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Lecture

Modern Native America and Environmental Justice: Changing the Narrative of Our American Moment

Dengerink Administration Building - WSU Vancouver, WSU Entrance Rd, Vancouver, WA 98686
     
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About the event

A best-selling author and expert in Native American life and history, David Treuer will present “Modern Native America and Environmental Justice: Changing the Narrative of Our American Moment” at noon on Thursday, Oct. 21, at Washington State University Vancouver and on YouTube.

Treuer, who is an anthropologist, English professor, and author of more than a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, will speak and take questions from the audience in Dengerink Administration Building, Room 110, at noon.

His presentation is the first Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Justice sponsored by WSU’s School of the Environment in 2021.

“We’re excited for the opportunity to host Dr. Treuer online and on campus where he’ll meet with students and faculty in environmental science and other intersecting disciplines,” said Marcia Ostrom, associate professor in SoE. “He is a powerful voice for change and will serve as a great kickoff to this year’s Lane Lecture series.”

Treuer is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. His literary work employs a combination of historical research, interviews and lived experiences to reconsider Native American history in ways that center resilience, resistance, and ongoing struggles for land sovereignty.

He will discuss themes from his recent articles and acclaimed 2019 book, “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present,” a New York Times Best Seller and National Book Award finalist.

Treuer has received the Pushcart Prize and his work has been named an editor’s pick by the Washington Post, Time Out and City Pages. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, Esquire, Slate.com and elsewhere.

He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California and divides his time between Los Angeles and the Leech Lake Reservation.

WSU Vancouver is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave. in Vancouver, Wash. east of the 134th Street exit from either I-5 or I-205, or via C-TRAN bus service. Find a campus map at vancouver.wsu.edu/map. Parking is available at meters and in the Blue Daily Pay lot for $5.

Common Reading credit available for students.

The second Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Justice of 2021 will be presented online Dec. 2 by Catherine Coleman Flowers, an environmental and climate justice activist who writes about the disproportionate impacts of inadequate waste and water sanitation infrastructure on rural communities of color in the U.S.

Lane Lecture cosponsors include the WSU College of Arts and Sciences; College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences; and the SoE Graduate Student Association.

About the Lane Lecture

The Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Science is endowed by a gift from L.W. “Bill” Lane, former publisher of Sunset magazine and numerous books and films, and his wife, Jean. The Lane Family Lecture was inaugurated in 1993.

The Lanes, along with their son Robert, a 1983 WSU graduate, also created the Robert Lane Fellowship in Environmental Science to support graduate students studying environmental science at WSU.

“We are strong proponents of public service and hope that the annual lecture and fellowship encourage efforts to find solutions to some of the global problems that confront society,” Bill Lane said.

Gifts to support the Lane Family Lecture or Robert Lane Fellowship can be made securely online or by contacting the CAS development office.

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