• Book Talk: Today We Butcher

Diné (Navajo) Human and Nonhuman Animal Relationships: Based on the forthcoming book Today We Butcher: Lessons from Sheep on Life, Death, and Re-Membering, this talk explores Diné relationships among humans, sheep, and other nonhuman animals—and what these relationships reveal about life, death, memory, and responsibility.

Audience: Students, faculty, and public audiences interested in Diné and Indigenous studies, human–animal relationships, ethics, and cultural responsibility.

• Embodied Knowledge in Indigenous Ethnophilosophies

Relationships, Place, and Living Ways of Knowing

How is knowledge carried through the body, practiced in daily life, and sustained through relationships with land, animals, community, and place? This talk explores embodied knowledge within distinct Indigenous ethnophilosophies through examples that may include Diné understandings of “Sheep Is Life,” Turtle Island, and Buffalo Nation. Rather than treating these concepts as interchangeable, the presentation situates them within their particular cultural, relational, and place-based contexts.

Audience: Students, faculty, educators, and public audiences interested in Indigenous philosophy, Native American and Indigenous Studies, embodied knowledge, relationality, land and place, and human and nonhuman relationships.

• K’é as an Economic Driver

Diné Relationships, Textiles, and Southwest Art Markets: This talk examines how K’é shapes the relationships surrounding Diné textiles and Southwest art markets. Without reducing K’é to a Western economic concept, it considers how relationship and responsibility influence the movement of value, knowledge, and opportunity.

Audience: Students, faculty, arts and museum professionals, collectors, and public audiences interested in Diné studies, Indigenous textiles, and Southwest art markets.

• The Value Is Not Only in the Rug

Navajo Weaving, Knowledge, and Thrivance: Based on the emerging project Beyond the Return, this talk explores why the value of Navajo weaving is not located only in the finished rug. It centers knowledge, practice, intergenerational transmission, thrivance, and the possibilities of creating anew when a family cannot retrieve an earlier woven piece.

Audience: Students, faculty, artists, museum and cultural heritage professionals, and public audiences interested in Navajo weaving, Indigenous knowledge, material culture, and intergenerational practice.

• When Waters Rise and Rocks Speak

Indigenous Research, Allyship, and the Theft of Academic Labor: Drawing from a published essay and firsthand experience of research credential theft, this talk examines ethical collaboration, the appropriation of Indigenous intellectual labor, and the responsibilities of credit and accountability. It also considers silence, speaking, and the relationships that make research possible.

Audience: Students, faculty, researchers, administrators, and organizations concerned with Indigenous research ethics, collaboration, authorship, credit, and accountability.

• Custom Speaking Topic Request

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