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5/15/2007 8:14:00 PM

Chickasaw poet, activist visits NAU

Rebecca Schubert
The Observer

Linda Hogan is one of three candidates being considered for NAU’s
McAllister Endowed Chair (Photo by Rebecca Schubert).
FLAGSTAFF-The McAllister Chair Search Committee at Northern Arizona
University recently narrowed its search to three candidates to fill the
lead position in its Program in Community, Culture and Environment. This
program partners the arts at NAU with regional communities and encourages
multidisciplinary learning and collaboration between academia and citizens
outside the university setting.

The final three candidates include Dr. Bron Taylor, Linda Hogan and Dr.
Kathleen Dean Moore.

As part of the selection process, each individual was invited to present
his or her work and potential for promise if he or she is selected for the
post.

On May 7, Hogan visited the university and discussed several topics
including the connection of landscape to consciousness, and the use of
language and story to connect disciplines such as art with science.

Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and activist,
and is widely considered to be one of the most influential and provocative
Native American figures in the contemporary American literary landscape.
Her concentration is on environmental (she has acted as a consultant in
bringing together Native tribal representatives and environmental
campaigners) and feminist themes, particularly allying them to her Native
ancestry.

All of her work, whether fiction or non-fiction, displays a holistic
understanding of the world. She is the recipient of a National Endowment
for the Arts grant in fiction, a Guggenheim for fiction, and a Lannan Award
in 1994. She has been recognized as a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for her
work "Mean Spirit," and for a National Book Critics Circle award for her
"Book of Medicines" and has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement
Award, Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. In 2002, Hogan received the
Writer of the Year Award in Creative Prose from the Wordcraft Circle of
Native Writers and Storytellers.

She has held teaching positions at the University of Minnesota, the
University of Colorado-Boulder, and at Trinity College in Dublin.

During her discussion, Hogan instilled the notion of human consciousness as
intimately intertwined with the consciousness of the elements, other
beings, the Earth and spirit world(s). She then explained how writing and
the use of story enhance and embody this connection.

"I use language to bring out everything from science to spirituality to
knowledge. The story breaks us out of our heads...and is useful in
understanding key relationships between humans and other beings in the
world," Hogan said.

Hogan explained that in order to maintain and nurture her personal tie
within this circle of entities, she looks to nature and ceremonies that
honor these connections.

"I learn from the earth and I try to understand that. Because I'm an
Indigenous person, I know that my tribe had treaties with the land and the
animals, and I think it's important to keep those," she said.

To exemplify the interconnectedness of all things as understood by Native
peoples, Hogan shared two images: the "Napperby Death Spirit Dreaming," and
the "Chippewa Indian land claim presented to the U.S. Congress in 1849." In
each of these illustrations, a story is told through a visual image. In the
"Napperby Death Spirit Dreaming," various entities' dreams are painted
including those of the sun, moon, water, and yam. Interwoven between these
dream images are physical, ecological locations such as camp sites and
journey lines.

Later in her discussion, Hogan shared her enthusiasm in the NAU academic
community due to the willingness of numerous scholars to understand this
type of knowledge and incorporate it into conventional curriculum.

"It's the idea of restoration. That's one of the things I find exciting
about this school-people here are interested in restoring and trying to do
the right thing," she said.

The McAllister Chair Search Committee consists of Sandra Lubarsky,
Fredricka Stoller, David Schlosberg, Lomayumtewa Ishii, Frances Riemer,
Stephen Hart, Julye Gess-Newsome, Jane Marks and Gary Deason, chair.

Bron Taylor holds a Ph.D. in religion (social ethics) from University of
South Carolina. Trained in ethics, religious studies, and social scientific
approaches to understanding human culture, Taylor's scholarly work engages
the quest for environmentally sustainable societies. Appearing in articles,
books, and a multi-volume encyclopedia, he examines a wide range of
phenomena, especially grassroots environmental movements and organizations,
and international institutions, with special attention to their moral and
religious dimensions.

An academic entrepreneur and program builder, he led the initiative to
create an academic major in the environmental studies at the University of
Wisconsin Oshkosh, later initiated and was elected the first president of
the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture,
while also founding its affiliated journal. Recruited to fill the Samuel S.
Hill Ethics Chair at the University of Florida in 2002, he played a leading
role in constructing the world's first doctoral program with an emphasis in
Religion and Nature. Most recently, he has been involved in an
international think tank exploring ways to more effectively promote an
environmentally sustainable future.

Kathleen Dean Moore is University Writer Laureate and Distinguished
Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University (OSU), where she is the
founding director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the
Written Word. She is the author of a textbook on critical reasoning and an
Oxford University Press book about forgiveness. At OSU, where she was twice
named a Master Teacher, she teaches a Philosophy of Nature course which
meets in the high Cascade Mountains. Moore's work has been widely published
and anthologized, appearing in magazines such as Orion, Discover, Audubon,
Wild Earth, Hope, and Field and Stream. She is the author of award-winning
books about cultural and spiritual connections to place.