), Jennifer Harbour (Associate Professor, UNO)
The Omaha Spatial Justice Project at the University of Nebraska-Omaha is an interdisciplinary research project documenting historic implications of redlining and restrictive covenants. Geographer Ed Soja defines spatial justice as "the fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and opportunities to use them." Resources and opportunities in the form of property ownership were denied to some Omaha residents through the use of racially restrictive covenants, contractual agreements prohibiting the purchase, lease, or occupation of property by a defined racial or ethnic group. (Moderator Ramón Guerra) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Thomas W. Sanchez (Associate Professor, UNO)
"Immigration Irony: A Better Life Stymied by Law, Trauma, and Uncertainty" The research examines the everyday life of Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as college students, which is characterized by childhood and family trauma, dramatic changes in family and community structure, and instability. It is laced with an othering process based on citizenship and documentation status.
Cristián Doña-Reveco (Associate Professor, UNO)
"Crisis and Culture of Fear Among Latino Communities in the Midwest" This presentation looks to analyze the everday life conditions of many Latinos and Latin American immigrants centered around the concept of a "culture of fear" as the conditions created by the government which negatively affect the possibilities of these groups to actively and positively participate in social life.
Isabelle Beulaygue (UNO)
"'Somos Gente de Contacto': Emotional Regulation Among Latinos in Nebraska during the Covid-19 Pandemic" Latinos have disproportionately and negatively been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. Emerging research has investigated the economic, employment, and earnings impacts of the pandemic on Latinos, unveiling stark health disparities. Nebraska is home to a diverse Latino community, who has navigated the pandemic from a multitude of angles--health, socioeconomic and emotional. This presentation will explore the role of emotions and emotional regulation among Latinos in traversing pandemic challenges, including how they maintained emotional closeness and social cohesion, despite physical distancing.
(Moderator: James Garza)
John Raible (Professor, UNL), Colette Yellow Robe (UNL), Lory Dance (Associate Professor, UNL), Amelia Montes (Associate Professor, UNL)
While land acknowledgements are becoming a more widespread phenomenon in academic spaces, disillusionment is also growing due to what many perceive as the empty, performative nature of these ostensibly well-intended institutional rituals. The purpose of this roundtable is to provide space for a variety of perspectives and voices regarding this topic. (Moderator: Gabe Bruguier) Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Dr. Margaret Huettl, Dr. Luis Othoniel Rosa (Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Ethnic Studies, UNL), Samantha Byrd (UNL undergraduate, Chickasaw), Nasia Olson-Whitefeather (UNL undergraduate, UNITE president, Anishinaabe)
This conversation considers the entanglements and possibilities of land, resources, and reconciliation at UNL. Beginning with context about UNL's history as a land grant university funded in part by the ongoing appropriation of Indigenous lands and resources, Huettl and her fellow panelists from across the university will discuss what it might look like to re-found the university on reciprocity and reconciliation rooted in the land itself. Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
Reporter Tristan Ahtone will present approaches to Indigenous journalism and cooperative reporting and newsroom organizing as tools to restructure the way journalists operate and subvert long-standing values that rely, and thrive, on racism, colonialism, capitalism, and nationalism. Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit.
"Black Wall Street Remembered" This presentation will highlight the birth of the robust, segregated Black business community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, fondly dubbed "Black Wall Street," its destruction in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, its rebirth in the wake of the massacre, its second decline during the Civil Rights Era, and its latter-day renaissance. Part of the Reckoning & Reconciliation on the Great Plains summit
The Great Plains Art Museum has revived its biennial juried exhibition, “Contemporary Indigeneity.” The fourth iteration of this group show will feature work by 28 artists from across the Great Plains who address the contemporary Native American experience in the region.
Join the “Contemporary Indigeneity” jurors and Ashley Wilkinson, Director of the Great Plains Art Museum, for a talk about the exhibition, Indigenous art, and the jury process.
A monthly series hosted by the Center for Great Plains Studies Graduate Fellows.
