Author Awiakta To Speak At ASU April 3

Two Upcoming Events Spotlight Sustainable Food Movement Locally and Nationally

Story By Bernadette Cahill

Renowned Knoxville-born Native American author Marilou Awiakta will speak at ASU on Friday, April 3, at 5:00 p.m. during the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Conference, where scholars from Mississippi to Virginia are meeting to explore a Women and Environments theme, subtitled Upholding Hope: Our Foremother’s Legacy.

Awiakta’s talk will take place in the ASU Plemmons Student Union’s Linville Falls Room, and will be the second of two keynote addresses open to non-registrants. Elisabeth Lloyd’s speech entitled Darwinian Evolution and the Female Orgasm “is piggybacking with the Darwin series,” said President of the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Dr. Margaret McFadden of ASU.

Awiakta is from the Eastern Band Cherokee who “writes novels that are particularly focused on Native American women’s care about the environment,” said McFadden.

Awiakta’s writing blends her Cherokee and Appalachian heritages with science, and this brought her international recognition in 1985, when the U.S. Information Agency chose her books Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet and Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery for the world tour of their exhibit, Women in the Contemporary World.

Awiakta’s award-winning writing combines stories, essays and poetry. Another of her books is Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom. To Native Americans, corn is a spiritual entity that nourishes life and demonstrates unity in diversity.

In Selu, Awiakta wrote, “Wounds and shadows are still deep in America. The use and consume attitude is still strong, and many Americans feel that they are considered expendable by the society, the marketplace, the government. The things that divide us are many—race, religion, gender, sexual preference, education, on and on. But unity in diversity is the Corn-Mother’s cardinal survival wisdom. In the grain, genetic diversity is the key to an immune system that enables adaptation and survival. Unity in diversity is also the basic principle of the Constitution, one that we should consider carefully as America becomes ever more culturally diverse.”

Also at the conference, author Starhawk will conduct a registrants-only workshop on Saturday, April 4. Registration is $65 for students and the unemployed, and $140 for all others. For more information, click to www.ws.appstate.edu/SEWSA09/sewsa2009index.htm.

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