Linguistics Professor Roseann S. Willink and Diné College Professor Paul Zolbrod will discuss their most recent book, “Weaving A World: Diné Bahane, Navajo Weaving and Spider Womans Gifts,” in a brown bag discussion on March 23. The talk will be held from noon to 1 p.m. in the Willard Reading Room, located in the west wing of Zimmerman Library.
Photo credit: Julia Charley (Shiprock, N.M.)
Willink and Zolbrod will also present a separate panel discussion later in the day from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Willard Reading Room.
The Indigenous Nations Library Program is sponsoring the event, which will address themes including: poetics of Navajo weaving, earth, sky and the holy people, exile, return and the outside world, summoning the holy people, keeping the world in balance and living in a dynamic landscape.
Willink and Zolbrod have worked together on projects to bridge the gap between Navajo culture and non-Navajo society for more than 25 years. A native of Pennsylvania, Zolbrod was an English professor at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., for 30 years before relocating to New Mexico. In 1984 he published the monumental work “Diné Bahane’: The Navajo Creation Story” (UNM Press), the most complete version of the story to appear in English.
Raised in Pueblo Pintado on the Eastern Navajo Agency, Willink has served as a faculty member at UNM since 1971. She is a member of the Naakaii din’ é; the Mexican Clan, and born for Kinyaa’aanii, the Towering House Clan. Her maternal grandfather’s clan is Bit’ahnii, the Folded Arms Clan. Her paternal grandparents’ clan is Tlaashchi’i, or Red Streak Bottom Clan.
Both Willink and Zolbrod have written widely on Navajo Language and culture. The brown bag discussion and panel presentation are free and the public is welcome.
Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627 or Rebekah HorseChief, (505) 277-7433