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Wombed Hollows, Sacred Trees: Burial Mounds and Processual Indigenous Subjectivity with Chadwick Allen

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April 14, 2022
4:00PM - 6:00PM
18th Avenue Library or via Zoom

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2022-04-14 16:00:00 2022-04-14 18:00:00 Wombed Hollows, Sacred Trees: Burial Mounds and Processual Indigenous Subjectivity with Chadwick Allen Abstract: Since the eighteenth century, settler cultures have represented North American burial mounds as ancient “mysteries” and historical “enigmas”—sites of Indigenous vanishing that provide settlers with opportunities for creating scientific discovery, economic profit, and cautionary tales of angry ghosts from “lost” civilizations. But there are other narratives to tell about these sophisticated earthworks, other conceptual frames for understanding not only their functions as technologies for interment but also their ongoing power as symbols for Indigenous presence. Drawing from his new book Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts, Chadwick Allen analyzes works by contemporary Native writers and artists that demonstrate Indigenous conceptions of interment within mounded earth. These provocative “earth”-works unsettle dominant narratives by reactivating Indigenous understandings of burial mounds as active sites of renewal and regeneration. Chadwick Allen is Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he also serves as the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement. Author of the books Blood Narrative: Indigenous Identity in American Indian and Maori Literary and Activist Texts, Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies, and Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts, Professor Allen is a former editor of the journal Studies in American Indian Literatures and a past president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). Register for the event IN-PERSON here. Register for Session 1 VIA ZOOM here. For additional information regarding our visit to Newark Earthworks with Dr. Allen, as well as registration instructions, please CLICK HERE. For event updates, please continue to monitor this page. All events sponsored by the CSR are free and open to the public. This event is co-sponsored with the American Indian Studies Program in the Center for Ethnic Studies. The Zoom livestream of this event will be presented with automated closed captions. If you wish to request traditional CART services or other accommodations, please contact religion@osu.edu. Requests made by about 10 days before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date. Starting at 6 p.m. Friday, March 11, masks will be optional in most indoor spaces on The Ohio State University campuses, including residence halls, dining facilities, classrooms, offices and the Ohio Union. In settings where masks are optional, students, faculty, staff and visitors can decide on an individual basis whether or not they will continue to wear a mask. 18th Avenue Library or via Zoom Center for the Study of Religion religion@osu.edu America/New_York public

Abstract: Since the eighteenth century, settler cultures have represented North American burial mounds as ancient “mysteries” and historical “enigmas”—sites of Indigenous vanishing that provide settlers with opportunities for creating scientific discovery, economic profit, and cautionary tales of angry ghosts from “lost” civilizations. But there are other narratives to tell about these sophisticated earthworks, other conceptual frames for understanding not only their functions as technologies for interment but also their ongoing power as symbols for Indigenous presence. Drawing from his new book Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts, Chadwick Allen analyzes works by contemporary Native writers and artists that demonstrate Indigenous conceptions of interment within mounded earth. These provocative “earth”-works unsettle dominant narratives by reactivating Indigenous understandings of burial mounds as active sites of renewal and regeneration.

Chadwick Allen is Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he also serves as the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement. Author of the books Blood Narrative: Indigenous Identity in American Indian and Maori Literary and Activist TextsTrans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies, and Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts, Professor Allen is a former editor of the journal Studies in American Indian Literatures and a past president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).

Register for the event IN-PERSON here.

Register for Session 1 VIA ZOOM here.

For additional information regarding our visit to Newark Earthworks with Dr. Allen, as well as registration instructions, please CLICK HERE.

For event updates, please continue to monitor this page.


All events sponsored by the CSR are free and open to the public. This event is co-sponsored with the American Indian Studies Program in the Center for Ethnic Studies.

The Zoom livestream of this event will be presented with automated closed captions. If you wish to request traditional CART services or other accommodations, please contact religion@osu.edu. Requests made by about 10 days before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Starting at 6 p.m. Friday, March 11, masks will be optional in most indoor spaces on The Ohio State University campuses, including residence halls, dining facilities, classrooms, offices and the Ohio Union. In settings where masks are optional, students, faculty, staff and visitors can decide on an individual basis whether or not they will continue to wear a mask.