Cordney McClain in "Black Wall Street Burning" film premiere, Tulsa Feb. 15, 2020

Cherokee Scholars colleague Cordney McClain is an actor in "Black Wall Street Burning. " The film will be premiered in Tulsa Feb. 14-20 at Circle Cinema, 10 S Lewis Ave, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The February 15th evening show will also include a Q&A session. For tickets and information, click here.

Cordney McClain is both a university administrator and an educator. He serves as Director of Diversity and Inclusion at University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business and teaches at OU and UCO. Check out his bio on the Cherokee Scholars page.

Cherokee Playwright and Attorney presents "Sovereignty" Thursday, Feb 21st

A play by Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee Nation) Sovereignty, will be performed by TheatreSquared with support from The University of Arkansas. Sovereignty, a play by Mary Kathryn Nagle, is receiving national attention and praise across the United States, including articles in The New York Times and American Theatre magazine.

7 pm, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville - Thursday 21, 2019

In Sovereignty, Sarah Ridge Polson, a young Cherokee lawyer fighting to restore her Nation’s jurisdiction, must confront the ever-present ghosts of her grandfathers. With shadows stretching from 1830s Cherokee Nation (now present-day Georgia) through Andrew Jackson’s Oval Office to the Cherokee Nation in present-day Oklahoma, Sovereignty asks how high the flames of anger can rise before they ultimately consume the truth. Nagle, an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and direct descendant of John Ridge, wrote Sovereignty as a commission for the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., where the play received its world premiere and opened on January 24, 2018.

Free to the public, but registration is required. 

Free, register online with Crystal Bridges.

Ellen Cushman to speak at Univ of Arkansas - Feb 14th

Ellen Cushman, a noted scholar of Cherokee language and literacy will speak on “Cherokee Writing:  Mediating Traditions, Codifying Nation” on Thursday, February 14, at 4 p.m. in Room 411 of Kimpel Hall on the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville campus.

“Cherokees have a long history of conceptualizing the use of media quite differently from the alphabetic norm in order to accommodate the Cherokee language and develop the nation as a sovereign entity,” Cushman said, previewing her talk.  “Cherokees use a unique, indigenous writing system to mediate our traditions, to pursue our cultural perseverance, and to maintain our linguistic heritage.”

Cushman will offer a brief overview of the history of this mediation, revealing how one tribe continues to mediate its tradition through writing and digital videos, games, and online language classes.  Drawing on five years of ethnohistorical research, the talk will describe the evolution of the Cherokee writing system from script, to print, to digital forms and show how it continues to serve important linguistic, cultural, and historical functions for the modern Cherokee Nation, marking the nation’s civility and sovereignty at once.

Cushman is Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University.  A Cherokee Nation citizen and a former Cherokee Nation Sequoyah Commissioner,  she is the author of The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community and  The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance .

Cherokee Study Abroad Program - Summer 2013

Professor Chris Teuton (now at UNC-Chapel Hill) would like to spread the word of the "Cherokee Study Abroad," program which will be held May 27-June 28, 2013 from Qualla Boundary to Tahlequah.  The course is "an immersive study abroad course taught by Cherokee scholars across Cherokee territory, and in conversation with Cherokee community."    Deadline is Feb. 14th.

Digital brochure below:

A New Cherokee Blog of Interest

Ryan Mackey's new blog on Cherokee-related and other things has been on-line for a few months and I'd like to call attention to it.  To check out the blog, click here.  Below you'll find an early excerpt from the blog to give you a flavor of his introspection: I used to be a sovereignty sort of fellow, I even wanted to be a tribal attorney and "fight" as a modern ᏗᏟᎯ. That was until I spent some time in our communities as an adult.  I still think that we need those sort of legal warriors, I have since realized that’s not my path.  I know our ᎠᏂᎦᏚᏩᎩ people have always been an ᎠᏰᎵ, a Nation, but not by ᎠᏂᎦᎵᏏ definitions.  Those ᏲᏁᎦ people had to remake us in their own image.  I know how they used colonialism and hegemony to oppress our ancestors but now they don’t even need too.  We can do that ourselves - that’s self determination for you....  I had better explain myself, I am not anti-Indian or completely self loathing or even unstable - not really.  I am just afraid that we are focused on the wrong things.  It maybe that we are on the right path, but it is likely that if we take the time to re-evaluate our system we will find that we are beyond our scope and out of step with our needs and priorities.  I am only suggesting that we re-evaluate our foundation while we still have the means.

Announcing New Blog About Native American Art History and Writing

Congrats to Cherokee artist and scholar America Meredith on the new blog. Click here to check it out.

Steve Russell's New Book

2016

Cherokee author Steve Russell's new book is out - as blogged by Matthew Fletcher.  Steve humbly failed to shamelessly self-promote this, so I'll do it for him.  Congrats Steve and happy semi-retirement!  The book can be purchased (at a very reasonable price) by Carolina Academic Press here.

Sequoyah Commission Annual Conference

The annual conference of the Sequoyah Commission will be held September 2-3, 2010 in Tahlequah.  Congrats to Richard Allen for another job well done in putting together this event.  Agenda can be downloaded here:  State of Sequoyah Commission Conference Agenda 2010 (2)