‘We Were Planting Corn and They Were Planting Crosses’: Challenging the Justifications of Domination Through Religion
Join us on January 22 at noon/MST as we welcome special guests Philip Arnold, Sandra Bigtree, and Adam Brett, researchers and authors of “Challenging the Justifications of Domination Through Religion: ‘We Were Planting Corn and They Were Planting Crosses.'”
Register for this virtual presentation here.
Philip P. Arnold is a Professor in the Department of Religion and a core faculty member of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Syracuse University. He is the Founding Director of the Skä-noñh—Great Law of Peace Center (2012-15) and repurposed the “French Fort” on Onondaga Lake. He is the President of the Indigenous Values Initiative, which is a non-profit organization to support the work of the Skä-noñh—Great Law of Peace Center, the American Indian Law Alliance, and sister organizations and initiatives to educate the general public about the values of the Haudenosaunee. In 2007, he organized the Doctrine of Discovery Study Group to study the legacy of Christianity’s destruction of Indigenous Peoples. With his wife Sandra Bigtree, he co-hosts the Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast and is the PI for “200 Years of Johnson v. McIntosh: Indigenous Responses to the Religious Foundations of Racism,” a 3-year (2022-24) grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. He is co-editor of the Syracuse University Press series Haudenosaunee and Indigenous Worlds and a founding member of NOON (Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation). His books are Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan (1999); Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics: Planting a Tree (edited with Ann Gold, 2001); The Gift of Sports: Indigenous Ceremonial Dimensions of the Games We Love(2012), and Urgency of Indigenous Values (Syracuse University Press, 2023).
Sandra Bigtree, Bear Clan, is a citizen of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. She is a founding board member of the Indigenous Values Initiative (501C3), which fosters collaborative educational work between the academic community and the Haudenosaunee to promote the message of peace that was brought to Onondaga Lake thousands of years ago. She helped organize the “Roots of Peacemaking” educational festivals in 2006 and 2007; the “Doctrine of Discovery Conference” in 2014; and co-edited the Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) educational booklet. She was an original Planning Committee member of Skä-noñh: the Great Law of Peace Center and currently sits on the Educational Collaborative committee. In 1984-85, she was the Administrative Assistant to the American Indian Law Support Center at the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, CO. In 1980-82, she performed with Indigenous Peoples in the Arts theatre troupe (an affiliate of the American Indian Community House) at LaMama, NYC, and toured the northeastern US. From age 1-30, Sandy performed weekly on the radio, TV, and other venues around Central New York. The Sandy Bigtree Band was well known throughout the 1970s. In 2008, Sandy was the recipient of the Syracuse New Times “Hall of Fame” Sammy Award.
Adam D.J. Brett holds a PhD. in Religion from Syracuse University, a Th.M. and M.T.S. from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, and a BA from Warner University. He is a Part-time Instructor at Syracuse University and an Adjunct Professor at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). He is the grant & event coordinator for the Doctrine of Discovery Project. He works for the American Indian Law Alliance and also on the indigenous values initiative, the Doctrine of Discovery Project. He was a nominee for the 2025 MTSU College of Liberal Arts Faculty Mentorship Award. When he is not teaching or coding, he is playing Dungeons & Dragons or watching lacrosse.