UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jen Rose Smith (dAXunhyuu/Eyak), assistant professor of geography and American Indian studies at the University of Washington, will visit Penn State on March 28 to give a lecture titled "On Finding Emptiness: The Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899 & dAXunhyuuga." The lecture will begin at 4 p.m. in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, and is open to the public.
Smith’s visit is co-sponsored by Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections Library, the Humanities Institute, and Penn State Departments of English, geography, and history.
Smith works at the intersection of critical Indigenous studies, cultural human geography, and environmental humanities. Her book, "Icy Matters," takes up race, indigeneity and coloniality in ice-geographies. She serves on the advisory board for the Eyak Cultural Foundation, a non-profit that organizes annual language and cultural revitalization gatherings and directs a Cultural Mapping Project on their homelands of Eyak, Alaska.
Smith’s talk traces out the ways that her archival research regarding the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899 intersects with her community's language revitalization efforts. She will reflect on archival research, on what is easy to find, what gets lost, and the desires of research to fill the many versions of emptiness that coloniality enacts.
Following Smith’s talk, Grace King, a graduate student in the Department of English and graduate assistant in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library, will preview a new digital project featuring a handwritten diary and Indigenous art from a collection related to the Harriman Alaska Expedition housed within the Special Collections Library.
Hester Blum, Penn State University professor of English and author of "The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration," will lead a conversation following the presentations.
On March 29, the Special Collections Library will host a breakfast open to all from 10 to 10:30 a.m. in Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library, followed by a graduate student workshop from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. with Smith.
Questions about the lecture, including accommodations, and requests to attend the workshop, can be directed to Clara Drummond, lead curator and exhibitions coordinator, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, cjd86@psu.edu.