B Movies and Bad History: Reel vs. Real Comanche

Dr. Dustin Tahmahkera is Assistant Professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies and Affiliate Faculty in Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is an enrolled citizen of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma and is an interdisciplinary scholar of North American indigeneities, critical media, and cultural sound studies. In his first book Tribal Television: Viewing Native People in Sitcoms (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), Tahmahkera foregrounds representations of the indigenous, including Native actors, producers, and comedic subjects, in U.S., First Nations, and Canadian television and other media from the 1930s-2010s within the contexts of federal policy and social activism. His current book project “Cinematic Comanches: In the Media Borderlands of The Lone Ranger” (under contract with the University of Nebraska Press’ “Indigenous Films” series) continues his interest in the politics of indigenous visualities. It is a critical analysis of what he calls “Comanchería cinema” and the indigenous hype/anti-hype, representation, and reception of Comanches in the 2013 borderlands text The Lone Ranger. Another project is “Sounds Indigenous: Listening for Sonic Sovereignty in Indian Country” on the transnational and transtribal migrations of sound and music through the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Tahmahkera’s articles have appeared in American Quarterly, American Indian Quarterly, and anthologies.