The Department of Media and Cultural Studies

Laurel C. Smith

Join us for a film screening of Loren Waters' documentaries: Restoring Neske emane and Meet Me at the Creek. This will be followed by a conversation with Loren Kasey Waters and Laurel C. Smith about environmental justice from Native perspectives.

Bio:

Laurel C. Smith, Ph.D., is a settler scholar, associate professor, and Chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Oklahoma. Over the past decade, she has had the pleasure and honor of collaborating with Indigenous media makers to co-produce short films. Since 2017, she has worked with Native filmmaker Loren Waters, serving as executive director for Loren’s award-winning short documentary, *Restoring Neske emane*, as well as her recently completed project, *Meet Me at the Creek*.

Currently, Laurel is partnering with the Local Environmental Action Demanded (LEAD) Agency in Miami, OK, on a storytelling project that aims to integrate geospatial analysis and environmental expertise with the lived experiences of both human and more-than-human communities in Ottawa County, which is home to nine Tribal nations and the Tar Creek Superfund site.