Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Speaking in Sudbury

Renowned writer, feminist, historian, and social justice activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz will be speaking in Sudbury on March 3 and 4 on "Indigenous Struggles in the Americas" and "Memory and the Environment of Poverty."

Here is the announcement:

Writer, Historian and Social Justice Activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz To Speak in Sudbury Next Monday and Tuesday.

The Gkendassawin Trail Speakers Series and the Humanities MA Colloquium Series welcome Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz to Laurentian University and Sudbury.

As part of the Gkendassawin Trail Speakers Series, the Office of Native Student Affairs and Office of Academic Native Affairs are presenting a public lecture on "Indigenous Struggles in the Americas" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, on Monday March 3, 2008 at 7 p.m., in the Fraser Auditorium of Laurentian University.

The Interdisciplinary Humanities MA in Interpretation and Values presents its fourth public lecture of the 2007-08 Colloquium Series exploring "Memory and the Environment" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on "Memory and the Environment of Poverty," Tuesday March 4, 2008 at 7:30 in the Senate Chambers on the 11th floor of the Parker Building at Laurentian University.

All are welcome to attend. Admission is free.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a leading historian of indigenous struggles in the Americas and lifelong social justice activist. She is currently a professor emeritus of Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies at California State University. Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, daughter of a landless farmer and half-Indian mother. She was a key figure in the emergence of the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and, in 1974, became active in the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the International Indian Treaty Council, beginning a lifelong commitment to international human rights.

Her first published book, The Great Sioux Nation: An Oral History of the Sioux Nation and its Struggle for Sovereignty, was published in 1977 and was presented as the fundamental document at the first international conference on Indians of the Americas, held at United Nations' headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. That book was followed by two others in subsequent years: Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico, 1680-1980 (a new edition of which has just been published by University of Oklahoma Press) and Indians of the Americas: Human Rights and Self-Determination (Zed, 1984). In the last decade, she has written a trilogy of acclaimed memoirs about her life and political work as it has intersected with major historical moments: Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 (City Lights, 2001), and Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War (South End Press, 2005).

"Roxanne-Dunbar-Ortiz has defined the term engaged intellectual through a life spent on the frontlines of the past four decades of social struggles. She has never abandoned her roots through the process of becoming one of the most respected Left academics in the United States." James Tracy

"Where were you when Che Guevara was murdered in Bolivia in October 1967? When Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol? When Angela Davis was on trial for murder, and acquitted? Vividly Roxanne remembers.." Shulamith Firestone

For more information on her work go to http://www.reddirtsite.com/index.htm.

If you are in the area, please come to one or both of the talks!