The Newark Earthworks Center with support from the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme is pleased to host Dr. Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, for a webinar titled "Muskrat versus Canary: The Future of Federal Indian Law."
Federal Indian law is marked by dramatic confrontations between paradigms such as George Washington's "Savage as the Wolf" policy or Felix Cohen's "Miner's Canary" parable. These metaphors reflect the reality that federal Indian law and policy was imposed on tribal nations. Even today, five decades after the beginning of the tribal self-determination era, the Miner's Canary parable remains the most used metaphorical shorthand to describe Indigenous affairs in the United States, but those metaphors are no longer useful. The Anishinaabe creation is a story about the lowly, but heroic, Muskrat as a metaphor to describe modern tribal nations. A question and answer session will be held at the end of the webinar.
To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility, please contact John Low, PhD at 740.755.7857 or low.89@osu.edu.
Kind thanks to Jared Gardner Department of English and Director of Popular Culture Studies for assisting in set up and hosting this web presentation.
Sponsored by The Newark Earthworks Center with support from an Indigenous Arts and Humanities Grant by the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme.
