Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead

Join the Jackman Humanities Initiative (JHI) for a lecture with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson—writer, academic, musician, and JHI’s 2025–26 Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

Abstract: Thinking alongside lakes, snow and ice, this lecture uses story to create a decolonial space for us to come together and imagine futures beyond our present moment. Theory of water draws on the natural world as a map, a theorist and a teacher and draws the audience into a communal space of dreaming and remembering to refuse our colonial present and collaborate to reworld with systems of care. 

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics,  story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.