A faculty panel discussion about Indian gaming focusing on a recently published anthology edited by Dr. Kenneth N. Hansen, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno, will be presented 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14, at the university.

The free public event, which includes a book signing, will be in the Henry Madden Library, Room 2206.

“The New Politics of Indian Gaming: The Rise of Reservation Interest Groups” is co-edited by Hansen and Dr. Tracy A. Skopek, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wyoming. It examines how legal gaming on Indian reservations the past 30 years has become a major source of revenue for Native American nations with political and social repercussions.

Hansen, who joined the Fresno State faculty in 2005, is the adviser for the First Nations student organization and former co-coordinator of the university’s Africana and American Indian Studies Program.

He will lead the panel discussion, joined by Dr. Thomas Holyoke and Dr. Jeff Hagaman-Cummins, political science professors at Fresno State.

Hansen said the anthology addresses political campaign contributions by reservations, reservation shopping (the perception of going “off the reservation” to open casinos), reservations as special-interest groups, disenrollment of tribal members and “casino envy” by non-Indigenous people.

He expects local interest in the book because there are five casinos in the central San Joaquin Valley with “probably room for more once the economy starts to pick up.” Recently,  Bureau of Indian Affairs approved a North Fork Rancheria proposal to build a casino on Highway 99 near Madera off, some distance from the North Fork area.

Hansen’s book, published by University of Nevada Press earlier this year, will be available for purchase ($49.95) and signing at the event, which is sponsored by the Department of Political Science, the American Indian Studies Program and the College of Social Sciences.

University Communications news intern Reganie Smith-Love contributed to this report.

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Dr. Kenneth N. Hansen