Christian Ayne Crouch: Panel Chair
Christian Ayne Crouch is dean of graduate studies and associate professor of Historical Studies and American and Indigenous Studies at Bard College. She is the author of the award-winning Nobility Lost: French and Canadian Martial Cultures, Indians, and the End of New France and has published essays and chapters on a wide range of topics in early colonial and early modern Atlantic World history. Her current book project, Queen Victoria’s Captives: A Story of Ambition, Empire, and a Stolen Ethiopian Prince looks at the human and material culture consequences of the 1868 British Maqdala Expedition in Ethiopia/Eritrea; this work has received research support from Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Georgian Papers Programme. Since 2018, she has also researched, taught, and written about the intersection of history and contemporary Indigenous art, working as curatorial advisor for the Brooklyn Museum’s 2020 show, Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire is Applied to a Stone it Cracks, as co-curator for public programming for the Hessel Museum’s Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere (2021) and interviewing Caddo sculptor Raven Halfmoon.
Jeremy Dennis: Panelist
Jeremy Dennis (b. 1990) is a contemporary fine art photographer and a tribal member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton, NY. In his work, he explores indigenous identity, culture, and assimilation.
Dennis holds an MFA from Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, and a BA in Studio Art from Stony Brook University, NY.
He currently lives and works in Southampton, New York on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation.
Curtis Zunigha: Panelist
Curtis Zunigha is an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma. (www.delawaretribe.org) He has forty years of experience in tribal government & administration, community development, telecommunications, and cultural preservation. He is a specialist in Delaware/Lenape culture, language, and traditional practices. Curtis Zunigha is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Mr. Zunigha is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Lenape Center based in Manhattan, NY and led by Lenape elders. Lenape Center has the mission of continuing
Lenapehoking, the original homeland in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, through community, culture, and the arts. Since 2009, Lenape Center has created programs, exhibitions, workshops, performances, symposia, land acknowledgment, and ceremonies to continue the Lenape presence. Lenape Center is working towards the creation of a physical culture center. (www.thelenapecenter.com)