Professor Gwen Westerman and author Bruce White

Please join Laura Waterman Wittstock  on Wednesday, September 19th at 9 am Central as she talks with authors Professor Gwen Westerman and Bruce McCann White about their new book: Mni Sota Makoce Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds, which examines narratives of the people’s origins, their associations with the land, and the seasons by drawing on oral history interviews, archival work, and painstaking comparisons of Dakota, French, and English sources. They consider Dakota interactions with Europeans and offer an in-depth “reading between the lines” of historical documents—some of them virtually unknown—and treaties made with the United States, uncovering misunderstandings and outright deceptions that helped lead to war in 1862.

Dr. Gwen Westerman a professor of English and humanities at Minnesota State University–Mankato, specializes in multi-cultural and Native American literature. She serves as director of the Native American Literature Symposium, is the recipient of several prestigious grants, and has published widely on contemporary American Indian literature. Her poetry has been published in Yellow Medicine Review, Water~Stone Review, and other journals. Her award-winning quilts have been displayed in numerous venues. She is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate.