In this lecture, Joshua Whitehead will explore Anishinaabeg and nêhiyawak epistemologies regarding creation stories and cosmologies in relation to his novel in progress, The Stonewailers. Through his research into bagonegiizhig (Anishinaabeg for "holes in the sky) and pâkwan kîsik (nêhiyawewin for "hole in the sky"), he attempts to situate the non-human, primarily stars, starbodies, and star people as its own epistemological knowledge while also translating it into creative writing and Indigiqueer colonization. Whitehead asks: where does Indigiqueer joy exist in ishkwakiiwan (apocalypse)? Does the end ever really end? Are genre and forms a colonial border that hinders Indigenous writing? And what knowledge might our kin, the stone, hold for us here on Treaty 7 and beyond regarding Two-Spirit and Indigenous futurity? 

Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Oji-Cree member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer, Jonny Appleseed, Making Love with the Land, and Indigiqueerness: a Conversation About Storytelling as well as the editor of Love after the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction. Currently, Whitehead is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary (Treaty 7) where he is housed in the departments of English and International Indigenous Studies.  

Registration here: https://forms.gle/12mUJVQTzX2rQda57