Dr Renae Watchman (Mount Royal University)
Published: 12 January 2021
Tuesday 16 March 2021
Tuesday 16 March, 4.15pm (UK), Dr Renae Watchman (Mount Royal University)
Event organized by Alexandra Abletshauser (University of Glasgow)
Please join us on Tuesday 16 March, 4.15pm for Dr Renae Watchman’s talk, “Hane’, Kéyah, K’é: Stories, Land, Kinship, and Languages in Indigenous Literary Arts”
All welcome.
If you'd like to attend, email Dr Laura Rattray (Laura.Rattray@glasgow.ac.uk) and you'll receive a secure Zoom link on the day of the talk.
“Hane’, Kéyah, K’é: Stories, Land, Kinship, and Languages in Indigenous Literary Arts”
Dr Renae Watchman
“This body of knowledge is referred to as saad—which encompasses stories, songs, prayers, ritual oratories, and instructions or teachings. It is said that a person who is raised well and taught this knowledge is wealthy. To Navajos, a person’s worth is determined by the stories and songs she or he knows, because it is by this knowledge, that an individual is directly linked to the history of the entire group. […] The elements of these stories and songs include the proper use of rhythm, meter, symbolism, concrete diction, and imagery. Other aspects include a sense of place and heavy use of repetition” (inaugural Diné poet laureate Luci Tapahonso, “Singing in Navajo,” 39).
Indigenous literary arts comprise a vast body of knowledge, using words and language (saad) translated into English. Stories that centre land and relationality are at the heart of my teaching and research interests. I will begin this talk with a general overview of Indigenous Literatures on Turtle Island, highlighting the contentious nature of the Medicine Line and responses by Indigenous authors, whose literary resistance and restoration of stories, land, and kin are central to my long-term research on Indigenous stories dislocated in visual media. I set select works of Diné authors Luci Tapahonso, Laura Tohe, and Irvin Morris alongside Dene authors Katłįà (Catherine Lafferty), Jessie MacKenzie, and Richard Van Camp to illuminate how critical land-based Indigenous storytelling, singing, and epistemologies are. To read hane’ (stories: oral, literary, and filmic) through Indigenous knowledge systems is to recover and restore Indigenous presence and kinship as an act of hózhǫ́ (coming to a state of wellness, balance, peace, and harmony), or restoration.
Biographical information:
Tódich’íi’nii éínishłị dóó Kinya’áanii báshíshchíín. Tsalagi éí da shichei dóó Táchii'nii éí da shinálí. Dr. Watchman (Diné) is Bitter Water born for Towering House. Her chei was Bird Clan (Cherokee), and her nálí was Red Running Through the Water clan. She is an associate professor of English and Indigenous Studies at Mount Royal University in Treaty 7 territory but lives in Treaty 6 territory with her partner and their family. Dr. Watchman developed and teaches the following courses: North American Indigenous Literatures, Indigenous Film, and MRU’s first international Indigenous Studies Field School, taught entirely on the Big Island of Hawai‘i: “Aloha ‘Āina & Activism,” which she taught with Dr. Robert Alexander Innes (U Sask). Dr. Watchman’s recent publications include: Indianthusiasm: Indigenous Responses (eds. Hartmut Lutz, Florentine Strzelczyk, Renae Watchman); Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, special issue of Indigenous and German Studies (eds. Renae Watchman, Carrie Smith, and Markus Stock); “Reel Restoration in Drunktown's Finest,” Native American and Indigenous Studies Journal (NAIS).
First published: 12 January 2021