Jodi Byrd facts for kids

Jodi Ann Byrd is an important American Indigenous academic. She is a professor at Cornell University. There, she teaches about English literature. She also works with the American Studies Program.

Her research looks at how critical theory connects to Indigenous studies. She also studies Native American governance. Other topics she researches include science and technology studies, game studies, and indigenous feminism. She is also interested in American Indian Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Digital Media, and Theory & Criticism.

About Jodi Ann Byrd

Jodi Ann Byrd's father was John Byron Byrd. He was a doctor. She is also related to William L. Byrd. He was a governor of the Chickasaw Nation a long time ago. Jodi Ann Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation herself.

Her Education and Career

Jodi Ann Byrd earned two important degrees from the University of Iowa. She has a master's degree and a Ph.D. (a doctorate) in English literature. She finished her Ph.D. in 2002. Her main project for her Ph.D. was called Colonialism's Cacophony: Natives and Arrivants at the Limits of Postcolonial Theory.

Before teaching at Cornell, she taught at the University of Illinois. Before that, she was a professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. There, she taught about Indigenous politics.

Her Work at Universities

Jodi Ann Byrd used to be part of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois. At one point, she was the acting director of the program. She was very supportive of a scholar named Steven Salaita. When there were problems with him being hired, she thought about moving to other universities. However, the University of Illinois convinced her to stay. They offered her a new position in the English and Gender and Women's Studies departments.

Other Important Roles

Jodi Ann Byrd helps edit a book series for Northwestern University Press. It is called the Critical Insurgencies series. From 2011 to 2012, she was the president of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures.

In 2012, she became a Clan Sister for the Native American Literature Symposium. This means she is one of the main people who help organize it. She has said that this group has been a great source of inspiration for her. She has also been on the editorial board for the journal Critical Ethnic Studies.

Awards and Special Recognition

Jodi Ann Byrd has won several awards for her work.

Book Awards

Her book, The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism, won two awards. In 2011, it won the Best First Book of the Year award from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. In 2012, it won the Wordcraft Circle Award for Academic Work of the Year.

Paper Awards

Before that, in 2008, she won the Beatrice Medicine Award. This award is for scholarship in American Indian Studies. She won it for a paper she wrote called "Living my native life deadly: Red Lake, Ward Churchill, and the discourses of competing genocides." This paper was published in the American Indian Quarterly in 2007.

Selected Works

Books

• The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-0816676415). This book looks at how colonialism has affected Indigenous peoples.

Journal Articles

• "Living My Native Life Deadly": Red Lake, Ward Churchill, and the Discourses of Competing Genocides