Margaret Noodin

Margaret Noodin
Born	Margaret O'Donnell 1965 (1965) (age 59)
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Poet, college professor
Employer	University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Margaret A. Noodin (née O’Donnell) is an American poet and Anishinaabemowin language teacher. She is a professor of English and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Associate Dean of the Humanities. She also directs a tribal Head Start program in Minnesota.

Background and education

Noodin grew up in Chaska, Minnesota. She has self-identified as having Ojibwe descent from her paternal great-great-grandfather; however, she could never identify what tribal nation she believed he descended from. She also identifies as being of Irish, French, and English descent.

Noodin earned an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in English and linguistics from the University of Minnesota. Her doctoral dissertation is titled Native American Literature in tribal context: Anishinaabe Aadisokaanag Noongom (2001).

Life and career

Noodin is a professor of English and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Associate Dean of the Humanities. She began teaching at the university in 2013, and earned tenure in 2016. Noodin also served as the director of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's Electa Quinney Institute from 2014 until she stepped down in 2022.

Noodin is the co-founder and content manager of the ojibwe.net website. She led a weekly Ojibwe language group at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she served as Director of Comprehensive Studies.

Noodin is the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature (2014) and Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English (2015). With her daughters, she belongs to a women's hand drum group, Miskwaasining Nagamojig (the Swamp Singers), which sings in Anishinaabemowin.

Her work was originally included in the Field Museum's Native American exhibition but has since been removed after Native American advisors questioned her Indigenous identity claims and she could not furnish any connections to any Native American tribes. Doug Kiel, a University of Wisconsin professor and member of the Oneida Nation, spoke out against her inclusion in the Field Museum's exhibition.

She has also published a literary translation into the Ojibwe language of a famous poem in Connaught Irish by Máirtín Ó Díreáin (1910-1988).

Works

Dissertation

• Noori, Margaret Ann (2001). Native American Literature in Tribal Context : Anishinaabe Aadisokaanag Noongom. University of Minnesota.

Articles and essays

• Noori, Margaret (2010). "Native American Narratives from Early Art to Graphic Novels: How We See Stories / Ezhi-g'waabmaananig Aadizookaanag". In Aldama, Frederick Luis (ed.). Multicultural Comics: From Zap to Blue Beetle. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292739536.
• Noori, Margaret (2011). "Reading Queen of the Woods Today". Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki (Queen of the Woods). American Indian Studies. Michigan State University Press. pp. 57–76. ISBN 978-0870139871.
• Noori, Margaret (Summer 2011). "Waasechibiiwaabikoonsing Nd'anami'aami, 'Praying through a Wired Window': Using Technology to Teach Anishinaabemowin". Studies in American Indian Literatures. 23 (2): 3–24. doi:10.5250/studamerindilite.23.2.0003. ISSN 0730-3238.
• Noori, Margaret (2013). "Anishinaabemowin: Language, Family, and Community". In Hinton, Leanne (ed.). Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley, California: Heyday. ISBN 9781597142007.
• Noori, Margaret (2013). "Beshaabiiag G'gikenmaaigowag: Comets of Knowledge". In Doerfler, Jill; Sinclair, N.J.; Stark, H.K. (eds.). Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World through Stories. MSU Press. ISBN 9781609173531.
• Noodin, Margaret (2014). "Megwa Baabaamiiaayaayaang Dibaajomoyaang: Anishinaabe Literature as Memory in Motion". In Cox, James H.; Justice, Daniel Heath (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199914036.
• Noodin, Margaret with James Price and Tracy Boyer (2020). "Challenges and Opportunities for Nonmarket Valuation of Water Among the Anishinaabe Nations of the Great Lakes Basin" with James Price and Tracy Boyer in The Solutions Journal, vol 11, issue 2, online.

Books

• Learning Ojibwe: Anishinaabemowin maajaamigad. With Kimewon, Howard. Owen Sound, Ont.: Ningwakwe Learning Press. 2009. ISBN 9781896832975.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
• Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature. American Indian Studies. Michigan State University Press. 2014. ISBN 978-1611861051.
• Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English. Made in Michigan Writers Series. Wayne State University Press. 2015. ISBN 978-0814340387.
• Gijigijigaaneshiinh Gikendaan: What the Chickadee Knows. Made in Michigan Writers Series. Wayne State University Press. 2015. ISBN 978-0814347508

In anthology

• Melissa Tuckey, ed. (2018). Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0820353159.
• Erdrich, Heid, ed. (2018). New Poets of Native Nations. Graywolf Press. ISBN 978-1555978099.
• LaPensee, Elizabeth, ed. (2019). Sovereign Traces. volume 2: Relational Constellation. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-1938065118.

Poetry online

• "Waawaateseg (Fireflies)". Michigan Quarterly Review. 2011. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
• "Dinebikeyah (Dine Land)". Ojibwe.net. 2014. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
• "Nimbiiskaabiimin Apane, and: We Are Returning Always". Cream City Review. 38 (1). Spring–Summer 2014. doi:10.1353/ccr.2014.0016. Retrieved March 14, 2015.

Further reading

• Ornes, Stephen (May 23, 2014). "Saving vanishing 'tongues'". Science New for Students. Society for Science & the Public. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
• "At UW-Milwaukee, students speak Milwaukee's native language". Native American Times. March 7, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.

External links

• Poetry Foundation: Margaret Noodin