2020 LSA Collegiate Fellow (American Culture)
About
Dr. Meyer is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, where she has conducted fieldwork with speakers of the Ojibwe language.
As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Dr. Meyer volunteered with Graduate Students United to support the historic vote by graduate student workers to unionize. She received certification in Mental Health First Aid, which trains one to recognize and respond to mental health and substance-use issues. In honor of the United Nations' declaration of 2019 as the Year of Indigenous Languages, she helped host a public event showcasing poetry, music, dance, food and scholarship from indigenous artists and academics hailing from North and South America.
Current Work:
In her dissertation research, Dr. Meyer provides an account of the Ojibwe noun classification systems of grammatical gender and classifiers, which are rare in a single language. Also rare, the grammatical gender system is based on animacy, rather than biological sex. Its analysis has been the subject of debate among linguists and anthropologist for decades, sometimes fueling stereotypes about Native spirituality. She hopes to use this research to support Ojibwe first and second language acquisition and revitalization efforts, as well as disseminate a more appropriate understanding of the language structures in academia.
Research Area Keyword(s):
Ojibwe language, Algonquian languages, morphology, semantics, noun categorization
