Tagged: Colonialism

A copper statue sits atop a large rotunda against a blue sky.

(Dis)Placement of German Heritage in New Ulm, Minnesota

From the high vantage point of the “Hermann the German” statue in New Ulm, Minnesota, Ryan Hellenbrand and Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand explore the settler stories inscribed on stolen Dakota homeland, casting a thought-provoking spotlight on the intricate tapestry of history and belonging in the region.

Fire burning through dead grass and smoke rising up.

When Aboriginal Burning Practices Meet Colonial Legacies in Australia

Aboriginal burning regimes have become popular as a solution to prevent catastrophic wildfires in Australia. Mardi Reardon-Smith argues that Aboriginal peoples’ fire knowledge is not static, as contemporary burning results from both colonial histories and the intercultural co-creation of environmental knowledges.

Bog with green vegetation and blue water

Swamp Feelings

Annie Proulx’s 2022 book Fen, Bog, and Swamp is a melancholy love letter to wetland ecosystems. But missing from this lament, Nino McQuown argues, are hopeful histories of resistance.

Two people stand in front of a giant statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Ox.

Paul Bunyan and Settler Nostalgia in the Northwoods

Kasey Keeler and Ryan Hellenbrand think beyond tourism to show how logging and forestry have impacted a tribal nation in Minnesota—and how storytelling and placemaking can be tools of both colonialism and Indigenous resistance.

Waterfall and a rocky beach on a misty day

A Map of Point Reyes

In this genre-queer meditation on mapping, Tori McCandless interrogates the colonial ramifications of the map while exploring processes of embodied and intertextual mapping that account for the interwoven histories of California’s coast. They ask: how can we know a place through touch and text?