Virtual faculty presentation on enduring tropes about Native peoples

The University of Southern Indiana College of Liberal Arts will host its first virtual Faculty Colloquium presentation of the Spring Semester, "Pocahontas and Settler Memory in the Appalachian West and South," by Dr. Kristalyn Shefveland, Associate Professor of History, at 3 p.m. CST Friday, January 29. The public can attend by going to USI.edu/lafc to find the webinar link.

This presentation utilizes the Pocahontas coalfields in West Virginia and the Indian River Farms Company settlement of Vero Beach Florida as case studies of settler memory in two very different but connected Southern spaces that settlers considered frontiers as late as the nineteenth century. Both places constructed fantasies about Native peoples that promulgated enduring tropes that focus primarily on the idea of the Native woman Pocahontas.

Shefveland's presentation is part of the Spring 2021 Liberal Arts Faculty Colloquium. Each fall and spring semester, USI faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts present individual, free public lectures featuring their current research. To see the current lineup of speakers for this semester, visit USI.edu/lafc.

These virtual colloquia will be live streamed to the USI College of Liberal Arts Facebook page and recorded. For more information contact Dr. Urska Dobersek, Assistant Professor of Psychology, at 812-464-1952 or udobersek@usi.edu.