Dylan Miner has been named director of the American Indian Studies Program in the College of Arts and Letters effective Aug. 16.
Miner is an associate professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, focusing on indigenous and anti-colonial issues. In 2010, Miner was awarded an Artist Leadership Fellowship from the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution).
Since 2010, Miner has been featured in more than 15 solo exhibitions and has been artist-in-residence at institutions such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, École supérieure des beaux-arts in Nantes, France, and Santa Fe Art Institute.
“As the country’s original land grant university, MSU has a history of and commitment to working with indigenous communities and is ideally situated to educate Native and non-Native students about the ongoing importance of American Indian, First Nations and indigenous studies," he said. “Alongside the Native American Institute and the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, AISP makes MSU a vibrant place for studying indigenous issues. I look forward to working with MSU faculty, students and staff, as well as the university’s indigenous community and Native organizations and tribes across the Great Lakes, to ensure AISP’s success.”
Miner is a Michigan native of Métis descent, also referred to as Wiisaakodewinini or Michif. Since the late 20th century, the Métis people have been recognized in Canada as an Aboriginal people, with formal recognition equal to that given to the Inuit and First Nations peoples. Miner is descended from Métis with ancestral ties to Indigenous communities in the Great Lakes, Prairies and subarctic regions. His book, “Creating Aztlán: Chicano Art, Indigenous Sovereignty and Lowriding across Turtle Island,” was published last year by the University of Arizona Press.
Miner holds a Ph.D. from The University of New Mexico and has published more than 50 journal articles, book chapters, critical essays and encyclopedia entries.