Although several academic associations in the United States devote at least some part of their annual conferences to research on American Indians, many scholars of indigenous populations have long felt they lacked an intellectual home, a place where they could gather with large numbers of people who share their interests. A fledgling organization, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, is seeking to offer them one. About 550 scholars of American Indians, Native Hawaiians, and Alaska natives--as well as other indigenous peoples around the world--are expected to come together at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities this week for the first formal meeting of the group, which was formed at gatherings held at the University of Oklahoma in 2007 and the University of Georgia last year. The association's leaders say they want it to accommodate people from any academic discipline, as well as all parts of the world, who are interested in the study of indigenous populations. The scheduled research presentations include discussions of American Indian filmmakers, medicinal plants in the upper Mississippi River basin, the Yanktonais Sioux artist Oscar Howe, the Lakota tribe's history of the solar system, American Indian community activism in Los Angeles, and literary and cultural representations of Elvis Presley as part Cherokee.