Congratulations to Tony Lucero and his co-leads for receiving a prestigious Sawyer Seminar funding grant from the Mellon Foundation. Administered by the University of Washington’s Simpson Center, the project, titled “Not Apart: Indigenous Knowledges, Global Reciprocity, and the Art of Democracy” is scheduled to begin next academic year.
“These are dark times for democracy and academic freedom. This Sawyer Seminar seeks to look for sources of hope and inspiration in Indigenous intellectual and artistic traditions that have been found in moments even more challenging than the one we are in today.” —Tony Lucero, Professor, Jackson School of International Studies
Open to the public, these seminars will examine Indigenous and decolonial approaches to knowledge, art, and institutional governance. The goal is to help foster new views on academic freedom, democracy, and the university. By creating the space for challenging conversations, the hope is that new research and institutional agendas can help further the governance culture at UW.
Administered and selected by the UW’s Simpson Center for the Humanities, Sawyer Seminars are more than just a lecture series. They are collaborative projects that seek to build a more just, reflective, and democratic university. Lucero is joined in this effort by UW faculty Jessica Bisset Perea (American Indian Studies) and Ben Gardner (Interdisciplinary Arts & Science). Due to the collaborative nature of this project, the co-leads invite UW faculty, students, staff, and administrators to join in helping design this project.
