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Add this Event to Calendar 11/08/2022 06:30 PM 11/08/2022 07:30 PM Humanities Book Discussion - Unredeemed Captive

We are honoring Native American Heritage Month with a book discussion of Unredeemed Captive by John Putnam Demos, nominated for the National Book Award and winner of the Francis Parkman Prize. Our facilitator will be one of our favorite discussion leaders and humanities experts, Damian Costello. 

The setting for this haunting and encyclopedically researched work of history is colonial Massachusetts, where English Puritans first endeavored to "civilize" a "savage" native populace. There, in February 1704, a French and Indian war party descended on the village of Deerfield, abducting a Puritan minister and his children. Although John Williams was eventually released, his daughter horrified the family by staying with her captors and marrying a Mohawk husband.

Out of this incident, The Bancroft Prize-winning historian John Demos has constructed a gripping narrative that opens a window into North America where English, French, and Native Americans faced one another across gulfs of culture and belief, and sometimes crossed over.

Our book discussion facilitator is Damian Costello. Dr. Costello received his Ph.D. in theological studies from the University of Dayton and specializes in the intersection of Catholic theology, Indigenous spiritual traditions, and colonial history. He is an international expert on the life and legacy of Nicholas Black Elk and the author of Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism. Costello was born and raised in Vermont and his work is informed by five years of ethnographic work on the Navajo Nation. Costello serves the Director of Postgraduate Studies at NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, an Indigenous designed and delivered ATS accredited graduate school.

Copies of the month's selection will be provided for all participants.  The discussion will take place on Zoom, in the comfort of your living room.

This program is funded by a grant from the American Library Association.



Contact: Julie Perrin 603.532.7301 jperrin@jaffreypubliclibrary.org
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