This book brings together a diverse group of American Indian thinkers to discuss traditional and contemporary philosophies and philosophical issues. The essays presented here address philosophical questions pertaining to knowledge, time, place, history, science, law, religion, nationhood, ethics, and art, as understood from a variety of Native American standpoints. Unique in its approach, this volume represents several different tribes and nations and amplifies the voice of contemporary American Indian culture struggling for respect and autonomy. Taken together, the essays collected here (...) exemplify the way in which American Indian perspectives enrich contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, Waters introduces American Indians who hold a Ph.D. in philosophy. Waters explains that because American Indians are unable to garner the financial, collegial, and academic support needed to rise to inclusive positions in the philosophical profession, most of our colleagues and students remain uneducated and ignorant about indigenous people and our philosophies that are still alive today on this shared American continent. America’s indigenous philosophers have important contributions to make to philosophy and culture; yet our conceptual nonexistence (...) exacerbates our veridical non- integration. It is a cultural luxury for the APA to not address these problems. In some moral worlds, the APA Board might have a positive obligation to address the status of American Indian philosophy with all due haste. Three possible ways of indexing American Indian philosophy for inclusion in the discipline are presented, each raising unique and particular problems for the profession. It is suggested a field of Indigenous philosophy (global) could emerge over time, having subfields of diverse cultural philosophies, not necessarily linked to nation states or current geopolitical regions. Concluding, given issues of invisibility, alliances, and responsibility, the APA remains historically morally bound to address and perhaps even redress American Indian exclusionism in the profession upon which it acts, and in the culture it complicitly creates. (shrink)

This syllabus engages dialogue about indigenous philosophical ideas and issues that frame contemporary global indigenous thought, perspective, and worldview. We explore how presuppositions of indigenous philosophy, including epistemology (how/what we know), metaphysics (what is), science (stories), and ethics (practices), affect global research programs, intellectual cultural property, economic policies, ecology, biodiversity, taxonomy, health, housing, food, employment, economic sustainability, peace negotiations, climate justice, human/treaty rights, colonial law, refugees and incarceration, self-determination, sovereignty, nation building, and digital information. Readings provide an understanding of traditional (...) and contemporary indigenous philosophical frameworks of interpretation, developments of the 1994-2004 United Nations Decade of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples, and the recent Indigenous Conference in Cancun (philosophical importance of the World Trade Organization [WTO], the World Bank [WB], the International Monetary Fund [IMF], and NAFTA). (shrink)

This study examined within-person co-occurrence of self-focus, negative affect, and stress in a community sample of adolescents with or without emotional disorders. As part of a larger study, 278 adolescents were interviewed about emotional disorders. Later, they completed diary measures over three days, six times a day, reporting their current thoughts, affect, and levels of stress. Negative affect was independently related to both concurrent stress and self-focus. Importantly, the association between negative affect and self-focus was stronger among participants with a (...) recent unipolar mood disorder, compared to those with an anxiety disorder, comorbid anxiety and depression, or those without an emotional disorder. The implications of these findings to theories of self-focus and its role in emotional disorders are discussed. (shrink)

This anthology promotes a new vision: American Philosophy as complex and constantly changing, enlivened by historically marginalized, yet never silent, voices.

Precision targeting of specific white matter bundles that traverse the subcallosal cingulate has been linked to efficacy of deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression. Methods to confirm optimal target engagement in this heterogenous region are now critical to establish an objective treatment protocol. As yet unexamined are the time-frequency features of the SCC evoked potential, including spectral power and phase-clustering. We examined these spectral features—evoked power and phase clustering—in a sample of TRD patients with implanted SCC stimulators. Electroencephalogram was (...) recorded during wakeful rest. Location of electrical stimulation in the SCC target region was the experimental manipulation. EEG was analyzed at the surface level with an average reference for a cluster of frontal sensors and at a time window identified by prior study. Morlet wavelets generated indices of evoked power and inter-trial phase clustering. Enhanced phase clustering at theta frequency was observed in every subject and was significantly correlated with SCC-EP magnitude, but only during left SCC stimulation. Stimulation to dorsal SCC evinced stronger phase clustering than ventral SCC. There was a weak correlation between phase clustering and white matter density. An increase in evoked delta power was also coincident with SCC-EP, but was less consistent across participants. DBS evoked time-frequency features index mm-scale changes to the location of stimulation in the SCC target region and correlate with structural characteristics implicated in treatment optimization. Results also imply a shared generative mechanism between evoked potentials evinced by electrical stimulation and evoked potentials evinced by auditory/visual stimuli and behavioral tasks. Understanding how current injection impacts downstream cortical activity is essential to building new technologies that adapt treatment parameters to individual differences in neurophysiology. (shrink)

There is convincing evidence of the transmission of anxiety and depression from parents to children; however, mechanisms by which this vulnerability is passed on are unclear. Cognitive models and a small body of cross-sectional research suggest that parental attention biases may be one mechanism involved in transmission. Longitudinal associations of maternal and offspring ABs with offspring symptoms have been scarcely studied. Forty-three mothers–child dyads were included. All children were diagnosis-free while 24 mothers had a lifetime emotional disorder and 19 mothers (...) had no psychiatric diagnoses. This study examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of maternal and child AB and child anxiety symptomology at initial and 12-month assessments. ABs were assessed using a visual-probe task with emotional faces. There was a significant cross-sectional but not longitudinal association of increased child anxiety symptoms with increased maternal threat AB for HR but not LR dyads. At the cross-sectional level, increases in HR but not LR offspring anxiety symptomology were associated with maternal threat AB. Larger longitudinal studies are required that examine the interplay between parent–child variables and include multiple time-points of assessment and measures of AB. (shrink)

A poem delivered upon the memorial of Viola Cordova in honor of indigenous women everywhere. "Two millennia of indigenous diasporas, yet we are all indigenous to this planet . . . There is a transnational indigenist agenda at work here to preserve and protect the human race for humans to remain among all our relations" .

