EIHS Lecture: Narrating "Before" and "After": Linearity and Sequence in Indigenous History

Can embracing Indigenous sequence be a strike against colonial order? "Indigenous history is not linea" is a axiom that holds much truth, pushing back against a repressive and colonial sense of historical order. Yet it exists in tension with an Indigenous desire for histories that show how the Native present emerged from the Native past. It also stands in uneasy relation with the sequential logics of multiple Indigenous (hi)storytelling traditions. Drawing on Native Hawaiian literature and historiography and a community history project with a Native Californian tribal Nation, this talk will explore the need for sequence even as we reject repressive order.

This event presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.