Jolene Rickard, along with three other Cornell colleagues, has been awarded a 2024 New Frontier Grant by the College of Arts and Sciences for a project entitled "Reconceptualizing Haudenosaunee Studies." Five such grants were awarded this year to cutting edge projects in science, social science and the humanities led by A&S faculty.
“Reconceptualizing Haudenosaunee Studies” aims to advance Haudenosaunee studies in linguistics, anthropology/archaeology and art/history of art while changing long-dominant methods in the field. Foregrounding involvement of community members and knowledge keepers, particularly Stephen Henhawk, research associate in linguistics (A&S) and program associate in the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the researchers will focus on Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ (Cayuga), the indigenous language and people of the Cayuga Lake region, while touching all the Haudenosaunee nations and the diaspora into which many Haudenosaunee people have been driven. Research goals include revision of the stereotyped “polysynthetic” characterization of Haudenosaunee languages; rewriting the narrative of the long-term Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ habitation in the region; and re-inscription of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ physical presence here. The project is led by John Whitman, professor of linguistics (A&S); Kurt Jordan, professor of anthropology (A&S); and Jolene Rickard, associate professor of history of art and visual studies (A&S).