Wicazo Sa Review puts intellectual sovereignty at the forefront and continues to make an impact after forty years

ALBUQUERQUE – The Wicazo Sa Review, a Native journal co-founded by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Dakota Santee) from Fort Thompson, South Dakota, was celebrated by the University of New Mexico (UNM) in the first week of November as they hosted the Wicazo Sa Review Fortieth Anniversary Symposium.

Warm Fall New Mexico weather greeted the many scholars, students, presenters, moderators, and a handful of local artists, who came to celebrate forty years of the first dedicated peer-review academic journal in the discipline of Native American Studies (NAS). Colleagues, educators in the discipline, and students credit the journal for helping to shape the entire discipline.

The heart of Navajo country is a long way from the journals’ beginnings in Washington State. It also couldn’t be further away from the heart of the Oceti Sakowin where co-founder Dr. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is from. The journal was started in 1985 at Eastern Washington University (EWU) in Cheney, Washington where Cook-Lynn was a tenured professor, Dr. Roger Buffalohead (Ponca), Dr. William Willard (Cherokee), and Dr. Beatrice Medicine (Lakota). Many mentees of Cook-Lynn retold this story as told to them by her about how she started the journal with a three thousand dollar land lease check that Cook-Lynn had received from her grandmother’s estate.

The reason for starting it was to provide representation for Native Americans by Native Americans. NAS at UNM is housed in the College of Arts and Sciences. College Dean Jennifer Malat, who opened the symposium with a land acknowledgement, quoted a Cook-Lynn essay from 2005 in which Cook-Lynn explained the impetus for the journal, “The origin story was that Indians would study themselves, that we would remark about who was right, who was wrong, that we would review the works of those other disciplines, that we would look to the future that we held in our own hands.”

Malat said it was important to make the land acknowledgement “real through action, which is why I am honored to welcome you to the Fortieth Anniversary Symposium of the Wicazo Sa Review.” She noted that the four dedicated educators founded the journal with the goal of advancing the development of Native American Studies as a discipline. “From the very beginning, the journal has had a single unapologetic mission, quote, to assist Indigenous peoples of the Americas in taking possession of the own intellectual and creative pursuits, unquote.”

Malat noted that forty years of continuous publication is remarkable for any academic journal, but that WSR’s represents a particular achievement. “What the founders understood in 1985 would be foundational. The journal’s four decades run parallel to the growth of Native American studies itself, from programs fighting for institutional space to established departments with their own intellectual traditions.” She explained that as the field gained recognition, the journal provided essential infrastructure, a peer-reviewed journal where Indigenous scholars published rigorous works that was also accountable to the nations and communities the research served.

She explained the UNM College of Arts and Sciences commitment to supporting Indigenous scholarship across multiple departments, “including Native American Studies, Linguistics and American Studies, among others. I’m also proud to recognize the excellence of our native faculty and scholars of last year’s Alumni Awards.” She proudly acknowledged achievements of Native faculty members and graduates who are doing groundbreaking research, for example, in Dine revitalization for the next generation.

She acknowledged the hiring practices of both her department and the university reflect their commitment. She said they are engaged with history and collections and collaborate with New Mexico’s 23 federally recognized tribes in curation, repatriation, and exhibitions. She said they get support from the state of New Mexico, including funding for the Indigenous Child Language Research Center (ICLRC) and support for the Department of Native American Studies.

“Over its forty hears, the journal has published scholarship on language revitalization, sovereignty, education, decolonization, land rights, laws, literature and many other topics,” said Malat. “In 1999, the journal moved to the University of Minnesota Press and since 2021, it has been edited by Dr. Lloyd Lee (Dine), who chairs UNM’s Native American Studies Department. This symposium forty years later, with a full two-day program is a testament to what the four founding scholars built and to all the scholars who have sustained and grown this work since then. “

Lee explained when he took over the directorship in 2021 that the Wicazo Sa Review (WSR) had taken a hiatus, for a variety of reasons, including the pandemic. His number one job was to synchronize the journal’s publishing schedule so that releases would be up to date to be able to publish the commemorative issue for the fortieth anniversary.

“We really wanted to be able to highlight what the journal has done over these forty years, and to really emphasize the various and different themes that the journal has published in terms of articles, commentaries, literary essays, creative nonfiction pieces, book reviews, and all kinds of different things. Wicazo Sa Review is going strong at forty,” said Lee, “and will continue to assist Indigenous Peoples of the Americas in taking possession of their own intellectual and creative pursuits.”

The commemorative issue features six articles, one commentary and three book reviews One is a discussion of the journals’ role in shaping Native literary nationalism(s) and the ongoing efforts to reclaim and revitalize Natives’ rich intellectual and literary traditions. Another proposes a quantitative decolonization model.

Lee said the journal will continue to support Native American/American Indian studies in helping Indigenous populations define the cultural, religious, legal, and historical parameters of scholarship and creativity essential to the ongoing process of decolonization and their survival in the modern world

The commemorative issue came out at the end of October. Lee said there were only a limited number of print versions, but a digital version is available on the Project Muse website. The journal is also available at the University of Minnesota Press website and the Native American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico website, on social media (@wicaosareview) outlets Facebook, Instagram, and X.

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

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