Native American Studies at the University of Michigan presents the 2018 Robert F. Berkhofer Jr. Lecture: An Evening With Gerald Vizenor

BETRAYAL AND IRONY: Native American Survivance and the Subversion of Ethnology

Gerald Vizenor is Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a citizen of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota, and has published more than thirty books including novels, literary criticism, cultural studies, and poetry. Blue Ravens, an historical novel, and Treaty Shirts are his most recent publications. Vizenor has received many awards including the American Book Award for Griever: An American Monkey King in China, the Western Literature Association Distinguished Achievement Award, and the Lifetime Literary Achievement Award from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas. Prior to his long career as an intellectual and academic, he enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces, during which he was stationed in Japan; directed the American Indian Employment and Guidance Center in Minneapolis; and served as a journalist for the Minneapolis Tribune, where he reported critically about the activities of the American Indian Movement.

This event is free and open to the public. There will be a catered reception to follow the lecture. Literati bookstore will be selling Vizenor's books starting at 6PM and again after the lecture.

The Berkhofer Lecture series (named for a former U-M professor and founder of the field of Native American studies) was established in 2014 by an alumni gift from the Dan and Carmen Brenner family of Seattle, Washington. In close consultation with the Brenners, Native American Studies decided to create a public lecture series featuring prominent, marquee speakers who would draw audiences from different communities (faculty and students, Ann Arbor and Detroit, and Michigan tribal communities as well as writers and readers of all persuasions). Native American students at U-M have consistently expressed their desire to make Native Americans more visible both on campus and off, and we believe that this lecture takes a meaningful step in that direction. Additionally, because of the statewide publicity it generates, we think it is already becoming another recruitment incentive for Native American students. It goes without saying that the speakers we are inviting provide tremendous value to the mission and work of Native American Studies at U-M.