Ned Blackhawk, Yale University history professor, launches Scripps College’s Humanities Institute lecture series by speaking on “The Violent Edges of Empire: Colonialism and North American Indian History” at 7:30 p.m., January 31 at Garrison Theater, Scripps College Performing Arts Center. This public event is free.
“I will pay tribute to a very important essay by Neil Whitehead and Brian Ferguson titled, ‘War in the Tribal Zone,’ an anthology about violence between indigenous communities on the so-called margins of empire,” Blackhawk says. “What they do beautifully is link patterns of violence, illustrating how the presumption of violence within ‘tribal’ communities is historic rather than cultural.”
Originally from Detroit and an enrolled member of the Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada, Blackhawk is an American Indian historian best known for his book, “Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West,” which examines the violence Native peoples in Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern California endured as U.S. settlers moved west. The book has won several professional prizes, including the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize from the Organization of American Historians.
Julia Bogany, of the Gabrieleno/Tongva of San Gabriel, will begin the event with an opening blessing. The Humanities Institute has organized a series of lectures and film screenings titled, “Continuing Invasion: Resistance, Resilience, and Re-invention Among North American Indigenous Peoples.” The speakers will challenge the distorted depictions of Native peoples in mainstream and scholarly written works.
Call Rosa Maria Santana at (909) 607-7177 to schedule an interview with Blackhawk.