Nancy Bonvillain

Nancy Bonvillain is a professor of anthropology and linguistics at Bard College at Simon's Rock. She is author of over twenty books on language, culture, and gender, including a series on Native American peoples. In her field work she worked with the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka and Diné peoples, and she has published a grammar and dictionary of the Akwesasne dialect of Kanyenʼkéha. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 1972 and has taught at Columbia University, The New School, State [University of New York at Purchase|SUNY Purchase], Stony Brook University, and Sarah Lawrence College. She now teaches at Bard College at Simon's Rock.

Career and Research

Bonvillain conducted research on Kanyenʼkéha in the 1960s and 70s, which culminated in several reports and publications. During fieldwork carried out at the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reserve and Hogansburg, New York, Bonvillian submitted a report the summer of 1969. The report details factors in Mohawk, English and French language use, and synchronic linguistic fieldwork. She later published a presentation given at the 1972 Conference on Iroquois Research.