People

David Stirrup is Professor of American Literature and Indigenous Studies at the University of Kent, and Principal Investigator on Beyond the Spectacle. His work to date has primarily focused on contemporary Native American and First Nations literature and visual art. His publications include Visuality and Visual Aesthetics in Contemporary Anishinaabeg Writing (Michigan State University Press, forthcoming), Louise Erdrich (Manchester University Press, 2010), Parallel Encounters: Culture at the Canada-US Border (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2014, co-edited with Gillian Roberts), and Tribal Fantasies: Native Americans in the European Imaginary, 1900-2010 (Palgrave, 2012, co-edited with James Mackay). From 2012-2015 he was Principal Investigator on the Leverhulme International Network “Culture and the Canada-US Border”.

David’s individual project within the Beyond the Spectacle framework will predominantly focus on diplomats and performers, and, of course, the intersection between the two – thinking, for instance, about the ways a certain kind of performance of “Indianness” becomes a pre-requisite to the diplomatic trip, and about the ways performances produce political and diplomatic effects. In addition, he is interested in particular in Ojibwe travelers and in the broader histories and theorisations of Indigenous mobilities.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal is Professor of American and Indigenous Histories at the University of East Anglia, UK. Her research interests and writing focus on Native America. Author of White Man’s Club: schools, race, and the struggle of Indian acculturation (University of Nebraska, 2007), winner of the American Studies Network Best Book 2008, and editor of Indigenous Bodies: reviewing, relocation, reclaiming (SUNY Press, 2013) and Carlisle Indian Industrial School: histories, memories, and reclamations (University of Nebraska, 2016), she co-founded and co-directs the Native Studies Research Network UK.

Professor Fear-Segal’s recent research and writing has focused on the federal system of Indian boarding schools in the USA, and the Carlisle Indian School in particular, so she is keen to track the many ‘graduates’ of these schools who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and traveled round Europe. While working on the Board of Eighth in the East (a Heritage Lottery Funded project) she was alerted to the impact on East Anglia of 200,000 USAAF servicemen who were stationed in the region and is now very interested to research Native American World War II veterans who spent time in Britain.

Coll is especially interested in early modern Indigenous visitors to Britain, and will also be focusing on the mapping aspects of ‘Beyond the Spectacle’, connections between the UK and British Columbia First Nations, and the broader theoretical and conceptual elements of the project.

Kate Rennard is a Research Associate in the School of English at the University of Kent.

Her work has generally focused on transnational activism and how it has shaped understandings of what it means to be Indigenous, and she is currently writing about the relationships forged between the American Indian Movement, Irish Republicans, and Welsh nationalists in the late 20th-century. She has recently started exploring the experiences of Indigenous North American soldiers in the UK, particularly during the First World War, and of their connections to Britain.

My main areas of ‘Beyond the Spectacle’ research examine native engagement in the UK museum sector, the history of Native performers in Britain and their agency in that history and the impressions and experiences of contemporary Native visitors to Britain, in particular the growing numbers of students.

Charlie Hall is the Research Administrator on the Beyond the Spectacle project in the School of English, as well as an Assistant Lecturer in the School of History, both at the University of Kent. He completed his PhD in History in 2017, and his research interests centre on the intersection between science and technology, the military, the state, and society, especially in twentieth century Britain. His first monograph, The Spoils of War: British Exploitation of German Science and Technology, 1943-1949, is forthcoming with Routledge.

He is the central point of contact for Beyond the Spectacle and is responsible for all organisation and administration on the project.