Michael E. Chaness

Assistant Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego, State University of New York Oswego

Michael E. Chaness is an Assistant Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego. He teaches courses in Anthropology and Native American Studies. Prior to this appointment, he had experience teaching courses in Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religious Studies at a variety of Colleges and Universities throughout New York State -- including The College of Saint Rose, Syracuse University, Nazareth College, Utica College, and Keuka College. While attending graduate school, he began to collaborate with Onkwehonwe peoples. Throughout his graduate studies, he worked simultaneously at the Onondaga Nation School, and the relationships he cultivated at ONS led directly to many years of (ongoing) informal fieldwork. These experiences have provided him with the methodological framework, on-the-ground opportunities, and personal confidence necessary to teach courses that engage students with contentious issues surrounding immigration and exceptionalism, contact and colonization, gender and genocide, race and religious freedom. His scholarship explores the intersections between Jewish American and Native American identity creation through the prisms of blood and land, philosophy and theology, gender and genocide, religion and ritual. He has dedicated his professional career to collaborating with traditional Native elders, teaching in the university system, and supervising Native youths (K-8).

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