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- Five decades ago, Native American leaders launched a crusade against museums to reclaim their sacred objects and to rebury their kin. This controversy has exploded in recent years as hundreds of tribes have used a landmark federal law to recover their heritage from more than one thousand museums across America. Many still question how to balance the religious freedoms of Native Americans with the academic freedoms of American scientists, and the arguments continue on about whether the emptying of museum shelves elevates human rights or destroys humanity’s common heritage.
- This talk presents Dr. Chip Colwell’s new book and winner of a 2018 Colorado Book Award, Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture, a personal journey that illuminates how repatriation has transformed both American museums and Native communities. The story reveals why repatriation law has become an imperfect but necessary tool to resolve the collision of worldviews between scientists and Native Americans—to decide the nature of the sacred and the destiny of souls.
- Dr. Chip Colwell is the Senior Curator of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Colwell looks at the complex negotiations around who owns the past, including Native American human remains. His work has been highlighted in The New York Times, Denver Post, Archaeology Magazine, and others. He is also the founding editor-in-chief of Sapiens.org.
- Books will be available for purchase.
- This program is part of the Library's celebration of Native American Heritage Month.
- Unable to attend? This program may be livestreamed on the Longmont Observer Facebook page, and recorded and posted on our Watch Recent Programs page.
- Registration is required and will open here on Monday, October 29 at 10 am. No email address? Call (303) 651-8472 to register.
This program is part of the Longmont Public Library’s “Authors We Love” series. Visit the webpage for more information and to learn about more upcoming author talks.
