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John N. Low

John N. Low

John N. Low

Professor & Director, Newark Earthworks Center (OSU Newark)

low.89@osu.edu

740-755-7857

192 LeFevre Hall (Newark Campus)

Professional Website

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Office Hours

By appointment

Areas of Expertise

  • American Indian Studies, local and global Indigenous studies
  • Museum Studies, Material Culture, and Representation
  • Federal Indian Law and Treaty Rights

Education

  • Ph.D. University of Michigan
  • J.D. University of Michigan
  • MA University of Chicago
  • BA (American Indian Studies) University of Minnesota
  • BA Michigan State University
John N. Low received his Ph.D. in American Culture at the University of Michigan, and is an enrolled citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. He is also the recipient of a graduate certificate in Museum Studies and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan. He earned a BA from Michigan State University, a second BA in American Indian Studies from the University of Minnesota, and an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.
 
Professor Low currently serves as the Director of the Newark Earthworks Center and he is coordinator of the American Indian Studies minor at the Newark campus. He currently is working with the MacArthur Foundation, the Ohio History Center, the Chicago History Museum, and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago on projects that reflect the  public facing of the humanities. He previously served as Executive Director of the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston, Illinois, and served as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Indians of the Midwest Project at the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library, and the State of Ohio Cemetery Law Task Force. He has presented frequently at conferences including the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)), American Society for Ethnohistory (ASE) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH). He continues to serve as a member of his tribes’ Traditions & Repatriation Committee. 
 
Dr. Low’s research interests and courses at the Ohio State University – Newark include American Indian histories, literatures, and cultures, Native identities, American Indian religions, Indigenous canoe cultures around the world, Urban American Indians, museums, material culture and representation, memory studies, American Indian law and treaty rights, Indigenous cross-cultural connections, critical landscape studies, and Native environmental perspectives and practices. See my WordPress page at https://johnnlow.com/
 
Publications
Book: Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians & the City of Chicago (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2016.) 
 
Book Chapter: (2019) Weiser, Elizabeth, John N. Low, and Kenneth Madsen.  "One Site, Many Interpretations: Managing Heritage at an Ancient American Site.” In Museums, Memory, and Place. Ann Davis and Kirsten Smeds. Ed. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag.
 
Book Chapter: Low, John N. “Discussant Chapter.” In Walder, Heather and Jessica Yann, Ed. (2018) Encounters, Exchange, Entanglement: Current Perspectives on Intercultural Interactions throughout the Western Great Lakes. MCJA Occasional Paper, Number 2.

Low, John. “Chief Topinabee – Using Tribal Memories to Better Understand American (Indian) History.” Ethnohistory, vol. 70, no. 4. 

“A Lost Letter: Authenticating Simon Pokagon’s Literature.” Chronicle, pp. 11–15. 

“Chicago is on the Lands of the Potawatomi – Why Land Acknowledgments for Chicago Should Acknowledge This Historical Fact.” Chicago History Magazine, vol. xlvi, no. 2, pp. 16–27. 

Gavazzi, Stephen M. and John Low. “Confronting the Wealth Transfer from Tribal Nations that Established Land-Grant Universities: Steps Toward Atonement.” Academe, vol. 108, no. 2.

Williams, Richard B., Stephen M. Gavazzi, Michael E. Roberts, Brian W. Snyder, John N. Low, Casey Hoy, Marti L. Chaatsmith, and Michael Charles. “‘Let Us Tell the Story of Our Land and Place’: Tribal Leaders on the Seizure and Sale of Territories Benefiting Land-Grant Universities.” Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, vol. 33, no. 3.

Williams, Richard. B., Stephen M. Gavazzi, Michael E. Roberts, Marti L. Chaatsmith, Casey Hoy, John N. Low, and Brian Snyder. “Paying Old Debts: Balancing the Ledger Between 1862 Land-Grant Universities and Tribal Nations and Colleges.” Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, vol. 33, no. 2. 

“Trying to Do the Right Thing?” The Settler Colonial Present, edited by Andrew Herscher and Ana Maria León.

Captions. “Decolonizing the Chicago Cultural Center.” 2019 Architecture Biennial, pp. 8–

 Foreword. “Mapping Chicagou/Chicago: A Living Atlas.” 2019 Architecture Biennial, pp. 5–6.

