Conference

We will host a 2008 Native Humanities Teachers Conference in Anadarko and Binger, Oklahoma from November 20-23, 2008, beginning with a welcoming dinner on Thursday, November 20 at Redstone Baptist Church. We want to bring Native humanities teachers and Native language speakers together to share experiences from their classes, funding ideas and sources, and new ideas for additional courses. Our keynote speakers will include Joseph T. Goombi, Kiowa Clemente course instructor, elder, educator, and former tribal chairman; Linda Hogan, Chickasaw author, academic, environmentalist, activist, and two time Pulitzer Prize finalist; Richard Hunter, Delaware scholar, musician, and Kiowa Clemente course alum; Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, activist for indigenous rights, celebrated author, and educator, and Traci L. Morris, PhD, Chickasaw art historian and professor at Arizona State University.

Registration fees for the conference are $35 for Native humanities class teachers and all students and $50 for non-teaching participants. Registrations waivers and stipends are available to those that have limited finances. Please email meredith.humanities @ gmail. com for more information. Our conference hotel is Best Value Inn and Suites on 1415 East Central Boulevard in Anadarko, OK. Their phone number is (405) 247.3100. Please mention the Meredith Indigenous Humanities Center and the code #39182 to receive a 20% conference discount.

If you cannot attend the entire conference, we invite you to join us for our community dinners each evening. Suggested donation is $5-10 per dinner. Thursday, Nov. 20th we will meet at 6pm at Redstone Baptist Church, west of Anadarko. Friday, Nov. 21st we will dine at 6pm at the Caddo Tribal Complex in Binger. The location for Saturday, Nov. 22nd will be announced shortly.

The conference brochure with registration form can be downloaded here.
Download the conference schedule, Thursday, Nov. 20 to Sunday, Nov. 23.

About Us

Originally named the Pan-American Indian Humanities Center, the organization was renamed to honor our founder, the late Dr. Howard L. Meredith, Cherokee author and head of the American Indian studies department of USAO.

Our group works with indigenous communities in the Americas to create tribally specific humanities courses tailored to the stated needs and desires of those communities. Our goal is to provide practical and financial assistance to teachers, tribes, and institutions of higher learning in sustaining these courses and facilitate communication between different indigenous humanities courses. We hope this conference will bring together Pan-American humanities and indigenous language teachers, students, tribal elders, and other interested parties to facilitate scholarship from native perspectives. We are grateful for the ongoing support of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, in Chickasha.

The model for these programs is the Clemente course concept as described in detail in Earl Shorris, Riches for the Poor: The Clemente Course in the Humanities (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000). The Clemente concept is a simple idea: that the study of the humanities enables poor people to become fully participating citizens in a democratic society. When this concept was presented to indigenous peoples (C/Yup'ik, Cherokee, Kiowa, and Maya) in their tribal languages with their own histories, reactions from students and tribal communities was positive.

A demand grew for more printing of native language grammar books and treaty primers (by Cherokee and Kiowa), for changes in the presentation of native humanities to school-aged students (by Yup'ik, Náhautl, and Maya), for the addition of new courses (Chickasaw, Musqueam, and Wichita), and for the establishment of a center to promote the humanities of indigenous peoples.

Individuals and corporations wishing to support the development of the Meredith Indigenous Humanities center are invited to contact Lona Barrick.