Blaire Morseau, Assistant Professor in MSU’s Department of Religious Studies and an inaugural 1855 Professor, is the keynote speaker for the 44th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Unity Dinner. This MLK Commemorative Celebration event, organized by MSU’s Residence Education and Housing Services, is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 16, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center Big 10 Rooms. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m.
The MLK Community Unity Dinner is free, but pre-registration is required. During this event, MLK Endowed Scholarship recipients will be honored. There also will be student performances and remarks by Interim President Dr. Teresa K. Woodruff and Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Jabbar R. Bennett.
“It’s an honor and privilege to be asked to be this year’s Keynote for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Unity Dinner,” Morseau said. “I’m humbled by the esteemed speakers of previous years who have contributed to Dr. King’s legacy – one that inspires us to collectively imagine a more equitable world in which we hope to live.”
Morseau, who is an Affiliate Faculty in MSU’s American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, is a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, which is based in Dowagiac, Michigan, and from 2017-2020, she worked as an archivist for her tribe.
This semester, she is teaching a class on Native American Religions (REL 306) that explores the artwork, literature, politics, and other Indigenous spiritualities of Native American peoples.
Morseau has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico and a B.A. in Anthropology from Rutgers University. Her research interests are in Indigenous science fiction and futurisms, traditional cultural and ecological knowledge, digital heritage, and Native counter-mapping.
“It’s an honor and privilege to be asked to be this year’s Keynote for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Unity Dinner. I’m humbled by the esteemed speakers of previous years who have contributed to Dr. King’s legacy – one that inspires us to collectively imagine a more equitable world in which we hope to live.”
She says she teaches science fiction and other media made by Native peoples as a means of explaining certain Indigenous politics or histories. This includes both contemporary literature by Native authors, as well as stories that were published more than 100 years ago and are now being classified under the genre of science fiction.
Morseau released, in October 2023, an edited volume, titled As Sacred to Us: Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Stories in their Contexts, which features the collection of 19th– and early 20th-century birch bark books written by Potawatomi author Simon Pokagon. In addition to the stories themselves, the book, which was published by the Michigan State University Press, has several essays by other contributors that contextualize Pokagon’s work. Pokagon also published bilingually so the book offers some linguist interpretations of the Potawatomi language he used.
Morseau will give a talk on this book on Friday, Jan. 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at MSU’s Main Library in the Green Room, located on the fourth floor. Lunch will be provided for attendees. The talk and lunch are free, but registration is required by submitting the RSVP for Dr. Blaire Morseau’s Luncheon Book Talk. This event is sponsored by the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, Department of Religious Studies, MSU Libraries, and MSU Press.
MLK Commemorative Celebration
MSU’s 2024 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration runs Jan. 12-19 with events offered to the MSU Community highlighting and honoring the life and legacy of Dr. King. This year’s theme is “Courageous Leadership & an Unwavering Commitment to Civil Rights, Equity & Social Justice.” The celebration also marks the 70th and 60th landmark anniversaries of Brown v. Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination and ended school segregation, recognized via MSU’s Project 70/60.
The annual MLK celebration also is an opportunity for the MSU community to celebrate its legacy of advancing civil rights on campus, engage with the campus community, and highlight ways the community can support historically underrepresented students, faculty, and staff.
“I hope that people take away from my speech feelings of agency, hope, and a renewed optimism for decolonization, as well as the dismantling of all structures of oppression, in order to create space to build harmonious futures together and on our own terms.”
“I look forward to addressing the week-long commemorative events’ theme of “Courageous Leadership & an Unwavering Commitment to Civil Rights, Equity & Social Justice” through the lens of Potawatomi concepts of mno bmadzen, kinship, and relationality,” Morseau said. “I hope that people take away from my speech feelings of agency, hope, and a renewed optimism for decolonization, as well as the dismantling of all structures of oppression, in order to create space to build harmonious futures together and on our own terms.”
For more information on Morseau, see the article published in November 2023 by the College of Arts & Letters, titled “Religious Studies Professor Returns to Her Native Community for 1855 Professorship.” And, for more information on MSU’s MLK Commemorative Celebration, visit the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration web page.
