Hey! My name is Annemarie Christiansen and I’m a History and Spanish major here at Knox. I have two dogs (Hazel, a chocolate labradoodle, and Dolly, a black and white sheepadoodle), and two leopard geckos (named Winston and Marvin), along with an older sibling and a younger sibling. I love to cook, read, go outside, and hang out with my friends. I’m currently working my way through Stone Blind, as well as Ted Lasso. With my friends, we’ve been watching a lot of movies and TV shows recently – like Mamma Mia and Teen Wolf together – and I’m really excited for us all to watch The Mummy as a group, it’s one of my favorite movies (and probably why I’m going to major in History). I’ve spent a lot of time abroad, and it certainly nurtured my love for history and languages as I went from place to place. I’ve lived in Chicago, Vienna, Moscow, Warsaw, Zürich, back to Chicago, and then to St Louis before moving to Knox for my college career.
In terms of class, I’m particularly excited for the storytelling traditions, oral history, and podcasting section because I’m super interested to listen to the Jonathan Van Ness podcast with Dr Elizabeth rule, I just think he’s a really interesting person and I feel like there is a lot of interesting things discussed in his podcast – especially because Native communities are shut out of general discussions a lot, so I’m super intrigued to hear Dr Rule’s thoughts on contemporary Native communities. This is doubly interesting because Native communities tend to be painted in one of two lights, either in the realm of that they don’t exist anymore, or that they cease existing after the colonists really set up shop and push the Native communities away from their ancestral lands, or in a negative light that doesn’t illuminate the complex and rich cultures and histories that exist within each individual group and then within their own communities and families even.
I’m really excited to get to know everyone, and to explore a new era of history and digital scholarship with everyone, and all it has to offer!
Hi Annemarie! Thank you so much for introducing yourself and I’m glad you’re here! I am all caught up with Ted Lasso and it’s one of my favorite shows–so good!! I really liked hearing about all of your travels; you’ve been all over the map! Now that I am done with grad school, I hope to travel more myself.
I’m really glad to hear that you are looking forward to the Storytelling, Oral History, and Podcasting week. When I last taught the class, the historical focus was on slavery, and I featured another JVN podcast episode with Dr. Deborah N. Archer: https://omny.fm/shows/getting-curious-with-jonathan-van-ness/how-do-the-legacies-of-slavery-and-jim-crow-laws-s
Students really enjoyed listening to this episode, and I love how JVN (and the guests) talk about topics in such an accessible way. Similar to our assigned episode, it is so important to reflect on how history invades the present. As you discussed in your post, this is equally relevant to Native communities because Indigenous people are often prescribed to existing “in the past” or through negative stereotypes. This is why digital work– and utilizing accessible mediums– is important to tell a narrative that confronts and corrects these harmful flaws. As a result, maybe this work can affect actual change and policy on the ground.