by Tony Moore
Dickinson has created a new tenure-track position in the Department of American Studies focused on Native American studies. And with a $210,000 grant from the Creating Connections Consortium, the position has been filled, and courses will begin in the fall 2020 semester.
“Knowledge of Native American history and culture equips citizens to understand the nation's past and present diversity and conflict,” says Cotten Seiler, associate professor of American studies and chair of the department. “Dickinson's location at the site of the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School makes it especially crucial that the college engages Native American studies wherever possible in our curriculum.”
Fall courses will include The Native American Intellectual Traditions and Imagining American Futures, and future courses such as Indigenous Futurism and Transnational Tribal Culture; Ethnicity, Literature and the Nation in the 21st Century; and Indigenous Urban America will be offered. The new position is the latest initiative at Dickinson to explore Native American culture and issues, following the 2013 founding of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center, related work through a 2018 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant and the facilitation of the biennial Carlisle Journeys conference, attended by Native American studies scholars, community members and dozens of descendants of CIS students.
The Creating Connections Consortium Faculty Funding program supports the first two years of a tenure-track position plus start-up funds for research and travel. The funding is restricted to fields supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—with which Dickinson has had a long-term relationship—specifically the humanities and humanistic social sciences.
Published July 11, 2020