Indigenous Archives: The Queer Case of Nabor Feliz

Join us for a presentation by University of California, Riverside professor Michelle Raheja who will share the story of Nabor Feliz, an Indigenous sculptor who traveled with major American circuses in the early 1900s. Using items from his personal archive, now housed at the Autry Museum of the American West, the talk explores queer Indigenous histories in the early twentieth century and the opportunities that circus life offered Feliz  for Indigenous expressions of sexuality that might not have been otherwise afforded to him in this period.

Michelle Raheja teaches in the Department of English at the University of California, Riverside. Her research and teaching areas comprise early American literature and culture, Native American/Indigenous studies, film and visual culture theory, critical cannibalism studies, and gender studies.  She is the author of numerous publications, including Reservation Reelism:  Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film, as well as essays in…