Whether we acknowledge it or not, the academy exists in relation to Indigenous people, indigeneity, and structures of settler colonial power. Yet, for many disciplines across the humanities, Indigenous Studies remains marginalized and under-theorized. This symposium invites work that engages the relationality between Indigenous Studies – a discipline grounded in the knowledges, practices, politics, and lives of Indigenous peoples – and other fields, crafts, and disciplines that might see themselves as independent of the concerns of Indigenous peoples and histories. We welcome Indigenous Studies scholars as well as scholars working in connection with any of the historical concerns of Indigenous Studies.

Transportation, lodging, and a 500$ speaker fee will be provided to chosen panelists. 

“Indigenous Studies in Relation” is a one day symposium on 4/7/26. It will feature a plenary by Jennifer Graber (HIST, UTA) author of The Gods of Indian Country: Religion and the Struggle for the American West (Oxford UP, 2018) and The Furnace of Affliction: Prisons and Religion in Antebellum America (UNC Press 2014). Her new project, "Ghost Dancing Across Native North America," focuses on Native actors, sources, and epistemologies in the Ghost Dance of 1890. There are two scholarly panels, hosted by Dr. Joaquin Rivaya-Martinez (HIST, TSU) and Dr. Theresa Strouth Gaul (ENGL, TCU) respectively. Dr. Gaul is the author of Cherokee Sister: The Collected Writings of Catharine Brown, 1818-1823 (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), which received the Society for the Study of American Women Writers Triennial Scholarly Edition Award in 2015, and To Marry an Indian:  The Marriage of Harriett Gold and Elias Boudinot in Letters, 1825-1839 (UNC Press, 2005). Her most recent book is Being in Relation: Indigenous Peoples, the Land, and Texas Christian University, 1873-2023 (TCU Press, 2025), which centers Indigenous perspectives emerging from collaborations over the last decade. Dr. Rivaya-Martinez is the editor of Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas (University of Oklahoma Press, 2023). He is currently working on a book manuscript provisionally titled Comanche Captivity. Finally, the visual artist Chiara Beaumont (Karankawa - Hawk clan) will lead a panel of Indigenous artists and performers in a discussion about the intersection of Indigenous art and activism. 

 Proposals might include, but are not limited to:

Meta-critical engagements with Indigenous Studies as a field/method/discipline and its relationship (or lack thereof) to other fields/methods/disciplines. 

Work that engages Indigenous people, histories, literature, and politics “in Relation” to other peoples, histories, literature, and politics. These need not be limited to the Americas. 

We are particularly interested in papers that focus on Indigenous Texas and the broader Southwest. We also encourage applicants who have projects that engage with the interests of our invited panel chairs and plenary speaker. 

If you have any questions, please email Ray Leonard at Rayleonard@tamu.edu. 

Please submit a 250-500 word abstract here before 11/17/25