Online Seminar: Who Tells America's Story? Indigenous Perspectives in Literature and Culture

The seminar “Who Tells America's Story?” explores Indigenous approaches to North American literature and culture, thereby sharpening awareness of the colonial narratives that often dominate these fields. How do picture books, music, plays, essays, or novels convey Indigenous perspectives? How can these cultural products be used to learn and teach about the history, present, and future of the United States and Canada? Experts will discuss Indigenous media and explain how they can be dealt with on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. declaration of idependence.

The seminar is geared towards teachers, yet we welcome members of the public to participate! 

is a research associate in American Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. Raised in Wyoming, she completed her teacher education degree (BS and state examinations) in New York State and taught English Language Arts in the Bronx before earning an MA in English Studies at FSU Jena. Drawing on her classroom experience and research at the intersection of nature, youth literature, and environmental education, Amanda has guest-lectured, taught courses, and published on these interdisciplinary themes. She is currently in the final phase of completing her dissertation, “Reading Environmental Violence Across Youth Literature.”

coordinates a group of teaching consultants and continuous professional development conferences in foreign languages at the Pedagogical Institute of Rhineland-Palatinate. She is also the author of teaching units for advanced EFL classrooms.

is an Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations in Ontario, and has worn many hats in his literary career, from performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., to being Artistic Director of Canada’s premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts. He has been an award-winning playwright, a columnist, short-story writer, novelist, television scriptwriter, and has worked on numerous documentaries exploring the Native experience. Most notably as a filmmaker, he wrote and directed REDSKINS, TRICKSTERS AND PUPPY STEW, a documentary on Native humour for the National Film Board of Canada, and for CBC, co-created SEARCHING FOR WINNITOU, an exploration of Germany’s fascination with North American Indigenous culture.

is a researcher and lecturer in the North American Studies Program at the University of Bonn. He completed both his teaching degrees for English and History (in 2016) and his PhD project on US countercultural poetry (in 2022) at the University of Mannheim. In 2021, he left the University of Mannheim for the University of Bonn to work on a book about the representation of rhythm in literature and pop music by North American Indigenous artists. His fields of expertise are Native and Indigenous Studies, Sound Studies, Critical Posthumanism, Ecocriticism, Poetry, and Hip Hop.