Faculty Research Fellows Talk with Claire Urbanski

Claire Urbanski: "Spiritual Conquest: Desecration and Colonial Capitalist Extraction On Stolen and Sacred Land"

In this research talk, Clayman Institute postdoctoral fellow Dr. Claire Urbanski examines how the desecration of Indigenous sacred sites and burial grounds is imperative to the consolidation and reproduction of United States colonial capitalist empire. By tracking the essential function of such spiritual violence throughout the expansion of U.S. empire, Urbanski shows how colonial capitalist systems hinge upon extractive spiritual relations with the Indigenous body in both life and death. In turn, Indigenous women’s and Two-Spirit movements for rematriation resist and refuse such possessive extractive logics, creating possibilities for otherwise ways of life beyond colonial violence.

Claire Urbanski is a 2022-24 Clayman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow.

Clayman Faculty Affiliates are welcome to attend the lunch seminars.  All Stanford academics are eligible to become Clayman Institute Faculty Affiliates. Please RSVP to Lea Gottlieb (lgottlie@stanford.edu) if you wish to attend.