Weiser, Elizabeth, John N. Low, and Kenneth Madsen. “One Site, Many Interpretations: Managing Heritage at an Ancient American Site.” Museums and Place, edited by Kerstin Smeds and Ann Davis, ICOFOM, 2019, pp. 138–161. 

“A Native’s Perspective on Trends in Contemporary Archaeology.” Encounters, Exchange, Entanglement: Current Perspectives on Intercultural Interactions throughout the Western Great Lakes, edited by Heather Walder and Jennifer Yann, Midwest Archaeological Conference, no. 2, 2018, pp. 105–116. 

Essay. “Newark Earthworks: Exciting Times” in The Fertile Earth and the Ordered Cosmos: Reflections on the Newark Earthworks and World Heritage. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Edited by Elizabeth Weiser, Timothy Jordan, and Richard Shiels. (Editor reviewed). 

“Pokagon Potawatomi Black Ash Baskets: Our Storytellers.” In In the Field Magazine. The Field Museum. Winter 2021. Page 13. (Editor Reviewed).

“Mystery at the Indian Mounds.” A children’s book about the Newark Earthworks that is available through several options including the World Heritage Ohio website. OHC site staff also use it for on- and off-site K–5 programming. It may also become a supplement to OHC’s “Ohio as America” online textbook and be added to the Ohio History Connection website. Illustrated by artist Keith Fliss. (Editor Reviewed).

“Monuments, Memorials, and the Power of ‘Memory’,” submitted at the request of and for use by the Chicago Monuments – Monuments & Memorials Project. Chicago, IL. 

Contributing editor and author. "The Pokagon Potawatomi Indian Black Ash Basket Co-Op” in WOMAN AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN MODERN EMPIRES SINCE 1820. Co-published by the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender (CHSWG) at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and Alexander Street Press (ASP) of Alexandria, Virginia., 2016. http://chswg.binghamton.edu/wasi/wame-about.html
 
Review of Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts, by Chadwick Allen. Native American and Indigenous Studies, vol. 10, no. 2.

Review of The World of Juliette Kinzie: Chicago before the Fire, by Ann Durkin Keating. The American Historical Review, 29 Dec. 2020, p. 1898. doi: 10.1093/ahr/rhaa385

Review of Shaman, Priest, Practice, Belief: Materials of Ritual and Religion in Eastern North America, edited by Stephen B. Carmody and Casey R. Barrier. Material Religion, 20 Nov. 2020, pp. 672–673. doi: 10.1080/17432200.2020.1843919

Review of Legible Sovereignties, Rhetoric, Representations, and Native American Museums, by Lisa King. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 2019, pp. 144–145. 

Review of The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma: Resiliency Through Adversity, edited by Stephen Warren. Western Historical Quarterly, 2018, p. 371. 

Review: Christopher Wetzel. "Gathering the Potawatomi Nation: Revitalization and Identity." Ethnohistory (2016) 63(2): 433-434.
 
Article: “Vessels for Recollection - The Canoe Building Renaissance in the Great Lakes.” Sara Beth Keough, ed., Material Culture: The Journal of the Pioneer America Society (now the International Society for Landscape, Place, & Material Culture) 47, no. 1 (Spring 2015). Recipient: Robert F. Heizer Award for “Best Article,” published in 2015 - American Society for Ethnohistory (ASE)
 
Article: “Fort Dearborn – Conflict, Commemoration, Reconciliation, and the Struggle over ‘Battle’ vs. ‘Massacre’.” J. Randolph Valentine and Monica Macaulay, eds., Papers of the 44th Algonquian Conference. Albany: SUNY Press, (May 2015). 
 
Essay: “The Art and Architecture of Simon Pokagon.” in O gi-māw-kwĕ Mit-i-gwā-kî (Queen of the Woods) by Simon Pokagon: A new critical edition of an 1899 novel by a complex and talented American Indian. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011.
 
Essay:  “Ishi’s Legacy.” in Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. Cécile R. Ganteaume. ed. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press, 2010.
 
Review: "Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs" in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 33:2, (October, 2009).
 

Resource: Pokégnek Bodéwadmik: The Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Indians.pdf

John N. Low, JD, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Comparative Studies
Affiliated Faculty - American Indian Studies
Courtesy Appointment - Department of History
Ohio State University - Newark
http://johnnlow.com/
Recipient: Robert F. Heizer Award for “Best Article,” published in 2015 - American Society for Ethnohistory (ASE) 
Coordinator - American Indian Studies Minor - OSU - Newark