Several themes arise here. First is the need to coalition with ecofeminists in struggle against ecocide of our planet earth. Second is the incredible violence committed against Native women in the name of continuing manifest destiny. Third is the overlapping of racism, sexism, and capitalism to create an imperial system of domination over the earth's resources. Fourth, there is a need to heal ourselves and our communities. Authors include Bonita Lawrence, Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, M.A. Jaimes* Guerrero, Andrea Smith, Lisa M. (...) Poupart, Anne Waters, Sheridan Hough, Donna Hightower Langston, Annette Arkeketa, and Steve Russell. (shrink)

Anticipate that this volume will nourish discussions in Native American, Indigenous, and Women's Studies, as well as in interdisciplinary courses. In respecting all of our relations, we present this journal in the spirit of healing the earth.The second theme is the incredible violence committed against Native women in the name of a continuing manifest destiny. Internalized oppression, violence turned against oneself, is devastating our communities as elders and youth stand by and watch generations of our people get lost in the (...) confusion of cultural dissonance.A third theme is the overlapping of racism, sexism, and capitalism to create an imperial system of domination over the earth's resources. Fourth, there is a need to heal ourselves and our communities. The call to know and learn from our elders the traditional understandings of our relations with all things of the universe, and how sustainable cultures may be able to offer an alternative to capitalism, remains a challenge. We must understand the need and the ways to balance ourselves with all of our relations to stop the subjugation of earth's resources, so that the "age of global imperialism" will hopefully one day be a thing of history, or at least a thing of the past in the Americas. (shrink)

This article was prepared for the Prepared for the Memorial Service at the University of New Mexico on March 28, 2003. Compared are the philosophy of Standing Bear and Viola Cordova. "Both Standing Bear and Cordova recognized the ruptured consciousness into which Indian students frequently fall when we encounter colonial culture. Both critically challenged the academic education being taught to Native students, in method and content. Both recognized the importance of Native students receiving an education in consonance with their cultural (...) historical ways of being and belief systems. Standing Bear and Cordova, from different tribes, different centuries, both announce a panIndian approach to Native education and healing, urging an immersion in Native cultural values, language, and ways of being." In this article Waters remembers her friend, "And I remember that although we shared a fondness for Wittgenstein, you reminded me that 'They won’t let me teach philosophy.'" At the end of the article Waters presents a poem in honor of Viola's work titled "A Transnational Indigenist Woman’s Agenda". (shrink)

Waters aries that the demands of indigenous bio-prospecting programs need to be considered against the needs of indigenous communities. Issues of sovereignty and rights to self-determination need to be resolved in the context of negotiating bio-prospecting plans. By setting out clear guidelines and priorities, as determined through the eyes and values of indigenous peoples, indigenous communities may have an opportunity to participate in the global sharing of biomedical information and healing for all our relations. Before any projects get underway, however, (...) social, political, and legal issues ought to be settled so that informed decision can be made on the part of indigenous communities to partake of the invitation to bio-prospecting, or not. (shrink)

This syllabus explores complex ways that Native peoples form relationships with environments. Topics include Native American environmental thought, ethics, technology, and aesthetics of practice. A comparative approach shows differences and similarities of Native and Western templates of understanding that frame relations in our human environment. Texts discuses understanding of traditional and contemporary indigenous philosophical frameworks of environmental practices, and why they collide with technology. Required text authors include Gregory Cajete, J. Baird Caldicott, Michael P. Nelson, Donald Grinde, and Bruce E. (...) Johansen; recommended readings include Krim Benterrak, Staphen Muecke, Paddy Roe, David Suzuki, and Peter Knudtson. (shrink)

The ability to rapidly detect facial expressions of anger and threat over other salient expressions has adaptive value across the lifespan. Although studies have demonstrated this threat superiority effect in adults, surprisingly little research has examined the development of this process over the childhood period. In this study, we examined the efficiency of children's facial processing in visual search tasks. In Experiment 1, children (N=49) aged 8 to 11 years were faster and more accurate in detecting angry target faces embedded (...) in neutral backgrounds than vice versa, and they were slower in detecting the absence of a discrepant face among angry than among neutral faces. This search pattern was unaffected by an increase in matrix size. Faster detection of angry than neutral deviants may reflect that angry faces stand out more among neutral faces than vice versa, or that detection of neutral faces is slowed by the presence of surrounding angry distracters. When keeping the background constant in Experiment 2, children (N=35) aged 8 to 11 years were faster and more accurate in detecting angry than sad or happy target faces among neutral background faces. Moreover, children with higher levels of anxiety were quicker to find both angry and sad faces whereas low anxious children showed an advantage for angry faces only. Results suggest a threat superiority effect in processing facial expressions in young children as in adults and that increased sensitivity for negative faces may be characteristic of children with anxiety problems. (shrink)