Travis Franks
Assistant professor of literature specializing in Native American and Indigenous literature, conducting research on John Rollin Ridge and reporting new discoveries about Ridge's early poems.
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Mar 23, 2026 • 57min
786 Cherokee Novelist and Poet John Rollin Ridge (with Travis Franks)
Travis Franks, an assistant professor studying Native and Indigenous literature, discusses John Rollin Ridge, the Cherokee-born author of the first Native American novel. They explore Ridge’s turbulent life, his novel about Joaquín Murrieta, contradictions in his politics and actions, and newly uncovered early poems that reshape what we know about his beginnings.
