One Book, One Community Virtual Book Discussion

Community Event

FREE COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB

Playing Indian
Philip J. Deloria

Monday, October 11, 3 p.m.
Virtual Book discussion with author
FREE books available to first 100 registrants

Pick-up locations:
• The Advancement Office in the John Gilbert Reese Center
• Any of the public libraries in Licking County
• FREE e-books and e-audio-books available to download through any public
library in Licking County (supply limited)

Ways to Register:
• Laura Walsh, 740.364.9514 or walsh.276@osu.edu
• Any of the public libraries in Licking County

Playing Indian explores how white Americans have used their ideas about Native Americans to shape national identity in different eras — and how Indian people have reacted to these imitations of their native dress, language and ritual. The Boston Tea Party, the Order of Red Men, Camp Fire Girls, Boy Scouts and Grateful Dead concerts are just a few examples of white Americans’ tendency to appropriate Indian dress and act out Indian roles.

Deloria suggests that imagining Indians has helped generations of white Americans define, mask and evade paradoxes stemming from the simultaneous construction and destruction of these native peoples. In the process, Americans have created powerful identities that have never been fully secure.

Deloria is a professor of history at Harvard University, where his research and teaching focus on the social, cultural and political histories of the relations among American Indian peoples and the United States, as well as the comparative and connective histories of indigenous peoples in a global context. He is also a trustee of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, where he chairs the Repatriation Committee. Along with Erika Doss, he is the series editor of CultureAmerica, a University Press of Kansas series focused on American cultural history.

One Book, One Community is made possible through the Melissa Warner Bow endowed fund. The Licking County Foundation, United Way of Licking County, The Energy Cooperative Operation Round Up Foundation and Park National Bank are also sponsoring the event.