Whichard Chair
The ECU Department of English and the Gender Studies Program are co-hosting Dr. Kirstin Squint as the 2021-2022 Whichard Visiting Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.
Squint interweaves the fields of gender studies, Native American studies, US multi-ethnic studies, and Southern literature studies.
The author of LeAnne Howe at the Intersections of Southern and Native American Literature (LSU Press, 2018), Dr. Squint is a co-editor of Swamp Souths: Literary and Cultural Ecologies, (LSU Press, 2020) and is the editor of Conversations with LeAnne Howe (UP of Mississippi, 2022).
Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy — to which she is a contributor — won a 2020 American Book Award (the Walter and Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award).
The Whichard Visiting Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities is housed in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences and is made possible through a generous donation by the Whichard family in honor of David Julian and Virginia Suther Whichard of Greenville.
Mark Your Calendars
In-person events are contingent on ECU’s Public Health Plan and are subject to change.
Even as We Breathe:
An Evening with Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
October 4 • 6 pm
Black Box Theater (Main Campus Student Center • Room 200A)
Eastern Band of Cherokee novelist Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle will present a reading of her debut novel Even as We Breathe (University Press of Kentucky, 2020) on the ECU campus.
Her book was a finalist for the Weatherford Award and was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. Her first novel manuscript, Going to Water received the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium (2012) and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2014).
The event will begin with a reception and fundraiser for North Carolina Literary Review. At 7 p.m., Clapsaddle will read from her novel, followed by a question-and-answer period facilitated by Dr. Kirstin Squint.
The Red Justice Project:
An Interview with Brittany Hunt and Chelsea Locklear
November 16 • 7 pm • Zoom (online)
Dr. Kirstin Squint will interview Brittany Hunt and Chelsea Locklear, members of the Lumbee tribe, about missing and murdered indigenous people in North Carolina and beyond.
Hunt and Locklear host the podcast “The Red Justice Project” and will answer questions about their work’s impact on eastern North Carolina communities and a more global audience.
This event will be streamed live via Zoom.
Dr. Marty Richardson Lecture
February 2022 • TBA
Dr. Marty Richardson, citizen of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe and faculty in the American Indian Studies program at UNC-Pembroke, will give a lecture on southeastern Native American cultures.
This event is part of a series related to ECU’s National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant.
Searching for Sequoyah film screening
February 25 • 7 p.m.
Choctaw author and documentarian LeAnne Howe will present her newest film, Searching for Sequoyah, which she co-produced and wrote, at the Greenville Museum. The evening will include a discussion of the documentary’s production and a response panel by community members.
This event is part of a series related to ECU’s National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant.
Gender to a Tea: Kirstin Squint
The Role of Water in Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise
March 23 • 1 pm • WebEx
Dr. Kirstin Squint will discuss the work of U.S. Poet Laureate and Mvskoke citizen Joy Harjo, who will be visiting ECU on March 30, 2022. Squint talk will focus on the role of water in poems, maps and stories from Harjo’s 2019 collection, An American Sunrise. This research is part of a chapter titled “Water in Representations of Southeastern Indian Removal” from Squint’s in-progress manuscript, Troubled Waters in Contemporary Southern Narratives.
Joy Harjo: A Reading
March 30 • 7 pm
Black Box Theater (Main Campus Student Center • Room 200A)
U.S. Poet Laureate and Mvskoke Creek citizen Joy Harjo will perform a reading and participate in a Q&A, followed immediately by a book signing.
Harjo’s reading is the final event in a series related to a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant awarded to ECU’s English Department Chair, Dr. Marianne Montgomery, focused on the U.S. Poet Laureate’s 2019 collection, An American Sunrise.
In 2019, Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role. She is the author of nine books of poetry and two memoirs.