Faculty Works in Progress Recap: Ellen Cushman on Storywork as Unsettling Knowledge

On October 20, 2025, the Northeastern University Humanities Center hosted another session of its Faculty Works-in-Progress Series, featuring Dr. Ellen Cushman, Dean’s Professor of Civic Sustainability and Professor of English. Professor Cushman’s presentation, titled “Storywork as Unsettling Knowledge,” described the background, methods, and preliminary findings of her book project on the role of storywork in Cherokee lifeways and persistence. Professor Cushman’s book will build upon her work at the Digital Archive of Indigenous Language Persistence (DAILP) and the project, Cherokees Writing the Keetoowah Way (CWKW), drawing upon a corpus of Willie Jumper stories publicly available through DAILP. DAILP has received support from the Henry K. Luce Foundation, the National Archives, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Willie Jumper stories digital edited collection is currently supported by the National Archives and the Mellon Foundation and will include analyses of nearly 200 Cherokee language manuscript pages. As Professor Cushman continues to work on her book project, she will research and publish articles on storywork and civic sustainability in society.