2015 Presenters
Christine De Lucia, Assistant Professor of History, Mt. Holyoke College. Her 2013 dissertation won the John Addison Porter prize (for "general" history) and the Frederick W. Beinecke prize (for Western American history) from Yale University, where she earned the Ph.D. The revised manuscript will be published as The Memory Frontier: Memorializing King Philip’s War in the Native Northeast in the Henry Roe Cloud series on American Indians and Modernity from Yale University Press. She has also published essays in Studies in American Indian Literatures and The Journal of American History.
David Silverman, Professor of History at The George Washington University, is the author of three books: Faith and Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity, and Community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha’s Vineyard, 1600-1871 (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America (Cornell University Press, 2011); and with Julie A. Fisher, Ninigret, the Niantic and Narragansett Sachem: Diplomacy, War, and the Balance of Power in Seventeenth-Century New England and Indian Country (Cornell University Press, 2014).
Jason Mancini, Senior Researcher, Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, Mashantucket, CT and Adjunct Instructor of Anthropology, University of Connecticut. He is the author of “'In Contempt and Oblivion': Censuses, Ethnogeography, and Hidden Indian Histories in Eighteenth-Century Southern New England," Ethnohistory 62:1 (Winter 2015): 61-93, and Beyond Reservation: Indian Survivance in Southern New England, a book based on his 2009 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Connecticut. Among his other research interests is an exciting project that tracks Native American mariners from New England on their voyages. Read Jason's Research blog, The Indian Mariners Project, here.
Jessie Little Doe Baird (Mashpee Wampanoag), Director, Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project; John D. and Catherine MacArthur Fellow (2010); author of An Introduction to Wôpanâak Grammar (MIT Press, 2000); numerous workbooks and translations for Wôpanâak and Pequot language students. Current projects include The Wôpanâak Dictionary and Descriptive Grammar. She is Vice Chairwoman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council.
Kathleen Brown-Perez (Brothertown), Associate Professor, Commonwealth Honors College, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Attorney for the Brothertown Indian Nation; author of “The Brothertown Indian Nation: Samson Occom’s Tribe from Formation to the Quest for Federal Re-Acknowledgment,” in Amy E. Den Ouden and Jean M. O’Brien (eds.), Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles and Indigenous Rights in the United States: A Sourcebook (University of North Carolina Press, 2013), and other articles.
Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag), Program Director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center on Martha’s Vineyard; has over 30 years of museum experience with the Boston Children’s Museum and with the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation. She is an acknowledged expert in the history, technology, and arts of her seventeenth century ancestors, noted especially for her bead work and skill in making traditional deerskin outfits, twined weaving, and woven bulrush and cattail mats. Coombs is a frequent consultant on scholarly and educational projects.
Lisa Brooks (Abenaki), Associate Professor of English and American Studies, Amherst College. Author of The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast (University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and numerous articles and essays. Her current book project: Turning the Looking Glass on King Philip’s War.
Margaret Bruchac (Abenaki), Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, and Coordinator of Native American & Indigenous Studies. Editor of Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader in Decolonization (Left Coast Press, 2010). Articles include “Lost and Found: NAGPRA, Scattered Relics and Restorative Methodologies,”Museum Anthropology (2010); “Abenaki Connections to 1704: The Sadoques Family and Deerfield, 2004,” in Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney (eds.), Captive Histories: Captivity Narratives, French Relations and Native Stories of the 1704 Deerfield Raid (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006); “Earthshapers and Placemakers: Algonkian Indian Stories and the Landscape,” in H. Martin Wobst and Claire Smith (eds.), Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice (Routledge Press. 2005). Read her research blog: On the Wampum Trail.
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel (Mohegan) is an author, historian, and storyteller who serves as the Medicine Woman and Tribal Historian for the Mohegan Tribe and is also Executive Director of the Mohegan Cultural Department. She is the author of The Lasting of the Mohegans (Little People Publications, 1995), which won the North American Native Writer's First Book Award; Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon (University of Arizona Press, 2000), and several works of speculative fiction, including Wabanaki Blues (Poisoned Pen Press, 2015).
Ron Welburn (Gingaskan/Assateague/Cherokee/African American), Professor of English, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is the author of seven volumes of poetry and a non-fiction collection of essays, Roanoke and Wampum: Topics in Native American Heritage and Literatures (2001). He co-founded the University’s Certificate Program in Native American Indian Studies (via Anthropology) in 1997 and served as its first Director until 2006. His most recent book, Hartford’s Ann Plato and the Native Borders of Identity, was published by the State University of New York Press in May 2015.
