Chris Green (Black/Lenni-Lenape) is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer from West Philadelphia. Currently, he is a History Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with graduate minors in American Indian Studies and Queer Studies. Prior to moving to Illinois, Green received his B.A. in Psychology and Gender and Sexuality Studies from Swarthmore College. The working title of his dissertation is “This Feeling of Being Together with Your Own: Competing Indigeneities in 20th century Philadelphia” which investigates the ways indigeneity was debated, enacted, and acknowledged by urban Native and non-Native people. Moving from Benjamin West’s 1772 painting, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians at Shackamaxon, he deploys a broad understanding of performance to include visual arts, dance, lectures, court trials, marches, etc., to interrogate how and why Philadelphia became a key site in the production of knowledge regarding what it meant be indigenous in the 20th century. Green brings together anthropologists, religious groups, activists, architects, and an urban Indian center, asking what did “indigenous” mean, where was Philadelphia’s Native population, and how did its members create space for themselves in the city? In utilizing performance he focuses on the moments of possibility for Native life and the utopian potential within Philadelphia’s multi-tribal organization.
In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Green wants to discover new ways of articulating and displaying history. He is particularly interested in findings points of connection between theatre, dance, sound design, and history in order to present historical evidence in more immersive ways for general audiences.
Project: “This Feeling of Being Together with Your Own: Competing Indigeneities in 20th Century Philadelphia”