Humanities Forum — Jodi A. Byrd: Indigenomicon: American Indians, Video Games, and the Structures of Dispossession

Humanities Forum Lecture with Jodi A. Byrd
Indigenomicon: American Indians, Video Games, and the Structures of Dispossession
This event is part of the Fall 2026 Humanities Forum

Settler colonial studies and Indigenous studies are often assumed to be the same intellectual project. In Indigenomicon, Jodi A. Byrd examines the differences between the two fields by bringing video game studies and Indigenous studies into conversation with Black studies, queer studies, and Indigenous feminist critique. Byrd theorizes “the image of the law of the Indigenous” as structuring dispossession in games including Assassin’s Creed, Animal Crossing, BioShock Infinite, and Demon Souls. They demonstrate how games and play might reveal histories of slavery, genocide, and theft of Indigenous lands even as their structures obscure Indigenous spatial and embodied practices that prioritize relationships with land, water, plants, and spirits. With ground and relationality defined as key concepts, Byrd centers Indigenous visions of dystopias to reveal how game spaces encode settler structures of governance even as the design of games might yet provide vital modes of resistance to Indigenous erasure.

Jodi A. Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and professor of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Their research focuses on indigenous studies, indigenous feminist and queer studies, and video game studies. Their book The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press) won the 2011 Best First Book of the Year award from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and the 2012 Wordcraft Circle Award for Academic Work of the Year. Byrd also co-edits the Northwestern University Press’ Critical Insurgencies series. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, they were a Professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University. Byrd earned their PhD in English Literature from the University of Iowa in 2002.

Admission is free.

This Humanities Forum event, presented by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, is co-sponsored by the Department of American Studies and the Department of Media and Communication Studies.

UMBC is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive environment for all faculty, staff, students, and visitors. To request additional accessibility accommodations, please contact us at least five business days in advance at dreshercenter@umbc.edu.