The 2025–26 Dean’s Distinguished Lecture will feature Dr. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, acclaimed Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg artist, scholar, and thought leader whose work weaves story, song, and activism with Indigenous ways of knowing. Drawing on traditional knowledges to envision a collective future, Dr. Simpson highlights how art and education can connect us more deeply to culture, community, and the land.
The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture is an annual series that amplifies the voices of leading educators, researchers, and artists who are addressing some of society’s most pressing challenges.
Host
Join Dr. Jan Hare, Dean of the Faculty of Education
Distinguished Speaker
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg musician, writer, and academic, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the boundaries between story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe and has over twenty years of experience with Indigenous land-based education.
Leanne is the author of eight books, including A Short History of the Blockade and the novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. Her collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living, is a National Best Seller and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction.
Leanne is also a musician. Her latest release, Theory of Ice, was named to the Polaris Prize short list, and she is the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award. Leanne’s new work, Theory of Water, was published in 2025 by Alchemy at Knopf Canada and Haymarket Books in the United States.
Date
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Time
4:30 to 6:00 pm PDT
Location
RSVP
The event has concluded.
Webinar Recording
Questions
Please contact communications.educ@ubc.ca.
