Author Talk with Angela K. Parker

Free program; registration required; walk-ins accepted as space allows. Register here. 

Angela K. Parker, PhD, Associate Professor of History at the University of Denver and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, will speak about her recent book, Damming the Reservation: Tribal Sovereignty and Activism at Fort Berthold. The book traces the impact of the Garrison Dam in the mid-twentieth century transformed the Missouri River and flooded more than one-quarter of the Fort Berthold Reservation. Parker shows how the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people resisted dispossession and asserted sovereignty in the face of federal power. Her talk connects this history of land, water, and activism to the exhibition Dripping Earth: Cannupa Hanska Luger, on view through March 8, 2026, which also explores how the legacies of extraction and displacement continue to shape Native communities today.  

About Angela Parker (Mandan, Hidatsa, Cree)
She is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, and participates at her father’s reservation, the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in Montana. Parker earned her B.A. in History from Stanford University, and her MA/PhD in twentieth century United States and Native American History from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She currently teaches as an Associate Professor of History at the University of Denver, and her research focuses on twentieth century Native American and U.S. history, particularly the long twentieth century history of oil extraction in Indigenous communities, the evolution of tribal sovereignty, and Native activism. Parker is currently on sabbatical and working on her next book project at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM, where she is learning about house lizards with her partner, Ty, and their son, Icuuwushga Xaxish.