Indigenous Studies Working Group

About

The Indigenous Studies Working Group (ISWG) at Boston University was founded in Fall 2023 to build community among students, scholars, and members of BU’s campus interested in the interdisciplinary field of Native American and Indigenous Studies. Our goal is to showcase and discuss scholarship in Indigenous Studies through seminars, events, reading groups, film screenings, informal gatherings over meals, and public lectures and events.

Past Events

Lunch Seminar – April 23, 2024

Kimberley Toney (Hassanamisco Nipmuc) visited the ISWG for a seminar over lunch and discussed her work as the Inaugural Coordinating Curator of Native American and Indigenous Collections at the John Carter Brown Library and at the John Hay Library at Brown University.

The recommended readings for the seminar included:

Protocols for Native American Archival Materials

Information as a relation: Defining Indigenous information literacy

Prior to holding this position at the JCB, Kim Toney was Head of Readers’ Services and Director of Indigenous Initiatives at the American Antiquarian Society, on Nipmuc homelands in Worcester, Massachusetts. Kim holds an MA in Historic Preservation from the University of Delaware, regularly serves as an advisor or consultant to cultural institutions and land trusts in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, and is deeply engaged with cultural revitalization, language reclamation and landback efforts in her Nipmuc community.

Killers of the Flower Moon series – February 2024

Hosted by BU’s Conversations in the Arts and Ideas, David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon, discussed his work at BU on Wednesday, February 28, at 7pm. Throughout the week, the ISWG participated in the conversation with Grann and discussed other works about Osage history in the 1920s. Copies of Grann’s book as well as John Joseph Matthew’s novel Sundown and Charles Red Corn’s A Pipe for February are available for the group to read.

The Event Series included:
Weds, 2/28, Tsai Performance Center: Conversation with David Grann.

Thurs, 2/29: Lunch meeting of the ISWG to discuss.

The Indigenous Studies Working Group is sponsored by the American & New England Studies Program, the Boston University Center for the Humanities, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Associate Dean of the Faculty, Humanities, the Associate Dean of the Faculty, Social Sciences, and the Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion.

Co-organizers:
Wade Campbell (wadehc@bu.edu)
Mary Battenfeld (mbatten@bu.edu)
Joseph Rezek (jrezek@bu.edu)

Graduate Assistant:
Genna Kane (gweidner@bu.edu)
Please contact the Graduate Assistant to have your email added to our contact list.