Authors In Conversation - Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer and Sarah Whitt

Mills College Distinguished Professors’ Series and the Indigenous Education Working Group present this afternoon's discussion in the field of Indigenous Education in Hawaii and California. Our event will focus on two recent publications in the field by authors Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer and Sarah Whitt, who will discuss their work in conversation with invited experts on the histories of Indigenous boarding schools, including Dr. Maile Arvin (University of Utah), Dr. Derek Taira (University of Hawaiʻi), Dr. Katie Keliiaa (UC Santa Cruz) and Dr. Farina King (University of Oklahoma). Our event is a part of the Week of Social Sustainability and our discussion will explore how the education systems under review were meant to destroy Native cultures and “Americanize” students and communities, as we inspire us to imagine schooling that decolonizes the negative impact of U.S. schooling systems in ways that might re-Indigenize toward cultural sustainability.

All are welcome to attend this free event. We also send a special welcome to students from INMI 1051 Introduction to Ethnic Studies, who will be in attendance.

Featured Books: 

Tender Violence in US Schools, by Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer, May Treat Morrison Professor of American History, Mills College, Northeastern University. 

Bad Medicine, by Sarah Whitt, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of History at UC Irvine.  

This event is a part of the Mills College Distinguished Professors’ Series and is sponsored by the Office of the Dean at Mills College. Thank you to our co-sponsors: The Indigenous Education Working Group, Native and Indigenous Affinity Group of Northeastern University, and Heritage 365. 

Accessibility, Health and Safety: 

• Our Zoom broadcast will include automated captions. 

• If you are not feeling well and/or are experiencing cold/flu symptoms, please protect our communities and do not attend the event until symptoms have cleared AND you have tested negative for COVID 2x within 48 hours. 

• Please do not attend if you have a known COVID-19-positive exposure. 

• As much as possible, please wear masks for this indoor event using N95 or Kn95 masks. 

• Food will be shared at the beginning of the event. Please mask when near the food table. 

For questions, please email Zamora, [email protected]. 

Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) scholar born in Honolulu and raised between/across Hawai’i and the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the May Treat Morrison Professor of American History, has served as Program Head of Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and is affiliated faculty in Education at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, CA. 

Her research is rooted theoretically in Indigenous feminisms and makes critical interventions into the fields of settler colonial studies, critical whiteness studies, and educational research by historicizing how the discursive construction of “benevolent whiteness” informs the contemporary perpetuation of white supremacy vis-a-vis loving intentions and a performative clinging onto a social justice ethos by white women teachers. http://www.nataleekehaulanibauer.com/ 

Sarah Whitt (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of History at UC Irvine. Her research is animated by questions about race, gender, power, and Indigenous experiences of institutionalization in historical relief. Her prize-winning scholarship takes up issues around Indigenous incarceration and confinement; the politics of discipline and punishment; white ascendancy; critical settler studies; contested relationships between Indigeneity and disability; and American public culture. https://sarahwhitt.weebly.com/  

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, United States