Farina King, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and Associate Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. at Arizona State University in History. King specializes in twentieth-century Native American Studies, especially Indigenous experiences in boarding schools. She is the author of The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century, and co-author with Michael P. Taylor and James R. Swensen of Returning Home: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School. She is one of the series editors for the Lyda Conley Series on Trailblazing Indigenous Futures of the University Press of Kansas, and she co-hosts the Native Circles podcast with Sarah Newcomb. She is the past President of the Southwest Oral History Association (2021-2022). Previously, between 2016 and 2022, she was Associate Professor of History and affiliated faculty of Cherokee and Indigenous Studies at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, in the homelands of the Cherokee Nation and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees. She also directed and founded the NSU Center for Indigenous Community Engagement.
The University of Oklahoma is on the homelands of the Hasinais (Caddo Nation) and Kirikirʔi:s (Wichita & Affiliated Tribes). This land has also been part of the Muscogee and Seminole Nations. Apache, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Osage, and diverse peoples converged in these lands as well for generations. Thirty-nine federally-recognized Native Nations dwell in what is now considered the state of Oklahoma as a result of colonial policies designed to remove, confine, and forcefully assimilate Indigenous peoples.
See the University of Oklahoma Land Acknowledgement Statement.
UPCOMING EVENTS
2023 American Indian Studies Association Conference, “Reconciliation, Reparations, Relationality: Keeping Our Promise to the Future,” February 1-3, 2023, Arizona State University, Tempe.
“Native Boarding Schools, Historical Research, and Catholic Archives” Hybrid Conference, March 23-26, 2023, Tucson, Arizona.
2023 Organization of American Historians Conference, March 30-April 2, 2023, Los Angeles.
Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair, April 3-4, 2023 (9:00 am-3:30 pm), Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma.
50th Anniversary American Indian Symposium, April 10-15, 2023, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah.
2nd Mapping Tahlequah History Workshop, April 10, 2023, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah.
2nd Workshop and Symposium of Indigenous Perspectives on the Meanings of “Lamanite,” April 27-29, 2023, Claremont Graduate University.
2023 Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Conference, May 11-13, 2023, Tkaronto (Toronto).
“The Oral History Interview” (invited speaker), June 1, 2023, 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m MDT, Oral History Summer Institute, Centre for Oral History and Tradition, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (online).
“This Prison . . . of a Crooked, Broken, Scattered, and Imperfect Language” Global Mormon Studies Conference (online), June 2-3, 2023.
2023 Mormon History Association Conference, “Beginnings,” June 8-11, 2023, Rochester, New York.
2023 Diné Studies Conference, June 22-24, 2023, San Juan College, Farmington, New Mexico.
2023 Big Berks, June 28-July 2, 2023, Santa Clara University, California.
Book of Mormon Studies Association (keynote talk invitation), October 5-7, 2023, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.
“Oral History As/And Education: Teaching and Learning in the Classroom and Beyond” 2023 Oral History Association Conference, October 18-21, 2023, Baltimore, Maryland.
2023 International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums, October 24-26, 2023, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
“Restorations and Repairs: Lives and Landscapes Across Many Wests” 2023 Western History Association Annual Conference, October 26-29, 2023, Los Angeles, California.
Read more about Farina King’s recent events.
The Lyda Conley Series on Trailblazing Indigenous Futures
Lyda Conley’s life and experiences are so inspirational as one of the first Native American women known to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which she did in defense of her Indigenous ancestors and people. Her case was also one of the first in which “a plaintiff argued that the burying grounds of…
Shizhé’é yázhi Albert Smith, Navajo Code Talker on a new journey
Farina King, April 17, 2013 “Some ask, ‘Why fight in the white man’s war? They put your family in prison, tortured them. They treated you as the second-class citizen without the right to vote.’ It is my freedom too, my happiness and family too. I stand up for Mother Earth. She stands for my freedom.…
“COVID-19 in Indian Country” Edited Volume Call for Submissions
Please share this call for submissions with anyone who would be interested in contributing to this proposed edited volume. Ahéhee’/Thank you! COVID-19 in Indian Country Proposed Edited Volume Call for Submissions Submissions due by September 1, 2022 As the COVID-19 pandemic struck peoples throughout the world, Native American communities were disproportionately devastated by the disease.…
Farina King, Ph.D. 
Thank you so much for speaking to our group last night, the Indian Territory Genealogical and Historical Society. You didn’t just speak to us. You made your Navajo people come alive and allowed us to
“meet” your family and understand a small part of what it meant to be Navajo in earlier times. Thank you again.
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Ahéhee’! Thank you, Diana, for coming and supporting this work and listening to my journey with family history. I appreciate your encouraging and kind words. Best wishes, Farina
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I’m pleased to let you know that the videos of our “Faith is Action, Stewardship and the Climate” symposium are on our YouTube channel. You may have already seen them shared on Facebook or other platforms. Thanks again for your excellent presentations.
We encourage you to share them on your social media and tag our organization @MormonStewards.
Hashtags you could include are:#ActOnClimate #MormonStewards #EverySaintASteward #FaithIsAction
Take care,
Marc Coles-Ritchie
board chair
Mormon Environmental Stewardship
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Thanks for sharing and inviting me to the symposium.
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Excellent meeting on Indigenous peoples of North America. thank you Dr King for your time and in-depth knowledge….alex thompson
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Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Alex!
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I’m Dine as well (Sage Brush Hill) and been Sr SW Engineer at Northrop Grumman for 20 years. Glad you shared info with my colleagues
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