January 31, 2017

Film scholar to speak on Navajo weavers during SVSU talk

Saginaw Valley State University will welcome Janna Jones to campus for a public lecture Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. in SVSU's Alan Ott Auditorium.

Jones’ talk is titled “Recovering History through Film Preservation: Researching the Subjects of a Film on Navajo Rug Weaving.” She will focus on her discovery of a 1939 amateur film documenting the making of a Navajo rug.  Because of the time period, the Navajos in the film go unnamed and their location is never mentioned. Jones obtained funding to preserve the film and research the biographies of its subjects.

In her lecture, Jones will recount the stories of one of the Navajo weavers that she identified through her research: Sally Peshlakai and her family. While giving the family the attribution they deserve, Jones will relate this case study to issues of representation and cultural memory in film preservation.

A professor of communication at Northern Arizona University, Jones teaches courses on media history, film production, and screenwriting. A prolific scholar, she has authored two books and numerous articles on the social history of film. Jones also has produced a number of award-winning student films, and written four feature screenplays.

Jones’ lecture is free and open to the public. Her visit to SVSU is supported through the Dow Visiting Scholar program, which brings visiting scholars to campus to expand and enrich SVSU’s curricular offerings for students, and its cultural offerings for people of the surrounding community. The program is sustained through an endowment from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.

For more information, please call SVSU's College of Arts & Behavioral Science at 989-964-4062.