Viking Braggot Company, Eugene, OR

Free and open to the public

Quench your thirst for knowledge at Ideas on Tap, the Museum of Natural and Cultural History’s monthly pub talk. This month, University of Oregon journalism professor Torsten Kjellstrand delves into mainstream representations of Native people, discussing hazards that can arise when stories about Native communities are shaped by non-Native voices.

Admission is free and space is limited. We recommend arriving early to secure a seat. Viking Braggot Company’s Southtowne Pub is located at 2490 Willamette Street in Eugene.

A native of Sweden, Torsten Kjellstrand comes to academia after 25 years of work as a writer, photographer, and filmmaker. He worked at The Herald in Jasper, Indiana, where he was named Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the POYi. While working at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, then The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, he was recognized for a broad range of work, from Lowell Thomas Awards for travel writing and photography to an Overseas Press Club Award for foreign news.

Throughout his journalism career, Kjellstrand has tried to tell stories that go beyond and challenge stereotyping in rural, Native American, and immigrant communities. He cut his narrative teeth as an English major at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, followed by a Fulbright Scholarship to study comparative literature at Uppsala University in Sweden. He spent a year as a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University in 2003-04 studying links between ethnicity, language, landscape, and storytelling. He then worked as a freelance photographer and filmmaker in New York City before coming to Eugene in 2013.