Native Traditions in the Americas Unit

We invite individual paper and group proposals on any aspect of Native Traditions in the Americas (North, Central and South). In particular, we invite papers on the following topics:

In light of this year's theme "Freedom" we invite proposals for papers or panels that consider how Native people have worked to maintain cultural and religious freedom through various waves of colonial violence, and how Native cultures have defined and enacted freedom through tradition, ceremony, and sacred narratives both historically and in the present day. Some areas of focus might include:

• Examinations of legal decrees, such as the Doctrine of Discovery, Supreme Court rulings, and future potential executive actions that work to limit tribal sovereignty and religious freedoms for Native and Indigenous people of the Americas, and how people have challenged these legal doctrines in order to maintain their freedoms.  
• Explorations of BIPOC conceptions of freedom, particularly religious freedom, past, present, and future, and how BIPOC communities and individuals have worked to maintain and gain freedoms within changing forms of subjugation, incarceration, and suppression. 
• Examination of how Native communities conceptualize the land and more-than-human plant and animal beings as agents deserving of freedoms and rights, with consideration to how Native religious traditions can or have influenced global and dominant discourses related to nature and the environment. 
• Reflections on the local Native communities of New England, with the possible inclusion of ways to improve academic-tribal partnerships.