Indigenous Horror Panel Discussion

Join us during SWAIA Indian Market weekend to hear scholar Jennifer Denetdale (Diné) and writer and filmmaker Ramona Emerson (Diné) in conversation with Lillia McEnaney as they discuss how Indigenous scholars, writers, and filmmakers are re-shaping the genres of horror and speculative fiction to broaden Indigenous theory and practice.

Using Ramona Emerson’s Shutter (Soho Crime, 2023) and Exposure (Soho Crime, 2024) as case studies, the panel will explore how Indigenous artists and writers intentionally play with and repurpose horror as a form of storytelling to confront forms of settler colonialism, including historical trauma, grief, and lived experiences. Audiences will gain insight into the historical implications and ongoing realities of the settler colonial project, as well as the various modes of truth-telling and resistance movements that Indigenous communities are leading to assert their sovereignties and futurities.

Admission is FREE. Seating is limited.

Panelists:

Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She has worked as a professional cinematographer, writer, and editor for over twenty-five years and is currently working on her 8th and 9th film projects, Crossing the Line and Through Her Lens. She is an Emmy nominee, a Sundance Native Lab Fellow, a Time-Warner Storyteller Fellow, a Tribeca All-Access Grantee and a WGBH Producer Fellow. Emerson just released her second novel, Exposure, the follow-up to her debut novel Shutter, which was published by SOHO Press in 2022 and long listed for the National Book Award, a finalist for the PEN Hemingway, PEN Open Book and Edgar Awards among others. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she and her husband/producer, Kelly Byars run their production company Reel Indian Pictures. Ramona is also an Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Arts at the University of New Mexico.

Jennifer Denetdale (Diné) is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She received her PhD in history from Northern Arizona University in 1999 and is professor and chair of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita (University of Arizona Press, 2007), as well as two Diné histories for young adults. Denetdale has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters within Diné Studies, including on Diné history, Diné and Indigenous feminisms and gender studies, and the stories of Diné and photography. She has co-curated museum exhibitions and served as a consultant for the Autry Museum of the American West, the Navajo Nation Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian. She is the former chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and served on the commission for 13 years. Denetdale has been recognized for her scholarship and community-based work with numerous awards, including the University of New Mexico’s Ovation Award and Critical Regional Studies Faculty Development Award, as well as a Henry Luce Foundation grant to support a community-based exhibition with the Navajo Nation Museum. She is currently editing a textbook on the history of the Navajo Nation government for Diné high school students. Denetdale is from Tohatchi, New Mexico, and presently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Moderator Lillia McEnaney is a museum anthropologist, independent curator, and assistant professor of museum studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is co-editor, with Dr. Jennifer Denetdale (Diné), of the forthcoming volume, “Our Livestock Will Never Diminish” / “Nihinaaldlooshii doo nídínééshgóó k’ee’ąą yilzhish dooleeł:” Breathing Life into the Photography of Milton Snow Across Diné Bikéyah (University of New Mexico Press, 2027). Previously, Lillia was assistant curator at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, director of the Hands-On Curatorial Program at the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, and adjunct instructor in Lehigh University’s Department of Art, Architecture, and Design/Semester in the American West. Her recent projects have been in partnership with the Navajo Nation Museum, the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research, the Museum of International Folk Art, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, Axle Contemporary, and others. Lillia is the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Council for Museum Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association.