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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: Chip Colwell, "Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture"Â (U Chicago Press, 2017)
Description: Five decades ago, Native American leaders launched a crusade to force museums to return their sacred objects and allow them to rebury their kin. Today, hundreds of tribes use the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help them recover their looted heritage from museums across the country. As senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Chip Colwell has navigated firsthand the questions of how to weigh the religious freedom of Native Americans against the academic freedom of scientists and whether the emptying of museum shelves elevates human rights or destroys a common heritage...