Poet, novelist, political satirist, storyteller, professor, Crow Creek Lakota Sioux tribe member.

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, professor emerita of English and Native American studies at Eastern Washington University, shares her life experiences and her often controversial views of the world through humor and award-winning writing in “Challenging Orthodoxy: Themes of Resistance and Dissent,” part of Bemidji State University’s Honors Council Lecture Series.

The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe members as born in Fort Thompson, South Dakota, and raised on the reservation. She comes from a family of Sioux politicians and scholars; her father and grandfather both served on the Crow Creek Tribal Council for many years. Her grandmother was a bi-lingual newspaper writer in Sisseton, S.D., and her great-grandfather was a native linguist instrumental in developing early dictionaries for the Dacotah language.

Cook-Lynn is one of four founding editors of “Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies” and is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and the Author’s Guild. Since retiring from Eastern Washington, she has served as writer-in-residence at a number of universities around the country, and she held a workshop for Sioux writers at South Dakota State University.

She earned bachelor’s degrees in English and journalism at South Dakota State and has a master’s in education from the University of South Dakota. Cook-Lynn later was in the University of Nebraska doctoral program and was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at Stanford.

Lecture information
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, professor emerita of English and Native American studies at Eastern Washington University, presents “Challenging Orthodoxy: Themes of Resistance and Dissent.” Her lecture is the signature event for Bemidji State University’s Women’s History Month celebration as part of BSU’s Honors Council Lecture Series.

A reception for Cook-Lynn will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Gathering Room of BSU’s American Indian Resource Center, followed by a lecture at 7 p.m. and a book signing at 8 p.m. Honors Council Lectures are open to the public free of charge.

The Honors Council Lecture Series is hosted by the Bemidji State University Honors Council. The council is the advisory group to the honors program comprised of 12 faculty members from each of the University’s colleges. Student representatives are also elected to the council by their cohorts for one-year terms.

Cook-Lynn’s presentation is sponsored by the Northwest Minnesota Foundation’s Women’s Fund, Bemidji State University combined colleges, the Division of Student Development and Enrollment, the American Indian Resource Center, the BSU honors program and the BSU Department of English.

• Video preview: Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

Women’s History Month “Meet the Artists” Week
BSU’s celebration of Women’s History Month concludes with a “Meet the Artists” week, featuring work by women artists in a variety of different media. The conversations will be held from noon to 1 p.m. in the Terrace Lounge in BSU’s upper Hobson Memorial Union and are open free to the public. Refreshments will be available.

Wednesday, March 26
Cook-Lynn will be reading from her work, and artists Brenda Davis (visual arts) and Mary Therese (fabrics) will be displaying their work.

Thursday, March 27
Monica Lawrence will present her photography, and Sally McIntyre (viola) and Renae Carlson (violin) from Bemidji’s Headwaters School of Music and Arts will be discussing music.

Contacts
• Kari Caughey, BSU honors program; (218) 755-3984
• Dr. Carla Norris-Raynbird, assistant professor of sociology; (218) 755-2828