Christopher Teuton is Keynoter for the 31st Annual Delta Symposium
JONESBORO – Professor Christopher Teuton is the keynote speaker at Arkansas State University's 31st annual Delta Symposium. He will make two presentations during this conference, according to Dr. Gregory Hansen, professor of English and folklore, and co-coordinator of the annual symposium.
His first presentation will consist of readings from his creative non-fiction as well as a sharing of stories from Cherokee culture. It will be held on the second day of the conference at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9, at A-State’s Bradbury Art Museum.
He will give his keynote address at 1 p.m. Friday, April 10, in the Carl R. Reng Student Union’s Mockingbird Room. Both events are open to the public, and admission is free.
Dr. Teuton is professor of American Indian studies at the University of Washington. He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a member of Echota-Tanasi Ceremonial Grounds in Park Hill, Okla.
Teuton, a prolific scholar and author of award-winning books on Cherokee culture, will share Indigenous perspectives on the theme of monsters and cryptids through his Thursday night reading and his Friday afternoon presentation titled “Naming the Impossible: The Wonderous and the Monstrous in Cherokee Storytelling.”
His scholarship includes five major books in American Indian literature, folklore, and culture. His 2012 publication “Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars’ Club” won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2013. This book was followed by “Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teaching of the Natural World.” It was recognized as the Second Place Awardee of the 2023 Chicago Folklore Prize that recognizes the best books published in the field of folklore.
He has recently published “The Cherokee Natural World: Stories, Language, and Teachings.” This is an open-access book that provides multimedia presentations of content from previous print publications.
Professor Teuton’s work demonstrates his collaborative approaches to research. He provided co-authorship credit to esteemed elder and mentor Hastings Shade in “Cherokee Earth Dwellers.”
His work has contributed to the safeguarding of the Cherokee language as well as the conservation of a wide array of cultural traditions among Indigenous peoples. Much of his career has been at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he worked with the region’s Cherokee community.
Since the inception of his career at the University of Washington, he has begun connecting with members of the Coast Salish communities in the northwest region, and he has grounded his writing and research on ethical principles that emphasize ways to merge collaborative projects with sustainability and accountability.
