ABERDEEN, S.D. — Northern State University assistant professor of English Dr. Kristen Brown has published new research in Western American Literature, the premier academic journal in its field and a publication of the University of Nebraska Press.

The article, "Listening to Unlearn: Sarah Winnemucca's Testimony and the Reversal of Civilization Discourse," examines the testimonial resistance of Sarah Winnemucca, also known as Thocmetony, or, Shell Flower, an influential 19th-century Northern Paiute writer and activist. Brown analyzes how Winnemucca's 1883 publication, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, challenges the settler-colonial "civilization" logics that justified Indigenous dispossession and the Federal Indian Boarding School System.

Brown's research connects this historical scholarship to the present, drawing attention to ongoing language revitalization efforts, including immersion schools in the region, that are restoring Native languages in communities across South Dakota. The article encourages readers to appreciate the power of listening and to support efforts toward truth, healing and reparation for boarding school survivors and their descendants.

"Sarah Winnemucca's words are more relevant than ever. Reading her text as testimony, really listening and entering the self-reflective space of witness, asks us to confront uncomfortable truths about history and to acknowledge the ongoing impacts of policies like the boarding school system," said Dr. Kristen Brown, assistant professor of English at Northern State University. "I hope this research encourages readers to listen deeply, to build communities of care, and to support the healing and language revitalization work happening right here in our region."

Brown joined Northern's faculty in 2022 after earning her Ph.D. in English and American Literature from the University of South Carolina, where her research was funded in part by the national Bilinski Dissertation Fellowship. Her teaching and research focus on Indigenous perspectives and environmental themes. In addition to her work in Western American Literature, she has published scholarship in Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture and a chapter offering pedagogical approaches to the works of Santee Dakota author-activist Charles Eastman/Ohiyesa. She is currently co-editing and contributing to a forthcoming collection from Routledge's Environmental Humanities Series set for publication in June 2026.

The article is available online at muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/983694/pdf. For more information, contact Dr. Kristen Brown at kristen.brown@northern.edu.