Farina King | University of Oklahoma (original) (raw)

Bilagáanaa niliigo’ dóó Kinyaa’áanii yásh’chíín. Bilagáanaa dabicheii dóó Tsinaajinii dabinálí. Farina King is Bilagáanaa (Euro-American), born for Kinyaa’áanii (the Towering House Clan) of the Diné (Navajo). Her maternal grandfather was Euro-American, and her paternal grandfather was Tsinaajinii (Black-streaked Woods People Clan) of the Diné. She received her Ph.D. in History with an emphasis in American and Native American history at Arizona State University. She is the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and Associate Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma on the homelands of the Hasinais (Caddo Nation) and Kirikirʔi:s (Wichita & Affiliated Tribes). She is a past president of the Southwest Oral History Association (2021-2022). She is a series co-editor of The Lyda Conley Series on Trailblazing Indigenous Futures of the University Press of Kansas.

Previously, between 2016 and 2022, she was an associate professor of History and an affiliate of the Cherokee and Indigenous Studies Department at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, in the homelands of the Cherokee Nation and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees. She founded and directed the NSU Center for Indigenous Community Engagement.

She was the 2016-17 David J. Weber Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America at the Southern Methodist University Clements Center for Southwest Studies. During the 2015-2016 academic year, she was the Charles Eastman Dissertation Fellow at Dartmouth College. She received her M.A. in African History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.A. from Brigham Young University with a double major in History and French Studies.

Her main area of research is colonial and post-colonial Indigenous Studies, primarily Indigenous experiences of colonial and boarding school education. Farina has written and presented about Indigenous Latter-day Saint experiences in the twentieth century, drawing from some interviews that she conducted for the Latter-day Saint Native American Oral History Project at Brigham Young University. Her book, "Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century" (2023), features such oral histories.

Her first book (October 2018), "The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century," explores how historical changes in education shaped Diné collective identity and community by examining the interconnections between Navajo students, their people, and Diné Bikéyah (Navajo lands). The study relies on a Diné historical framework that centers on a Navajo mapping of the world and the Four Sacred Directions. She primarily applies oral histories and cultural historical methodologies to feature Diné perspectives, which reveal how the land, mountains, and directions serve as focal points of Navajo worldviews and learning experiences. Her co-authored book, "Returning Home: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School," features Diné art, poetry, and writings from the Intermountain Indian Boarding School between 1950 and 1984 (published by the University of Arizona Press in November 2021).

Farina has received support for her research from various organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities, Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, PEO International, American Philosophical Society, Navajo Nation, American Indian Graduate Center, and others. You can learn more about Farina’s work and background on her personal website, farinaking.com.
Supervisors: Donald Fixico, Peter Iverson, K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Katherine Osburn, and Laura Tohe
Phone: 405-325-2312

less