[Cas-allemps] UO Author Book Talk: Kirby Brown (February 12th at 5:30 pm)

[CAS Dean]

UO Author Book Talk, Thurs. Feb 12, 5:30 p.m. Knight Library Browsing Room - Kirby Brown, associate professor of English and Native American literatures, will discuss research from his new book, Stoking the Fire: Nationhood in Cherokee Writing, 1907-1970.

The event is designed to recognize University of Oregon faculty members and their books. The series is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, UO Libraries and the College of Arts and Sciences.

In an Around the O interview<https://around.uoregon.edu/content/book-talk-examines-nationhood-early-20th-century-cherokee-writing>, Dr. Brown describes his journey to researching and writing this book:

"In the mid-late 2000s, there was a move...away from looking at Native American writing as an ethnic tradition in the American canon and toward considering them 'national' literatures in their own right. The more I read in the literature, the more I realized I could do an entire study on Cherokee writing from this period, and that I could draw upon a host of Cherokee and Indigenous scholars to inform that work.

"As I got further into Cherokee literature, I noticed a huge gap in the scholarship from the breakup of tribal governments with Oklahoma statehood in 1907 to the sovereignty movement and tribal reorganization in 1971. During this period, the Cherokee Nation as a government was more or less dormant, leading many scholars to assume that Cherokee nationhood-or how Cherokees continued to understand ourselves as a national community-was also asleep. In the literature, that was far from true. There are Cherokee writers writing about their history, culture and ongoing nationhood throughout the early 20th century.

"My book is an attempt to begin to excavate and revisit that archive."

All faculty, staff and students are welcome to attend. Please join us in celebrating this contribution to scholarship in Native American literatures.



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