This installment will highlight the ongoing work of groups involved in wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, pet rescue, and education.
Presenter Bio: Laura Stastny is the Executive Director of Nebraska Wildlife Rehab, Inc. She is an IWRC Certified Wildlife Rehabilitator and has been a multi-species wildlife rehabilitator and public educator for more than 20 years. Stastny has extensive experience in animal-related fields – She has worked as a veterinary practice manager; was the executive director of a humane society and conducted cruelty investigations for the state of Minnesota; and has served on disaster relief and wide-scale rescue teams for the HSUS. She has spent part of her professional career in the financial services industry and all of her adult life involved in the operations of small non-profits – as an employee, board member, or volunteer.
Facilitator Bio: Paul Grosskopf is a Graduate Fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies and an English PhD student in Literary and Cultural Studies. He graduated with a B.S. from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and an M.A. from Northern Illinois University. At UNL, Grosskopf splits his time between teaching in the English Department and working as an editorial assistant in the Willa Cather Archive. His research interests include fat studies, print culture, transnationalism, and modernity in American literature and culture.
This presentation will provide the truth behind the theft of 53 million acres of land during a time when fraud within the Indian Bureau was nefarious. The details and background of the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise with the Cheyenne and Arapaho people reveal one of the most sordid examples of fraud ever in Indian Country. The undisputable facts of corruption, collusion, conspiracy, nepotism, and cronyism are all included in the story of the removal of Indians from the Front Range and Eastern plains of Colorado.
Richard B. Williams, Lakota/Cheyenne Elder and Educator, has dedicated his career to empowering Native scholars. He served as the President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund for 15 years, from 1997 to 2012.
Rick Williams was the first Native scholar to graduate from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1975. Concurrently, he finished an independent study program at the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) in Boulder, Colorado, where he continued his work as a paralegal after graduation. In 1987, he completed a Master of Arts in educational administration at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. Rick Williams has received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island for his work in Native education and the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Colorado Board of Regents and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in recognition of his dedicated service to American Indian students and their communities, among other accolades.
Although Rick is retired, he continues to serve as a consultant for the Johnson Scholarship Foundation and has created the “Truth, Restoration and Education Commission” to study the history of Indians in the State of Colorado.
This event is part of a yearlong series of events: “A Year of Reckoning and Reconciliation: Conversation, Learning, and Connecting.” To see the schedule visit go.unl.edu/gp2022
A monthly series hosted by the Center for Great Plains Studies Graduate Fellows.
The Center is launching a new online series to amplify the voices of distinctive communities on the Great Plains whose perspectives have historically been marginalized, underrepresented, or misunderstood. This new series is brought to you by our dynamic group of Graduate Fellows, graduate students who come from fields as diverse as Civil Engineering, Biological Sciences, English, Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, and Natural Resources. They have combined their unique interests and expertise to create a compelling series of accessible conversations focused on the region.
This event will look at the challenges of infrastructure, mental health, climate change, and pressure from large corporations. It will feature a short presentation on the experiences of Nebraska farmers, a discussion between the speaker and facilitator, and audience Q&A.
Presenter Bio: Bradi Heaberlin recently received her M.A. in Geography from Indiana University, where she wrote a thesis, titled "Farm Stress and the Production of Rural Sacrifice Zones," exploring the ways in which economic issues in the farm economy contribute to mental health symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and the possibility of suicide among farmers and ranchers. Her work is fundamentally concerned with the ways in which the social fabric of rural communities are disrupted and hollowed out as a result of land and industry consolidation.
Facilitator Bio: Bailey McNichol is a Graduate Fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies and a third-year PhD Student in Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research is focused on understanding patterns of plant diversity and the effects of climate change on Nebraska's forests.
Learn about the concept of reconciliation and its impact on our lives with the planners of our year-long series of events. Panelists: Margaret Jacobs (Director, Center for Great Plains Studies), Kevin Abourezk (Journalist, Managing Editor, Indianz.com)
A brief look at Black Homesteaders, narrated by Elizabeth Burden and with special thanks to the Nicodemus Historical Society, History Nebraska, the University of Northern Colorado Special Collections Black American West Museum and New Mexico State University Special Collections.
