"Indigenous Studies in Dark Times" A Roundtable Discussion

We invite you to the University Seminar on Indigenous Studies featuring Shannon Speed, Director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and Alan Shane Dillingham, Associate Professor at the Arizona State University School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies. Please note this is a hybrid event.

• Date: Monday, April 13, 2026
• Time: 6:00-8:30 PM
• Location (in-person): Espacio de Culturas, 53 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012
• Zoom link and credentials (online attendees): https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tyvjiUVrSgK8hYco8qVYaQ
• Co-Sponsored by the University Seminar on Indigenous Studies (Columbia University), the Faculty Working Group on Racisms in Comparative Perspective (CLACS NYU) and the Center for Collaborative Indigenous Research with Communities and Lands (Center CIRCL NYU)

Title: "Indigenous Studies in Dark Times"

Description:

In the final event of the Indigenous Studies in Higher Education Series, we invite the community to a collective conversation on the politics and possibilities of Indigenous Studies in our current moment. How can Indigenous Studies, Native scholars and communities, and Native history speak to our present moment of crisis? In the context of new and ongoing colonial wars, the criminalization of entire communities based on their gender identity, legal status, and place of origin, what role can Indigenous Studies play in struggles for liberation? And given the ongoing attacks on higher education, and ethnic studies in particular, how do we as educators and scholars respond? To put it simply, in dark times, what songs do we need? What songs will we sing? This roundtable conversation will feature Shannon Speed (UCLA) and Alan Shane Dillingham (ASU).

Panelist Biographies:

Alan Shane Dillingham (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is an Associate Professor of History in Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies. He is the author of the award-winning book Oaxaca Resurgent: Indigeneity, Development, and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Mexico, which the American Society for Ethnohistory selected for its Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Book Award and the Conference on Latin American History selected for its María Elena Martínez Prize in Mexican History. Dillingham serves on the editorial boards of the Radical History Review and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History and on the International Collective of the Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas. His writing has been featured in The Washington Post, NACLA Report, Animal Político, and Jacobin. During the 2026-2027 academic year, he will be a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Shannon Speed is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She is the Paula Gunn Allen Chair and Professor of American Indian Studies, Anthropology, and Gender Studies at UCLA, where she also serves as Director of the American Indian Studies Center and Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs. Dr. Speed has worked for three decades in Mexico and the United States on issues of indigenous autonomy and sovereignty, gender, neoliberalism, violence, migration, and activist research. Her books include the award-winning Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler Capitalist State (UNC Press 2020) and the co-edited volume with Dr. Lynn Stephen, Heightened States of Injustice: Activist Research on Indigenous Women and Violence (University of Arizona Press 2021). She is currently working on a new book entitled, Chickasaw Spring: Law and Resurgent Sovereignty in a Native Nation. She is a recipient of the President’s Award from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Shannon Speed is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She is the Paula Gunn Allen Chair and Professor of American Indian Studies, Anthropology, and Gender Studies at UCLA, where she also serves as Director of the American Indian Studies Center and Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs. Dr. Speed has worked for three decades in Mexico and the United States on issues of indigenous autonomy and sovereignty, gender, neoliberalism, violence, migration, and activist research. Her books include the award-winning Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler Capitalist State (UNC Press 2020) and the co-edited volume with Dr. Lynn Stephen, Heightened States of Injustice: Activist Research on Indigenous Women and Violence (University of Arizona Press 2021). She is currently working on a new book entitled, Chickasaw Spring: Law and Resurgent Sovereignty in a Native Nation.

This event is part of a series titled Indigenous Studies in Higher Education in the United States: New Perspectives and Future Planetary Challenges. In this series, scholars consider the presence and participation of Indigenous Peoples in re-shaping higher education, working towards the well-being and future of their communities, their social movements and the survival of the planet. Speakers will examine the past, present, and future challenges facing Indigenous Scholars in higher education, well as the contributions Indigenous Studies can make towards addressing the planetary challenges we face today.

Prior registration is required for admission to this event. Seating capacity is limited, and admittance will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis until capacity is reached. Registration does not guarantee a seat, so attendees are advised to arrive early.

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