Gregory D. Smithers will discuss Reclaiming Two-Spirits. He will be joined in conversation by Leila K. Blackbird. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.

Presented in partnership with the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

At Swift Hall, Room 200

RSVP HERE (Please note that your RSVP is requested but not required.)

About the Book: Reclaiming Two-Spirits decolonizes the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground in order to save them.

Before 1492, hundreds of Indigenous communities across North America included people who identified as neither male nor female, but both. They went by aakíí’skassi, miati, okitcitakwe or one of hundreds of other tribally specific identities. After European colonizers invaded Indian Country, centuries of violence and systematic persecution followed, imperiling the existence of people who today call themselves Two-Spirits, an umbrella term denoting feminine and masculine qualities in one person.

Drawing on written sources, archaeological evidence, art, and oral storytelling, Reclaiming Two-Spirits spans the centuries from Spanish invasion to the present, tracing massacres and inquisitions and revealing how the authors of colonialism’s written archives used language to both denigrate and erase Two-Spirit people from history. But as Gregory Smithers shows, the colonizers failed—and Indigenous resistance is core to this story. Reclaiming Two-Spirits amplifies their voices, reconnecting their history to Native nations in the 21st century.

About the Author: Gregory D. Smithers is a professor of American history and Eminent Scholar (2019-2024) in the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Davis. He is currently a British Academy Global Professor, based in the Treatied Spaces research cluster at the University of Hull.

His research and writing focus on the histories of Indigenous people and African Americans from the eighteenth century to the present. Dr. Smithers is particularly interested in the rich history of the Cherokee people, Indigenous history from the Mountain South to California and the Southwest Pacific, and environmental history. His work is devoted to narrating the past in ways that are publicly accessible and connect with issues of social justice, environmental sustainability, and racial and gender equity.

About the Interlocutor: Leila K. Blackbird (Two-Spirit LA Kréyòl & unenrolled adoptee) is currently the Pozen Human Rights Doctoral Fellow of US & Atlantic History at the University of Chicago. She is a sociolegal scholar and historian of colonialism, slavery, and state violence with a focus on the lived experiences of the Black and Indigenous peoples of North America, especially women and children. Her work has been featured in books such as Louisiana Creole Peoplehood and What is History, Now? and in the academic journals Eighteenth-Century Studies and The William & Mary Quarterly.

Event Location:
Swift Hall
1025 E 58th St. Room 200
Chicago, IL 60637

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