Dr. Farina King joins the podcast to discuss her experiences with the spiritual power of the peoples and places of Dine culture. To learn more go to https://farinaking.com/.
Farina King, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Horizon Chair in Native American Ecology and Culture and Associate Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, in the ancestral lands of the Caddo Nation and Wichita & Affiliated Tribes.
Many diverse Indigenous peoples have converged in the region of what is now considered Norman, Oklahoma, including Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, and Osage nations. Before joining the University of Oklahoma faculty, King was Associate Professor of History and affiliated faculty of Cherokee and Indigenous Studies at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, in the homelands of the Cherokee Nation and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees. She also directed and founded the NSU Center for Indigenous Community Engagement.
She received her Ph.D. at Arizona State University in History, and she specializes in twentieth-century Native American Studies, especially Indigenous experiences in boarding schools. She is the author of The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century, and co-author with Michael P. Taylor and James R. Swensen of Returning Home: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School. She is the current President of the Southwest Oral History Association