Dr. Ryan Emanuel and Dr. Kirstin Squint
UNC Asheville will present a new lecture series—Rising Waters: Writing Place and Environment—beginning in October. The first event, “Southern Indigenous Waters,” will be presented Thursday, October 30, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., in the Blue Ridge Room of Highsmith Student Union.
Funded by the Thomas Howerton professorship, this three-year program offers an interdisciplinary series of events that highlight the beauty and cultural significance of Western North Carolina, North Carolina, and the greater thirteen-state Appalachian region, while also discussing its precarious position as we face increased natural disasters and environmental threats.
Rising Waters: Writing Place and Environment seeks to put acclaimed humanities scholars in conversation with recognized natural sciences scholars and researchers to frame how we might think about creative depictions of place. The series also aims to demonstrate that broadly conceived connections across disciplines increase our understanding of the world around us and how we might move forward as the places we inhabit become increasingly vulnerable.
During the October event, Duke hydrologist Ryan Emanuel and East Carolina University literary scholar Kirstin Squint will discuss the centrality of place and water for southern Indigenous people. Dr. Squint will trace connections between two decades of hurricanes, from Katrina to Helene, emphasizing the importance of the stories we tell about water and its impacts on our lives. Her talk will draw from her work as an editor of Swamp Souths: Literary and Cultural Ecologies and her monograph-in-progress, Removal and Resistance in Southeastern Indigenous Stories.
Dr. Emanuel will consider what it means to build and maintain cultural connections to water and watery places in a time of rapid environmental change. Drawing from his book, On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice, he will show how industrial pollution, unsustainable development, and climate change create challenges and opportunities for Lumbee people and their Indigenous neighbors in eastern North Carolina.
By focusing primarily on water—including its quality, its movement, and the profound role it plays in literary depictions—the speakers in this series will explore topics ranging from swamps and their role in Indigenous ecologies, to the importance of water practices for Cherokee people and writers, to scientific explanations that help us understand repeated catastrophic flooding in many parts of Appalachia, to literary depictions of that flooding, to the need for dams that ultimately provide power but also erase ancestral landscapes. Ultimately, Rising Waters showcases UNC Asheville as a place where the liberal arts meet science in productive conversation. The second event in the series will be held February 12, 2026, featuring Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle.
For more information on the event, visit unca.edu/events-and-news/event/southern-indigenous-waters-rising-waters-writing-place-and-environment/.
