University of Illinois, American Indian Studies

06/02/2026

The Native American House is proud to welcome attendees of the 2026 Native Forward Empowering Scholars Summit to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign!

Our campus was selected as the host site in recognition of the Native American House's national leadership, innovative programming, dedicated staff, and the vibrant Native student community that helps make this work possible.

To the Native Forward team, scholars, and partners: welcome to Illinois and to the traditional homelands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations.

We are grateful to host you and look forward to a meaningful and inspiring gathering centered on education, leadership, community, and Native student success.

About the Empowering Scholars Summit: https://www.nativeforward.org/native-forward-scholars-fund-2026-empowering-scholars-summit/

05/19/2026

Submissions are now being accepted for a special issue on “Attending to Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences in Place.”

Co-edited by Natasha Myhal (Ojibwe), American Indian Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Brittani R. Orona (Hupa), University of California, Davis, this issue invites cross-disciplinary work that centers place as a starting point for Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences.

Abstracts of up to 600 words are due June 15, 2026, with decisions announced July 1, 2026 and full essays due September 30, 2026.

05/18/2026

04/16/2026

Join us for “Dreaming as Ethical Cognition” with Dr. Suzanne Kite (Oglála Lakȟóta) on April 24, 3:00–4:00 PM in Levis Faculty Center, Room 210.

Kite is an artist, composer, and scholar whose work brings together Lakota ontologies, research-creation, computational media, sound, and performance. Her groundbreaking practice explores ethical relations, technology, and Indigenous ways of thinking in deeply creative and powerful ways.

We hope you will join us for this exciting conversation and opportunity to hear from a visionary Indigenous artist and thinker.

Supported by the Mellon Foundation, American Indian Studies, and the Arts Integration Office.

02/26/2026

Join us for our upcoming "Dinner On Us" event featuring a compelling talk on the U.S. Obliteration of Indigenous Lands During the Cold War.
We are honored to host Dave Beck, Ph.D., a Professor from the Department of History, who will lead a discussion on this vital topic. Come for the meal, stay for the knowledge!

📅 DATE: Tuesday, March 3
⏰ TIME: 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
📍 WHERE: Asian American Cultural Center (1210 W. Nevada Street, Urbana)
🗣️ PRESENTER: Dr. Dave Beck
🔗 go.illinois.edu/NAHdou

02/24/2026

Warm Storage and Community-Based Memory Projects

Join us for the NAIL Lab's inaugural talk and workshop of the "Visiting with and alongside Indigenous Language Workers: Conversations on Ethics and Praxis in Language Work" series.

Lecture - Warm Storage and Community-Based Memory Projects

Grassroots archives begin often without knowing they are archives. They are created to collect and communicate memory beyond the bounds of temporal human sharing. This lecture takes the form of a story and shall share stories of the Houma Language project community archiving practice as an experience from the ad hoc edge of archival practices from the perspective of relational accountable research theories. It will present a personal, candid narrative of entering the archival field while tracing encounters to expand on significant and ongoing complications within the relationship between community-based cultural heritage cohorts and research missions and outcomes.

The goal of the lecture is to present one path through the landscape, and open a discussion of how better paths can be forged by the audience in the future. The audience will leave with a personal example of a community-archive project, an ability to articulate how academic research impacts the work of community-based groups, and an opportunity to consider their agency as students in forming research processes.

Workshop - Building Boundaries - Embodying a Relational Perspective in the Process of Research

This workshop asks students to build and discuss their own processes around community archiving topics. The focus are the entry and exit points of community memory - when material is accessioned or documented from the community into the collection, and the process of moving materials out of the collection and into the community. The workshop presents examples of these movements, elucidates further the complications of how these transfers are modeled differently across procedural and relational perspectives, facilitates discussion and personal digestion of these complexities, and provides templates for participants to revise for their own research or community use. Lunch will be provided. Please register here: https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/1321359506

Events are free and open to the public.

Sponsors: Humanities Research Institute, Siebal Center for Design, American Indian Studies Program, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Access, Civil Rights & Community, Student Affairs