Biography
Trained in cultural anthropology and critical Indigenous studies at the University of New Mexico, Blaire Topash-Caldwell is a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, beadwork artist, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Michigan State University. She is also Affiliate Faculty in Digital Humanities and American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Before becoming a professor, Blaire worked as her tribe’s first full-time archivist, launching an online collections and dictionary website called Wiwkwébthëgen using Potawatomi cultural protocols of access and traditional knowledge labels. As Co-Director of The Indigenous Chicago Project, Blaire also helped shape the project’s components which include oral histories, digital maps, curricular materials and more, that explore the histories of the region, centering Indigenous voices, laying bare stories of settler-colonial harm, and gesturing toward Indigenous futures. Her expertise is in Indigenous futurisms and science fiction with research interests in digital humanities, counter-mapping, and tribal archives. She recently released an edited volume titled, As Sacred to Us: Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Stories In Their Contexts (2023) and her debut monograph is titled Mapping Neshnabé Futurity: Celestial Currents of Sovereignty in Potawatomi Skies, Lands, and Waters (2025).
Works
Morseau, Blaire (May 2025). Mapping Neshnabé Futurity: Celestial Currents of Sovereignty in Potawatomi Skies, Lands, and Waters. University of Arizona Press. Paperback ISBN 9780816553136
Morseau, Blaire and Les Field. (2025). “Anarchist Futures: Indigenous Influences in the Speculative World-Making of Ursula K. Le Guin,” Wicazo Sa.
Morseau, Blaire (July 2025). “Gdankobthegnanêk: ‘Ancestors’ or ‘the ones we are tied to through generations.’” In Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland. Bickford Berzock, Kathleen, Jordan Poorman Cocker and Janet Dees (eds.). Marquand Books, University of Washington Press. ISBN 9781732568440
Morseau, Blaire (2024). “Indigenizing Futures in Museum Contexts.” In The Future is Indigenous: Stories from the new Native North America Hall at the Field Museum, Wali, Alaka and Tom Skwerski (eds.). BAR. pp. 220-224. ISBN 9781407361192
Morseau, Blaire (2024). “Chicago as a Gathering Space.” In The Future is Indigenous: Stories from the new Native North America Hall at the Field Museum, Wali, Alaka and Tom Skwerski (eds.). BAR. pp. 2-3. ISBN 9781407361192
Morseau, Blaire, Ed. (2023). As Sacred to Us Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Stories in their Contexts. Michigan State University Press. pp. 153-191. Paperback ISBN 9781611864625
Morseau, Blaire (2023). “Coding Potawatomi Cosmologies: Elements of Bodwéwadmi Futurisms.” In The Routledge Companion to CoFuturisms, Chattopadhyay, Bodhisattva, Grace Dillon, Isiah Lavender III, and Taryne Jade Taylor (eds.). ISBN 9780367330613
Topash-Caldwell, Blaire (2020). “Sovereign Futures in Neshnabé Speculative Fiction,” Borderlands Journal, 19(2): 29-62.
Topash-Caldwell, Blaire (2020). “‘Beam Us Up, Bgwëthnėnė!’ A Discussion of Indigenizing Science (Fiction), Technology, Engineering, and Math,” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 16(2): 81-89.
College of Arts & Letters News
- Ask the Expert: How Indigenous Science Fiction Expands the Genre
College of Arts & Letters
June 16, 2026Science fiction remains an enduring touchstone of pop culture, but it’s broader than spaceships and aliens like you see in the recent “Project Hail Mary” movie — no offense, Ryan Gosling. Science fiction is also an area researched by scholars exploring what it says about […] Read Now →
- Humanizing the Science: W.K. Kellogg Biological Station Artist-in-Residence Program Marks Fifth Year
College of Arts & Letters
May 22, 2026The Farmscapes to Forests: Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research Artists-in-Residence Program is entering its fifth year, featuring Kalamazoo-based visual artist Ellen VanderMyde as the 2026 Artist-in-Residence and the debut of the program’s first group […] Read Now →
- Religious Studies Professor to Explore Her Artistic Side as a KBS Artist-in-Residence
College of Arts & Letters
June 12, 2025Blaire Morseau started doing beadwork 20 years ago, first learning how to create on a loom and then teaching herself beaded embroidery. Her beaded creations even helped pay her rent when she was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico. Morseau is now an Assistant […] Read Now →
- First MSU Faculty and Alum Selected for Artists-in-Residence Program at W.K. Kellogg Biological Station
College of Arts & Letters
May 28, 2025Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters will be well represented this year among the Farmscapes to Forests: Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research Artists-in-Residence Program. The 2025 artists-in-residence will include an assistant […] Read Now →
- Tracing the Roots of Indigenous Science Fiction and Futurisms in America
College of Arts & Letters
November 18, 2024A photo of a Star Wars stormtrooper that hangs in Blaire Morseau’s home epitomizes both her childhood passions and current research pursuits. The photo appears in a frame with a unique Southwest design, a favorite find bought from a Native artist when Morseau was a graduate […] Read Now →
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