The Changing the Narrative group works to analyze narratives currently embedded in our commemorative landscape and to develop new historical interpretations and tell fresh stories that re-Indigenize this region.
Christina Faw Faw Goodson (Otoe-Missouria), Co-Primary Investigator and Co-Director, is an educator, historian, and linguist interested in helping her community build sustainable, effective education programs which seek to strengthen language use, historical and cultural knowledge, and civic engagement. It is also a priority of Goodson’s to connect traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous knowledge to STEAM fields so that future generations can cope with the rapidly changing climate and world around us.
Goodson holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in History and Native American Studies from Dartmouth College. She has served as the Title VI Indian Education Director for Frontier Public Schools in Red Rock, Okla., and as Language Coordinator and Instructor for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. Christina currently works as a Tribal Education Specialist for the National Indian Education Association.
Goodson was born in Stillwater, Okla., to Tamara Faw Faw and Jeff Goodson. She is a descendant of the Owl Clan (Otoe-Missouria) and Wolf Clan (Iowa) from her maternal lineage. She considers herself a translator and educator, first and foremost, occupying roles that many of her ancestors have occupied time and time again in the historical record. She spent her childhood traveling and living amongst the lands of her people but also her relatives—the Kansa, Osage, Omaha, and Ho-Chunk—in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. She makes her home with her partner, Alvin, and their dog, Sugar, on her tribal lands in Red Rock, Okla. She is an active member of the Jiwere-Nut’achi Ich’e Wokigo (Otoe-Missouria Language Department) as a community facilitator and instructor.
My Name is Tse-sa-ru-ra-ka-ri-ku, (The princess of the lodge) My English name is Melea Hoffman and I am a member of the Otoe-Missouria and Pawnee Tribes. I am a member Beaver clan, I am the daughter of Georgia and Ralph Hoffman and I come from the William Atkins and Sam Carson families. My home is 110 years old and the only occupied home on the original allotment. I am a cultural Anthropologist. I graduated from the University of Oklahoma. I am a researcher at the Otoe-Missouria tribe in the Jíwere-Nutachi Wósgą Wókigo department. I serve as a member of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and in an advisory capacity in the Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors. I’m a cultural consultant for Nova. I’m an avid collector be it antiques, relics, fossils and mini pottery. My greatest passions are studying the history of the Otoe-Missouria people, reading constantly, and spending time with my three pugs.
Dr. Angel M. Hinzo (Ho-Chunk, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska) is a Native American and Indigenous Studies Historian, whose research engages with Ho-Chunk history, federal Indian law in the United States, Native American women’s history, and feminist theory. Hinzo holds a Ph.D. in Native American Studies with a designated emphasis in feminist theory and research from the University of California, Davis. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Interdisciplinary Indigenous Studies at the University of Denver from 2016-2018. After completing her fellowship, she held a Visiting Assistant Professor position in Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of San Diego and later, became an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies. She is now an Assistant Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dr. Susana Geliga is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota and is of Taino descent. She is a Professor of the Department of History and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and is a co-director of the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received her M.A. and PhD in History from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, her BS degrees in Education, and Native American Studies from the Oglala Lakota College in Rapid City, South Dakota. Before graduate school, she taught Lakota language in the Rapid City public school system for eight years, and Lakota language at the Oglala Lakota College in Rapid City, South Dakota for two years. She also created the Little White Buffalo Project, a Lakota language and cultural preservation non-profit youth program that she operated for 10 years in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Beth R. Ritter is an Associate Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Ritter's primary area of specialization is the applied anthropology of Native North America with emphases in federal Indian policy and contemporary Native American issues (e.g., gaming, health, dispossession, and repatriation). Dr. Ritter has worked extensively with the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska since 1989 and has published several journal articles on Ponca culture and history (e.g., Human Organization, Great Plains Quarterly, and Great Plains Research ) as well as several scholarly research reports for the Tribe. Research in progress includes an article on nineteenth century Ponca history and a book on the dispossession of the Yankton Sioux Tribe.
Dr. Ritter holds a joint teaching appointment in anthropology and Native American Studies. Recent course offerings include: Introduction to Native American Studies, Peoples and Cultures of Native North America, Native Americans and Health, Research Ethics in the 21st Century: Indians and Anthros, and Introduction to Anthropology.