Indigenous Network McGill

In the upcoming Winter semester, we are so happy to welcome Caroline Monnet as the first ISCEI Artist in Residence!

Caroline Monnet is an Algonquin-French multidisciplinary artist from Outaouais, Quebec. She studied in Sociology and Communication at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and the University of Granada (Spain) before pursuing a career in visual arts and films.

Monnet’s work in film, painting and sculpture deals with complex ideas around Indigenous identity and bicultural living through the examination of cultural histories. She is interested in themes of identity, representation, and modernity. Monnet has made a signature for working with industrial materials, combining the vocabulary of popular and traditional visual culture with the tropes of modernist abstraction to create unique hybrid forms. 

To learn more about Caroline and view some of her current work, check out her website!

The Mellon ISCEI Artist in Residence program is an important means of bringing practicing artists to campus to continue their work, share their expertise, interact with students and faculty members, and enhance knowledge of and exposure to Indigenous art among the campus community and the public at large. The annual Artist in Residence will be co-organized with the Department of Art History & Communication Studies and will be involved in a variety of on-campus activities such as workshops and public exhibitions, and will be available as a resource to students, faculty, and staff.

In the upcoming Winter 2021 semester, two new courses will be offered by the Department of Linguistics! These courses will be led by professor James Crippen.

Ling 211: Introduction to Indigenous Languages

This course provides and introduction to the scientific study of language through the lens of Indigenous languages in North America. This course includes basic linguistic concepts like sound system organization, word formation and structure, gender and classification, expression of time and space are all explored through examples drawn from Indigenous languages across the continent. Cultural and political issues addressed include orality versus literacy, language endangerment and revitalization, and social policies of support or suppression.

This course will take place on Tuesday/Thursdays from 11:30am to 12:55pm.

Ling 411/611: Structure/Analysis of an Indigenous Language

This course reviews the languages in the Na-Dene (Dene-Eyak-Tlingit) family of North America. Topics include: history of research on the family, shared patterns in the organization of linguistic subsystems, genealogical relationships and subgrouping proposals and particular problems that Na-Dene languages pose for linguistic theory. Students will select a particular linguistic phenomenon to review in a final paper, either in depth for a particular lanugage or more shallowly across a selection of languages in the family. Graduate students will apply current theoretical research to their selected topic and will develop a novel analysis of primary data from published sources.

This course will be offered Monday/Wednesday from 4:05-5:25pm. Note that this course is open to both graduate and undergraduate students.

On December 7th at 7pm EST, students from INDG 400 (Food Sovereignty) were invited to watch the film “Gather”, directed by Sanjay Rawal. In addition to the INDG 400 course, students from another course and First People’s House were invited to attend the screening.

“Gather” is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide.

Watch the full trailer for “Gather” here: