FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2013
Contact: Jason A. Smith, communications director, 608.263.1692 x21
Jennifer Smith, Academy Evenings director, 608.263.1692 x12
LA CROSSE—The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and the La Crosse Public Library are once again partnering to offer an Academy talk at the library’s main branch, located at 800 Main St. in La Crosse. University of Wisconsin–Madison anthropology professor Larry Nesper will speak Monday, April 1, at 9:30 am on Wisconsin’s Ojibwe Bands and Ceded Territories. The talk is offered through the library’s “Monday Mornings @ Main” series. It is free and open to the public.
The Ojibwe Indian communities in Wisconsin retain an interest in lands they ceded in treaties signed in the mid-19th century. Now, with increased institutional capacity, that interest has been developing. For his talk, Nesper will begin with an overview of the federal-tribal and state-tribal relationships in Wisconsin that became most relevant with the spearfishing conflict that was largely settled 20 years ago. He will then address land protection issues, recent failed attempts to permit deer hunting at night, and tribal response to conflict over changes in state mining laws.
About the speaker
Larry Nesper is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Nesper is author of The Walleye War: The Struggle for Ojibwe Spearfishing and Treaty Rights (University of Nebraska Press, 2002), and he has worked closely with several tribes in Wisconsin and with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. Nesper teaches courses in American Indian ethnography and ethnohistory, Indians of the Western Great Lakes, anthropology of law, and American Indian social and political movements.
About the Wisconsin Academy
The independent, nonprofit Wisconsin Academy applies the sciences, arts, and letters to bring context, civilized discussion, and meaningful action to the most important issues of today. We create spaces—public forums, art galleries, publications—where citizens join together to examine the challenges of our times, suggest solutions, and look at the world in new ways. We celebrate and preserve Wisconsin’s human, cultural, and natural resources. The Wisconsin Academy connects people and ideas for a better Wisconsin. Wisconsin Academy programs include the James Watrous Gallery at Overture Center for the Arts in Madison; Wisconsin People & Ideas, our quarterly magazine of Wisconsin thought and culture; Academy Evenings, our statewide series of public forums; and Wisconsin Initiatives, a public policy program.
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