Collegiate Affiliation

I am the founder and director of The Native Canoe Program, housed in the Department of American Indian Studies. This program uses traditional Indigenous watercraft and Indigenous water-based ecological knowledge and technology from across Oceania and the Native Great Lakes and Mississippi River to advance community-engaged research, teaching, and service. This program also mixes hands-on, experiential learning and teaching with advanced visualization technologies of Virtual and Augmented Realities, through collaboration with UMN's Interactive Visualization Lab, headed by Prof. Daniel Keefe of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

I am an interdisciplinary scholar (History, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Comparative and Global Indigenous Studies) who specializes in critical indigenous studies in North America and the Pacific Ocean region. I have researched and published in topics such as Indigenous Critical Theory; Traditional Outrigger Canoe Voyaging in Micronesia; Coloniality and Indigenous Christianity in Micronesia; Indigenous Masculinity and Sports in the Pacific; and Trans-Indigenous Theory and Practice.

Select recent media coverage:

"Canoes" 2020 Minnesota Pioneer Public Television https://video.pioneer.org/video/canoe-project-tamara-isfeld-carlyle-larsen-r54ltj/.  

Paafu Stories: On Canoe Relationalities (video loop installation) for the  “Air Canoe” Micronesian Contemporary Art Exhibit at Tenth Asia Pacific Triennial of Art (APT10). Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland, Australia, Oct 2022 - June 2023.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZFje4bayc

"Why Canoes?" Exhibit Virtual Tour. Northrop, Public History and Heritage Studies, and the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Minnesota  https://kuula.co/share/collection/7Y32g?fs=1&vr=0&zoom=1&sd=1&initload=0&thumbs=1&info=0&logo=-1

 

 

Educational Background
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Educational Background

  • PhD: History of Consciousness, University of California, 1992
  • MA: Political Science, University of Hawai'i, 1984
  • Graduate Certificate: Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawai'i, 1984
  • BA: Political Science, University of Hawai'i, 1982