03-13-07

Media Release

New Lecture Series Highlights Work of Native Americans

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new Native American Philosophy lecture series will start at the beginning of the spring term at Oregon State University and spotlight the work of 11 distinguished Native American writers, performers or political leaders through early June.

This series is sponsored by the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word, the departments of Ethnic Studies and Philosophy, the Native American Collaborative Institute, the Hundere Endowment for Religion and Culture and the USDA Forest Service.

“The project will provide a place where Native voices will be heard and carefully considered,” said Kathleen Dean Moore, a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, who along with OSU ethnic studies Professor Kurt Peters is one of the organizers of the project.

“Music, poetry, discussion and storytelling can help us all re-examine what we most deeply believe about who we are in the world and what sustains us physically, emotionally and spiritually.”

All lectures are scheduled for Wednesday evenings and open to the public and will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Gilfillan Auditorium on the OSU campus.

Lecture series events are as follows:

• April 4: Leslia Marmon Silko (Laguna/Pueblo), poet and novelist
• April 11: Kurt Peters (Blackfeet/Powhatan), OSU professor in ethnic studies
• April 18: Ishmael Hope (Iñupiaq/Tlingit), playwright, actor and storyteller
• April 25: Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee), former chief for the Cherokee Nation
• May 2: Deanna Kingston (King Island Inupiaq), OSU professor in anthropology, member of Northwest Iñupiaq Dancers
• May 9: Jeanette Armstrong (Okanagan), educator, activist, artist
• May 16: J. Carlos Peinado (Mandan/Hidatsa), film director
• May 23: Linda Hogan (Chickasaw), poet, fiction writer, playwright, essayist
• May 30: Allison David-White Eyes (Kiowa/Cheyenne/Muskogee Creek), poet and coordinator of the OSU Indian Education Office with Mitchel Wilkinson (Osage), ecologist and storyteller
• June 6: Jan Michael Looking Wolf Reibach (Kalapuya), Native flute musician