Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World through Stories

About the Authors

409 About the Authors Kimberly Blaeser, a Professor at the university of Wisconsin–milwaukee, teaches creative writing, native American literature, and American nature writing. her publications include three books of poetry: Trailing You, winner of the first book award from the native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, Absentee Indians and Other Poems, and Apprenticed to Justice. her scholarly study Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition (1996) was the first native-authored book-length study of an indigenous author. Of Anishinaabe ancestry, and an enrolled member of the minnesota Chippewa tribe who grew up on the White earth reservation, blaeser is also the editor of Stories Migrating Home: A Collection of Anishinaabe Prose and Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry. blaeser’s current mixedgenre project, which includes her nature and wildlife photography as well as poetry and creative nonfiction, explores intersecting ideas about native place, nature, preservation, and spiritual sustenance. John Borrows is a Professor of Law, Public Policy and society at the university of minnesota Law school. he is Anishinabe/Ojibway and a member of the Chippewas of the nawash First nation. his publications include Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (donald smiley Award for the best book in Canadian Political science, 2002), Canada’s Indigenous Constitution (Canadian Law and society best book Award 2011), and Drawing Out Law: A Spirit’s Guide. Professor borrows is a recipient of the Aboriginal Achievement Award in Law and Justice, a Fellow of the trudeau Foundation, and a Fellow of the Academy of Arts, humanities and sciences of Canada (rsC), Canada’s highest academic honor. Lindsay Keegitah Borrows is Anishinaabekwe, and her family is nigig dodem from the Chippewas of nawash from Cape Croker, Ontario. she received her b.A. from dartmouth College in native American studies. 410| About the Authors during her four undergraduate years, she studied the maori language at the university of Auckland, new Zealand, and Anishinaabemowin in bemidji, minnesota, and at home in Cape Croker. she graduated from dartmouth with an honors thesis and a Presidential scholar distinction. her undergraduate thesis is a creative writing piece on the interactions of indigenous language and law with nation-states. she spent time when she was younger in iqaluit, Australia, Arizona, british Columbia, and Ontario, where she was involved with indigenous peoples of each area. she worked as a coastal naturalist on b.C. Ferries for two summers, educating locals and visitors to Vancouver island about Coast salish land. Jill Doerfler (White earth Anishinaabe) is an Assistant Professor of American indian studies at the university of minnesota-duluth. she is interested in the diverse ways in which Anishinaabeg have resisted pseudoscientific measures of blood (race/blood quantum) as a means to define identity. her article “An Anishinaabe tribalography: investigating and interweaving Conceptions of identity during the 1910s on the White earth reservation” was published in American Indian Quarterly (33.3) and won the 2010 beatrice medicine Award for scholarship in native American studies. she was a member of the Constitutional Proposal team of the White earth nation (2009) and co-authored The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution with gerald Vizenor. she looks forward to a referendum vote on the now ratified constitution. Heid E. Erdrich is an independent scholar, curator, playwright, and founding publisher of Wiigwaas Press, which specializes in Ojibwe-language publications. she grew up in Wahpeton, north dakota, and is Ojibwe enrolled at turtle mountain. heid attended dartmouth College and Johns hopkins university. she taught college writing for two decades, including many years as a tenured professor. heid now teaches as a visiting author and she works with native American visual artists. she has won awards from the minnesota state Arts board, bush Foundation, and the Loft Literary Center, and she received the 2009 minnesota book Award for poetry. her most recent book is Cell Traffic: New and Selected Poems. Matthew L. M. Fletcher is Professor of Law at michigan state university College of Law, and director of the indigenous Law and Policy Center. he About the Authors| 411 is the Chief Justice of the Poarch band of Creek indians supreme Court, and also sits as an appellate judge for the Pokagon band of Potawatomi indians , the hoopa Valley tribe, the nottawaseppi huron band of Potawatomi indians, and the Lower elwha tribe. he is a member of the grand traverse band of Ottawa and Chippewa indians, located in Peshawbestown...