In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we spoke with Brian M. Kelly, licensed architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, on his research into the design and construction of the decommissioned, underground vertical Atlas-F missile silos in the prairies of the Great Plains during the 1960s.
This talk is part of the Paul A. Olson Great Plains lecture series.
Special thanks to Margaret Huettl for providing a video land acknowledgement for this episode. To listen to the podcast version, visit: https://anchor.fm/gp-lectures
Consider supporting the Center for Great Plains Studies and Great Plains Art Museum during the 2022 Glow Big Red event.
In this episode, we talk with Dr. David Vail, Associate Professor of History at the University of Nebraska at Kearney who specializes in environmental and agricultural history, history of science, technology, and medicine, and public history. In this interview, Dr. Vail talks about his book on the history of agricultural chemicals and dives into his new work looking at the interplay between culture, politics, and agriculture in the Great Plains during the Cold War era. Special thanks to Margaret Huettl for providing a video land acknowledgement for this episode. To listen to the podcast version, visit: https://anchor.fm/gp-lectures
In this panel discussion, team members from the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project and community members will share the lasting impact of the Genoa Indian Boarding School in Nebraska. The Genoa School was one of over 300 Indian boarding schools that were established by the government and churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1900, nearly 21,000 Indian children were living apart from their families at one of the boarding schools. In many cases, officials forced children to attend the schools against the wishes of their families and tribes. Panelists: Judi gaiashkibos (Ponca), Executive Director, Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs Dr. Rudi Mitchell (Omaha Indian Nation of Nebraska and Iowa), professor emeritus, Native American Studies, Creighton University Dr. Margaret Jacobs, Project Co-Director Dr. Susana D. Grajales Geliga (Lakota and Taino), Project Co-Director Dr. Elizabeth Lorang, Project Co-Director
Part of the Hubbard Lecture, annual lecture advancing the understanding and appreciation of the cultural heritage of the First Peoples of the Plains. Made possible by contributions from Anne M. Hubbard and the Claire M. Hubbard Foundation.
In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Craig Allen, Director of the new Center for Resilience in Agricultural Working Landscapes, and Dr. Walt Schacht, Interim Director of the Center for Grassland Studies. Together, the two centers are working with landowners to research and test out the viability of different rangeland management techniques, especially in the Sandhills. In this interview, they discuss how the University of Nebraska works with landowners, myths about the Sandhills, and the concept of resilience in a landscape.
Special thanks to Margaret Huettl for providing a video land acknowledgement for this episode. To listen to the podcast version, visit: https://anchor.fm/gp-lectures
Dr. Leo Killsback gave a talk at the Center for Great Plains Studies as the first Paul A. Olson lecture of the semester.
He is an associate professor in the Department of Native American Studies at Montana State University who specializes in indigenous governance, traditional law, sovereignty, and treaty rights. Dr. Killsback grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation and is devoted to the preservation and resurgence of Cheyenne language and culture. He sustains relationships within his nation by means of collaborative methodologies that neither exploit nor marginalize.
Dr. Killsback is the winner of the 2021 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize for the two-volume set “A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation” and “A Sovereign People: Indigenous Nationhood, Traditional Law, and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation” (Texas Tech University Press, 2020).
In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Lucas Bessire, an Associate Professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Before joining the faculty at Oklahoma, Bessire earned a doctorate in anthropology from New York University. His family has been in Kansas for five generations, and his recent work turns toward this home connection with the Great Plains with his new book: "Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains," published by Princeton University Press.
Special thanks to Margaret Huettl for providing a video land acknowledgement for this episode. To listen to the podcast version, visit: https://anchor.fm/gp-lectures
Week 1 of our 2020-21 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence Kirsten Furlong working at the Great Plains Art Museum.
This episode of the Paul A. Olson "Great Plains Anywhere" series features Dr. Melissa Homestead, professor of English, Great Plains Fellow, program faculty in women's and gender studies, and director of The Cather Project at UNL. Her new book "The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis" reconstructs the life Cather and Lewis led together through Homestead's in-depth research. Their relationship was often mischaracterized or ignored by scholars, and Homestead's book shows how Cather and Lewis lived fulfilling lives.
Special thanks to Margaret Huettl for providing a video land acknowledgement for this episode. To listen to the podcast version, visit: https://anchor.fm/gp-lectures
This episode of the Paul A. Olson "Great Plains Anywhere" series features Dr. Julie Shaffer, professor and chair in Biology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Shaffer's recent research involves assessing tick-borne diseases in central Nebraska and the recent changes in these disease patterns.
Special thanks to Margaret Huettl for providing a video land acknowledgement for this episode. To listen to the podcast version, visit: https://anchor.fm/gp-lectures
Undergraduate and graduate students from many disciplines showcase what climate change in the Great Plains means to them in quick, back-to-back presentations. Presenters: Bailey McNichol, biology (UNL); Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu, journalism (UNL); Mar Lee, English and global studies (UNL); Matthew Thompson, environmental engineering (UNL); Kathleen Dillon, English (UNL), Cameron Steele, English (UNL), Kimberly Steward, Natural Resources (UNL).
Part of the 2021 Great Plains conference: "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains" that took place April 1-2, 2021.
Thirty-one years ago, in 1990, the Center hosted a conference called “Climate Change on the Great Plains,” which was described as “Looking Back from the Twenty-First Century at Impacts of Climate Change on the Great Plains.” We return to that topic three decades later with a panel of scholars who formed the backbone of that conference. What have they seen change in 31 years? With Ken Dewey (1990 conference co-chair, UNL), Peter Longo (Political Science, UNK), Fran Kaye (English, UNL), Clint Rowe (Earth & Atmos, UNL) and moderated by David Vail (History, UNK).
Part of the 2021 Great Plains conference: "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains" held April 1-2, 2021.
Climate change is both a humanity-scale issue and, when it impacts you, a deeply personal story. Hear from a team of University of Nebraska-Lincoln student journalists and their mentors who spent a year diving into what climate change looks like on the ground for the "Climate Change Nebraska" depth reporting project. Moderated by Joe Starita, UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communication with Jennifer Sheppard, UNL CoJMC.
Part of the 2021 Great Plains conference: "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains" held April 1-2, 2021.
What is it like working on climate change with such an intense culture clash surrounding the topic? Hear from experts in their field about what lessons they've learned and how it affects their work going forward. With Martha Shulski (UNL, Nebraska State Climatologist), Crystal Powers (Nebraska Water Center), Tonya Haigh (National Drought Mitigation Center), and Mace Hack (The Nature Conservancy). Moderated by Tom Lynch, UNL.
Graduates of the Center's Great Plains Graduate Fellows Program will speak about how big picture thinking about climate change should include cross-disciplinary teamwork. Panelists include Aubrey Streit Krug (The Land Institute), Caleb Roberts (Assistant Unit Leader at the Arkansas Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit), Dan Uden (UNL School of Natural Resources). Moderated by Tom Lynch, UNL
"Health and Climate Change" with Dr. Jesse Bell, part of "Climate Change and Culture on the Great Plains." Bell's research explores the relationships of extreme weather, climate variability, and climate change on natural and human processes. The climate that we experience controls much of the world around us. When our climate abruptly changes or gradually shifts, there can be related consequences to both our communities and our health. The goal of Bell's work is to understand these linkages between climate and health, so that we can help prepare our populations for climate- and weather-related disasters. To determine these relationships, Bell uses a variety of climate and environmental data sources to explore associations with human health outcomes. Bell's research explores the relationships of extreme weather, climate variability, and climate change on natural and human processes. The climate that we experience controls much of the world around us. When our climate abruptly changes or gradually shifts, there can be related consequences to both our communities and our health. The goal of Bell's work is to understand these linkages between climate and health, so that we can help prepare our populations for climate- and weather-related disasters. To determine these relationships, Bell uses a variety of climate and environmental data sources to explore associations with human health outcomes.
Question and answer session with Ursula Kreitmair, speaker at the 2021 Great Plains conference. To see the full talk, visit our media channel.
Question and answer session with Daniel Wildcat, speaker at the 2021 Great Plains conference. To see the full talk, visit our media channel.
"How to Design Climate Policy in a Polarized World" with Ursula Kreitmair, UNL Political Science. Culture is a main determinant of how we think and feel about climate change. As such, culture must be considered when designing mitigation and adaptation strategies to meet the rapid emission reductions necessary to avert the most damaging of climate impacts. Cultural cleavages, both domestic and international, threaten to mire us in political conflict when we need to be working collectively to address this major challenge. This talk uses culture as context to identify limits of current climate policy initiatives and to sketch out viable policy options that may be more palatable to individuals on different sides of the climate divide. Dr. Kreitmair joined the Department of Political Science as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2016. Her research interests lie with environmental policy. In particular, she researches how we might overcome collective action problems underlying (large scale) social dilemmas as found surrounding many environmental issues. Kreitmair uses an inter-disciplinary approach (behavioral economic experiments, computational, and institutional analysis) to refine policy tools used in environmental management based on insights from the behavioral sciences. Kreitmair teaches classes in environmental and public policy and research methods.
Center Director Margaret Jacobs gives the opening welcome for "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains" on April 1, 2021.
Daniel Wildcat, Haskell Indian Nations University
"The Climate Change We Need: The Case for a Cultural Climate Change" Worldviews are largely tacit and assumptive in character. Seldom stated explicitly or critically examined, the modern worldview of progress and technological accomplishment is a fundamental part of what needs to change today. Unless we foster a non-anthropocentric worldview, it will be difficult to successfully address the physical climate change problems humankind has produced. Making that shift might be easier than we think. This presentation suggests that many Indigenous worldviews offer examples of the kind of cultural climate change we need to successfully address the deadly and destructive physical climate change humankind now faces.
Dr. Wildcat writes on indigenous knowledge, technology, environment, and education. He is co-director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center. A Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, Wildcat recently formed the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, a tribal-college-centered network of individuals and organizations working on climate change issues. In 2008, he helped organize the Planning for Seven Generations climate change conference sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is the author of Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge and is Professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan.
Question and answer session with Jes Thompson, speaker at the 2021 Great Plains conference. To see the full talk, visit our media channel.
Jes Thompson, Northern Michigan University
Title: Let's Change the Conversation about Climate Change
The impacts of a rapidly changing climate are everywhere, yet we haven’t figured out how to talk about climate change with our friends and neighbors. Since the 1980s public conversations about climate change have been dominated by the language of science and politics. Our own fears of scientific inaccuracy and uncertainty – or political disagreement – have censored us from talking about how to live on a changing planet. This talk presents a new frame for conversations about climate change and the places that matter. We can change the conversation about climate change by connecting the issues to the places we love, while talking with the people we love.
Thompson’s research involves improving climate change communication through social science. She led a National Science Foundation project on building place-based climate change education tools for the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Thompson is an expert on the social and cultural foundations for effective promotion of environmental policy with an interdisciplinary approach involving history, culture, government, and media. She is a Professor at Northern Michigan University and the founder of the Northern Climate Network. She also spent five years in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources department at Colorado State University.
Question and answer session after Dr. Andrew Hoffman's keynote presentation for the 2021 Great Plains conference: "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains." See our media channel for the keynote.
Keynote address for the 2021 Great Plains Conference: "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains" with Dr. Andrew Hoffman, Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School for Environment & Sustainability. More from the conference at: https://www.unl.edu/plains/2021-great-plains-conference-page