Campus Calendar

This event took place on September 21, 2021.  As of September 27, 2021, the six-minute video produced by TPT that is shared near the start of this webinar is available online.  If you would like a PDF copy of the images that Professor McNally shared in his presentation, please contact him via email.

At Standing Rock, Oak Flat, and elsewhere, Native American peoples have captured the public imagination for their spirited efforts to defend sacred places, practices, museum objects, and ancestral remains, yet their efforts to secure legal protections in court have been relatively unsuccessful. Join Michael McNally ’85, Musser Professor of Religious Studies, for a discussion of his research on legal protections for Native American religious traditions. Professor McNally will also discuss efforts by the college to live into its land acknowledgement and deepen its reciprocal relationships with neighboring Dakota Nations and Indigenous organizations.

About the speaker

Michael McNally ’85 is the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies. Since joining the religion department in 2001, he has taught courses in American religion and culture and Native American religious traditions. He is the author of Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom beyond the 1st Amendment (2020); Honoring Elders: Aging, Authority, and Ojibwe Religion (2009), and Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion (2000) and the editor of Art of Tradition: Sacred Story, Song, and Dance among Michigan’s Anishinaabe (2009), as well as book chapters and journal articles.  He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 for his work on Native religions and law.

from Alumni Digital Community