
Fairooz Saiyara, MA Student in Literature, virtually presented her paper, “From Survivance to Thrivance: The Becoming of a Defiant Indian Self in Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories” at the 3rd International Conference on ‘Innovation and Transformation for Development’ (ITD). The ITD conference is annually organized by the Green University of Bangladesh. This year’s theme was The World at a Crossroads: Issues in Arts and Social Sciences, where scholars from 21 different countries across the globe participated both virtually and in-person.

Saiyara’s paper maps the coming-of-age journey of the protagonist in two select stories in Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories . The focus of her talk was to help the audience rethink their readings of Native American history in the US, revisit the mythology of Indigenous disappearance, as well as appreciate the brilliance of Indigenous writers beyond their struggles. The talk delved into Indigenous survivance against boarding school trauma, assimilation, deracination, liminality of Indigenous children in settler colonial America, and thrivance of a defiant Indigenous self.