Indigenous Histories in New England: Pastkeepers and Pastkeeping, June 23-24, 2023
Click here for the latest schedule of the 2023 Dublin Seminar.
This year’s seminar will address the gaps in Indigenous voice and visibility in public views of the past. We will critically consider who has claimed responsibility for “keeping” the Indigenous past in New England, including how it has been represented, how historical research can be decolonized and improved, and what museums and tribal nations have done to engage the public in better understandings.
Presenters will explore Indigenous forms of memory-making and pastkeeping, on landscapes and in oral tradition; Native American authors of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century, including autobiography and tribal histories; collections of material culture; histories of tribal museums; repatriation and cultural recovery; language reclamation; and artwork as vehicles for historical reflection.
The Seminar will give particular attention to the work of museums, archives, historic preservation organizations, cultural centers, and initiatives that over the past thirty years have worked to provide more holistic and inclusive representations of regional Indigenous peoples and histories.
The Seminar will convene in Deerfield, Massachusetts, on Friday, June 23, and Saturday, June 24. For the full schedule, see this page. This will be a hybrid program, with both on-site and virtual registration options. (Registrants will be able to access session recordings online until July 24.) Speakers will present on site at Historic Deerfield.
Because of a music festival in Greenfield that weekend, hotel rooms in the northern part of the Pioneer Valley will be scarce. We recommend attendees planning to stay overnight look for accommodations around Hadley and other towns south of Deerfield.
Special thanks to our partner and host, Historic Deerfield, and to all our sponsors:
• American Antiquarian Society
• Amherst College Library
• Boston University American and New England Studies Program
• Smith College Department of History
• University of Massachusetts Department of History
• University of Massachusetts Public History Program
Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife 