[acc-cca-l] RISN Talk #2: Hand Talk, Heart Talk: Embodying Indigenous Communication on Turtle Island

[Sibo Chen]

[△EXTERNAL]


Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the Racialized and Indigenous Scholars Network (RISN) at the Canadian Communication Association, I am excited to invite you to the second RISN talk of 2025 (May 7, 2025 06:00 PM, Eastern Time).

In this talk, Aandeg (Dr. Joanne DiNova) will share her her forthcoming research-creation project focusing on Indigenous Hand Talk revitalization efforts.

Please see below for the webinar details and the Zoom registration link. Feel free to share this email with your networks. We look forward to seeing you there.

Best Regards
Sibo Chen

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Webinar Registration Link: https://torontomu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_csBr5YkdSky-KKA5NZzPkA

Date & Time: May 7, 2025 06:00 PM, Eastern Time

Description: From time immemorial to the present, various dialects of Indigenous sign language (or “Hand Talk”) have been spoken across Turtle Island. These collectively functioned as an embodied lingua franca, facilitating direct communication between a multitude of diverse nations and language groups without need for translation. The language was deeply rooted by the time European explorers arrived, as is recorded among the earliest colonial writings. Today, with few fluent speakers remaining, efforts are underway to preserve and encourage more widespread use of Hand Talk (especially Plains Indian Sign Language [PISL]). In this talk Aandeg, an Anishinaabekwe performance artist and emerging filmmaker, will situate her forthcoming research-creation project within overall Hand Talk revitalization efforts. Touching briefly on Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, pedagogies, identity, and storytelling, the discussion will map out plans to learn and record Hand Talk, an ancient Indigenous language, while also theorizing and artistically participating in its revitalization. The project fuses performance art, Indigenous theory and, significantly, filmmaking – both to document the research and to highlight the importance of Hand Talk in the current historical moment. Bio: Aandeg (Dr. Joanne DiNova) is a Toronto-born second-generation residential school / 60s Scoop (1957) survivor. She is an associate professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University and a student member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSA). Following a career-damaging close encounter of the “Pretendian” kind, Dr. DiNova began curating a radical, method-acting performance/street artist identity as Aandeg, or The Crow, a minor trickster-figure of ambiguous gender who enters the stage at the end of the world. The resulting research-creation functions as both performative autoethnography and multimedia art production.

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I work flexibly and may send emails outside normal working hours. Please do not feel any pressure to respond outside of your own work schedule.

Sibo Chen (he/him)
Associate Professor
Associate Chair & Graduate Program Director
School of Professional Communication
Toronto Metropolitan University (Formerly Ryerson University)

We acknowledge that Toronto is in the 'Dish With One Spoon Territory’. The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect.
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