Upcoming Events
Want to get involved? Check out our calendar below:
Calendar - 2024
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Sept 12 - Nov 22: Fall for Democracy
Fall for Democracy
Location: The Charleston Gaillard Center
Fall for Democracy is a program filled with performances, panels, and community-centered events delving into the essential values shaping America. From September 12 through November 22, in the lead-up to and following the 2024 Presidential Election, this initiative aims to celebrate the original ideals of democracy, examine the guiding principles of our nation, and amplify every voice.
Click for full details -
November 14 - Kevin Kokomoor: La Florida
Kevin Kokomoor book talk, La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores and Other American Origin Stories.Location: College of Charleston campus, Maybank Hall Room 100
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Dr. Kevin Kokomoor, professor of history at Coastal Carolina University will give a lecture on his recent book, La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores and Other American Origin Stories. His lecture will discuss the mythologies of Thanksgiving, but also how hospitality and exchange operated in the Lowcountry in the early colonial period.
Kevin is an Early Americanist and an Ethnohistorian, whose primary research and teaching focuses on the Southeast and the Native Southeast, the Early Republican and Federalist Eras, and ideas of frontiers and borderlands.
Sponsored by the Department of History, the Latin American & Caribbean Studies program, & CLAW.
Free and open to the public.
Calendar - 2025
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January 21 - Dr. Sharonah Esther Fredrick
Dr. Sharonah Esther Fredrick from the Department of Hispanic Studies at CofC will present her groundbreaking book An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods: Political ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript. This is the first time that a full comparison has ever been made between these two great works of Indigenous American literature, compiled during the Spanish colonial period but predating that time by centuries.
Location: CofC Campus TBD
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Dr. Fredrick received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York, and her recent book combines her interests of Mayan and Andean strategies of resistance and their relationship to ideas of universal human rights.
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January 30, 2025 - Memory & Material Culture
Memory and Material Culture: Collecting and Preserving Indigenous Artifacts
Sponsored by the South Carolina Historical Society, Historic Preservation (CofC), Preservation Society of Charleston.
Feturing Stephen Criswell (Native American Studies Center, USC Lancaster), Chris Judge (Native American Studies Center, USC Lancaster), John Fisher (Charleston Museum).
Location: CofC Campus - SSMB 129 (Mace Auditorium)
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public.
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February 13, 2025 - Fay A. Yarbrough
Sponsored by CLAW and Friends of the Libraries.
Fay A. Yarbrough will discuss her book, Choctaw Confederates: the American Civil War in Indian Country.
Location & time: TBD.
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February 20, 2025 - Dr. Brianna Theobald
Dr. Brianna Theobald is an Assistant Professor of history at the University of Rochester. Her book, Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long 20th Century has won numerous awards. This pathbreaking book documents the transformation of reproductive practices and politics on Indian reservations from the late nineteenth century to the present, integrating a localized history of childbearing, motherhood, and activism on the Crow Reservation in Montana with an analysis of trends affecting Indigenous women more broadly.
Location & time: TBD.
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March 18-19, 2025 - Christina Dickerson-Cousin
Sponsored by Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and CLAW.
Christina Dickerson-Cousin will discuss her book, Black Indians and Freedmen: The African Methodist Episcopal Church and Indigenous Americans, 1816-1916.
Location and time: TBD.
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March 27, 2025 - Contemporary Indigenous Nations: Celebrations and Challenges
Contemporary Indigenous Nations: Celebrations and Challenges
Location: CofC Campus - SSMB 129 (Mace Auditorium)
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Sponsored by SCHS, CLAW, Department of Environmental and Sustainability Studies.
Featuring Chiefs Lisa Collins (Wassamasaw), John Creel (Edisto Natchez-Kusso), and Lamar Nelson (Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of SC).
Free and open to the public.
Past Events
August 29, 2024
Indigenous Perspectives: Navigating Challenges in the Lowcountry
Location: Morris Center for Lowcountry Heritage
Chiefs representing three regional tribes: the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians, Edisto Natchez-Kusso, and The Santee Indian Organization, discussed the pressing issues facing Indigenous Communities of South Carolina. From environmental threats to societal and cultural challenges, discover how these communities navigate limited resources and advocate for their rights in the modern era.
- September 4, 2024
Location: Halsey Institute
This panel discussion at the Halsey was organized by the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Program at the College of Charleston, around themes explored in Demond Melancon: As Any Means Are Necessary.
- September 6, 2024
New Perspective on Conquests of the Native South
Location: Charleston Library Society
Evan Nooe, Assistant Professor of History and historian for the Native American Studies Center at the University of South Carolina Lancaster, discussed his 2022 McMillan Prize reinterpretation of coalescence and its role in the American South. For Indigenous people, coalescence generated shared histories, inherited traditions, creation stories and legends that knitted together once-disparate groups.
- September 24, 2024
Simple on Black/Indigenous Solidarities: Consuela Francis Emerging Scholar Lecture/African American Studies
Location: College of Charleston campus, ECTR 118
Dr. Delisa Hawkes from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Dr. Hawkes is an Assistant Professor in the Africana Studies Department and has an affiliated faculty position in the Women and Gender Studies Program. Her current research focuses on representations of genealogical discovery and ancestry in nineteenth and early 20th century African American literature. Her bio states that she is particularly interested in the literary portrayals of interactions between African Americans and Native Americans during the nineteenth and early 20th centuries.
October 12, 2024
Location: Old Santee Canal Park, Moncks Corner
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Presented by Multicultural Student Affairs, CAB, and Student Life. Students will be bussed to this event.
October 24, 2024
"Reclaiming Two Spirits" with Gregory Smithers
Location: SSMB 129, Mace Auditorium, College of Charleston campus
Time: 3:30 p.m.
CLAW and WGST present this talk with Dr. Gregory Smithers, a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will be here to discuss his book, Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal, & Sovereignty in Native America. “Roo” DeLesslin George-Warren, a leader of the Catawba, will also briefly speak and join in the post-lecture conversation. He’s also featured in Dr. Smithers’ book.
October 26, 2024
Art in Motion Fundraiser - Featuring Elisa Harkins
Location: College of Charleston Cistern Yard
Time: 1:00 parade, 2:00-5:00 Ticketed Fundraiser
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston celebrates its 40th birthday with funky FUNdraiser: ART IN MOTION! The celebration is comprised of two parts with something for everyone.
Join us for a free parade through the College of Charleston’s campus, followed by a ticketed party featuring a mystery art banner installation in the historic Cistern Yard.
November 7, 2024
Music & Dance Expo with the Edisto Natchez-Kusso and the Wassamasaw Tribe
Location: College of Charleston campus, Randolph Hall
Time: 11:00-2:00
- November 12, 2024
Movie Night - Behind the Holiday: Thanksgiving
Location: College of Charleston campus, Beatty Center 212 (BCTR)
Time: 6:00-7:30 p.m.