Brown Bag History Series

Dr. Will Stoutamire (UNK)

• Wednesday, May 11, 2022
• Noon–1:00 pm
• Kearney Public Library

Whose Heritage? Archaeology, Looting, and the Museum of Northern Arizona

This talk is based on an article that will be appearing in the August 2022 issue of The Journal of Arizona History. In this presentation, Will examines the origins of the Museum of Northern Arizona, one of the Southwest's most significant regional museums. He situates the museum's origins within ongoing debates about the preservation of Northern Arizona's archaeological heritage – debates which pitted the residents of Flagstaff against Smithsonian archaeologists, and excluded Indigenous communities in their entirety. His work seeks to problematize the museum's founding within the context of broader contemporary debates about heritage, archaeology, looting, and the need to protect the cultural resources of the Southwest.

Dr. William F. Stoutamire is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where he coordinates the public history minor and MA concentration in public history. He holds a BA in History from Florida State University and a Ph.D. in History, with a focus in public history, from Arizona State University. As a doctoral student at ASU, Will worked on a series of projects for the National Park Service in Arizona, including a Historic Resource Study for the Flagstaff Area National Monuments. His presentation builds off of this work. Will is currently working on his first book, tentatively titled Imagining Antiquity, which will offer a critical reexamination of the early history of the Antiquities Act.