Initiative for Native Nation Relations
The Cultural Toolbox: Traditional Ojibwe Living in the Modern World
Document Type
Presentation
Publication Date
2-23-2022
Abstract
Focusing on the traditional practices of one Ojibwe family, carried out through the seasons of the year and across the seasons of life, celebrated Ojibwe scholar Anton Treuer discusses the enduring power of Ojibwe culture and identity. “Today’s Ojibwe people have maintained a dazzling array of deep, beautiful, adaptive ways of connecting to the spiritual, natural, and human beings around them,” writes Dr. Treuer. “Variations in Ojibwe cultural practices are as diverse as their homelands, but these variations have always followed a distinct path, reflecting an identifiably Ojibwe worldview. While the world around, in, and connected to Ojibwe spaces continues to envelop myriad cultures and peoples, the Ojibwe have found a way to stay recognizable to their ancestors.”
Sponsored by the Indigenous Students Association in collaboration with the McCarthy Center’s Initiative for Native Nation Revitalization, Becoming Community, and the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning.
Recommended Citation
Treuer, Anton, "The Cultural Toolbox: Traditional Ojibwe Living in the Modern World" (2022). Initiative for Native Nation Relations. 2.
https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/mccarthy_center_innr/2
Comments
Anton Treuer, Ph.D., is professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and author of 19 books, including Ojibwe in Minnesota (“Minnesota’s Best Read for 2010” by the Library of Congress Center for the Book), The Assassination of Hole in the Day (American Association for State and Local History Award of Merit, 2012), Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (2012), Warrior Nation: A History of the Red Lake Ojibwe (Caroline Bancroft History Prize and the American Association of State and Local History Award of Merit, 2015), The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds (2020), and The Cultural Toolbox: Traditional Ojibwe Living in the Modern World (2021). Dr. Treuer, who earned his B.A. at Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, is also editor of Oshkaabewis Native Journal, the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language. He has presented lectures throughout the United States and Canada and in several other countries, and he has received more than forty prestigious awards and fellowships, including from the American Philosophical Society, the Bush Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Treuer is on the governing board for the Minnesota State Historical Society and in 2018 he was named Guardian of Culture and Lifeways and recipient of the Pathfinder Award by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums.