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The Deerfield-Wellesley Symposium will bring together Native and non-Native artists, anthropologists, archaeologists, educators, and curators working in the United States and Canada to discuss representation of Native peoples across disciplines and media. Reflecting on shifts that have occurred within these disciplines over the years, the presenters will look at the work of artists, curators and anthropologists, evolving and plural indigenous perspectives, and the changing ways in which institutions present Native art, history and culture.
Art and history have always been powerful and important media for Natives and non-Natives to voice concerns or to counter myths and stereotypes. Presenters will explore the politics of art and history as a way to shed light on the dynamics of representing Native culture and thought in museums and literature. Archaeologists will consider the interplay of archaeological evidence with American historical narrative on the fate of Native peoples, and their work with Native communities.
The Symposium will conclude with a look at how museums have interpreted and displayed Native cultures and history over the years, and explore the effects that Native-led museums have had on museum representation and management. A case-study on the exhibition Remembering 1704: Context and Commemoration of the Deerfield Raid will also be presented, along with curator led tours of the exhibition. Remembering 1704 sets the raid within an historical context which explores, through images, objects and film, how this event in the history of frontier New England has been interpreted by the English, French and Natives over the past 300 years. The exhibition investigates how public and private remembrances of the 1704 raid have resulted in stereotypes and a one-sided version of history.
Schedule
Friday, November 5, 2004
Session I: Representing Native peoples in Museums and Universities
12:30 p.m.—4:30 p.m.
Trudie Lamb Richmond (Schaghticoke), Director of Public Programs, Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.
“Cultures Under Glass: Preserving Manifest Destiny?”
J. Edward Hood, Director, Department of Research, Collections, and Library, Old Sturbridge Village.
“Moving Outside our Self-Imposed Box: Creating a Native American exhibit at a Regional History Museum.”
Marge Bruchac (Abenaki), Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
"Collecting Indians for the Colleges: Historical Erasure and Cultural Recovery in the Connecticut River Valley."
Ron Welburn (Gingaskin Assateague/Cherokee), Professor of English and Director of the Native American Indian Studies Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“Indigenous Knowledge in the Academy: Toward De-colonizing the Reservation
of Education.”
Break
Jessica Neuwirth, Director of Academic Programs and Amanda Rivera Lopez, Director of the Family Discovery Center, Historic Deerfield.
“The Remembering 1704 Exhibition: Building Historical Context and Exhibiting Conflict.”
Suzanne Flynt, Curator, Memorial Hall Museum, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.
“Shrines and Vanished Stories: The Role of the Old Indian House and Arosen’s Gifts in the story of 1704.”
Angela Goebel Bain and Juliet Jacobson, Consultants for the 1704 Web site.
“The Many Stories of 1704 Web site: Representing Conflict and Cultures in the Colonial Northeast.”
Discussion
4:30 Reception at the Flynt Center, and tour of the “Remembering 1704” Exhibition.
Saturday, November 6, 2004
Session II: Art and Representation
9:00 a.m.—12:00 a.m.
Ruth B. Phillips, Canada Research Chair and Professor of Art History, Carleton University, Ottawa
“Re-presenting Aboriginal peoples in Canada: The First Peoples’ Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.”
Jolene Rickard, PhD. (Tuscarora), Associate Professor, SUNY Buffalo, Art History and
Guest Curator, National Museum of the American Indian
“The Issue of Authorship and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian”
Break
Ryan Rice (Kahnawake Mohawk), artist, curator, and critic.
"Can You Hear Me Now?"
Nadema Agard (Winyan Luta/Red Woman), Director, Red Earth Studio, New York
“The Arts & the Sacred in Native America”
Discussion
Lunch and optional tour of Memorial Hall’s “Covering Up History” exhibition.
Session III: Anthropology, Archaeology and Native History: the Politics of Representation
1:30 p.m.—5:00 p.m.
Elizabeth Chilton, Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“Towns They Have None: Pre-contact Native American ceramic complexity and
cultural dynamics in the Middle Connecticut Valley.
Jim Harmon, Northeast Region Archaeology Program, National Park Service
“Surviving the Contact Period: History, Archaeology, and the Piscataway in the 17th Century Chesapeake.”
H. Martin Wobst, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“Indigenous Archaeologies in World-Wide Perspective: Who Is in Charge and Who Benefits?”
Break
Alice Nash, Department of History, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
"Representing a Life: Anthropologists and Historians Write about the life of Théophile Panadis (1889-1966), an Abenaki Guide."
Audra Simpson (Kahnawake Mohawk), Department of Anthropology/ American Indian Program, Cornell University.
“Captivating Eunice: Membership, Colonialism and the Problem of Incorporation Today.”
Discussion
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