Guest Speakers

Duke hydrologist Ryan Emanuel and East Carolina University literary scholar Kirstin Squint will discuss the centrality of place and water for southern Indigenous people. Dr. Squint will trace connections between two decades of hurricanes, from Katrina to Helene, emphasizing the importance of the stories we tell about water and its impacts on our lives. Her talk will draw from her work as an editor of Swamp Souths: Literary and Cultural Ecologies and her monograph-in-progress, Removal and Resistance in Southeastern Indigenous Stories. Dr. Emanuel will consider what it means to build and maintain cultural connections to water and watery places in a time of rapid environmental change. Drawing from his book, On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice, he will show how industrial pollution, unsustainable development, and climate change create challenges and opportunities for Lumbee people and their Indigenous neighbors in eastern North Carolina.

“Southern Indigenous Waters” is the first event in UNC Asheville’s Rising Waters: Writing Place and Environment lecture series. Funded by the Thomas Howerton professorship, this three-year program (2025-2028) seeks to:

1)    Put acclaimed humanities scholars in conversation with recognized natural sciences scholars and researchers to frame how we might think about creative depictions of place.

2)    Demonstrate that broadly conceived connections across disciplines increase our understanding of the world around us and how we might move forward as the places we inhabit become increasingly vulnerable.

Please mark your calendars for the second event in the series on February 12, 2026, featuring Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) author
Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle.