Description:

Christopher Pexa, Thursday February 11, 12:30 p.m. in University Hall, Hagstrum Room, room 201 "Translated Nation: Rewriting the Dakota Oyate, 1862-1934"

Christopher J. Pexa (Spirit Lake Dakota) received his Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University in 2013 and is currently Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma State University. His primary areas of research are American and Native American literatures and oral traditions of the long 19th century, Native American Studies, and federal Indian law, with an emphasis on questions of tribal ethics, sovereignty, and nationalism. His first book project, Translated Nation: Rewriting Dakota Oyate, 1862-1934 (under contract with University of Minnesota Press) examines Dakota/Lakota nationhood and ethics in assimilation era literature as well as through interviews conducted with tribal elders lodged in the Mni Wakan Oyate (Spirit Lake Nation) archives. Pexa was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow, and is a published poet. His essays have been published or are forthcoming in Wicazo Sa Review and PMLA.