Stephanie Bennett – författare

The inspiring story of Lyda Conley, the first Indigenous woman to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court and a trailblazing lawyer and activist who defended the burials of her Wyandot family and ancestors in Kansas City’s Huron Indian Cemetery. Driven by primary sources and oral histories, this biography and source reader is the definitive work on this remarkable woman.For fifty years, Eliza (“Lyda”) Conley and her two older sisters, Helena and Ida, protected the Huron Indian Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas, now known as the Wyandot National Burying Ground. A member of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas, Lyda Conley is the first Indigenous woman to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court, where she established legal precedents used to protect Indigenous sovereignty today.In conjunction with her legal fight, Conley and her sisters spent years physically defending their ancestors’ burials by building a shack in the cemetery they called “Fort Conley.” When a US Marshal tore down their fort in 1911, the sisters simply built another one. While they occupied the grounds, they also tended to cemetery upkeep, maintaining it in pristine condition between 1907 and 1922. Finally, under the leadership of Kansas senator—and future vice president under Herbert Hoover—Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation, Congress passed legislation to prevent sale or development of the cemetery's land in 1913.Unfortunately, the cemetery needed defending decades later when the Wyandotte Nation (of Oklahoma) attempted to open a casino on the cemetery grounds in the 1990s. The Conley sisters’ Wyandot Nation of Kansas relatives used similar strategies to protect the cemetery once again.Using primary sources, including images, oral histories, and art, as well as scholarly analysis, Stephanie Bennett, Samantha Gill, and Tai S. Edwards tell the story of Lyda Conley, her sisters, and their perseverance. This book stands as a testament to the Conley sisters, who demonstrated the resilience and courage of Indigenous women who resisted colonialism and protected Indigenous sovereignty, blazing a trail for future generations.

This issue of Plough Quarterly explores the effects of technology on human flourishing.Whether its artificial intelligence, genome editing, Big Tech monopolies, or social media–induced depression, we live in a world that is being reshaped by technology from the ground up. How do we stay human?This issue of Plough Quarterly addresses challenges ranging from the lure of transhumanism to the erosion of silence by the smartphone. Technophobia is no answer, our contributors agree, but neither is a refusal to tackle real dangers. They ask: Why not try living without a computer or a television? Why give tablets to children when Steve Jobs refused to give them to his kids? Why write using a keyboard when you could wield a fountain pen?Technological asceticism of this kind won’t solve society-wide dilemmas. But it can help us maintain the spiritual independence needed to respond to them rightly.Also in this issue: original poetry by Jacob Stratman; reviews of new books by Ian Johnson, Steve Roud, and Markus Rathey; insights from Wendell Berry, Viktor Frankl, Ivan Illich, Carl Sandburg, C. S. Lewis, Alfred Delp, and Christoph Blumhardt; and art by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jack Baumgartner, Nicholas Roerich, Rachel Newling, Kay Polk, Suellen McCrary, Stephen Scott Young, Jie Wei Zhou, Kiéra Malone, Torkel Pettersson, Mari Rast, Albrecht Dürer, René Magritte, and Kyle T. Webster.Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

Silence, Civility, and Sanity addresses the reclamation of civil communication and healthy public conversation at a time when people are very divided. Throughout this book, Stephanie Bennett focuses on the importance of silence to temper speech and embrace the art of listening to foster a more positive dialogue and civil society. Throughout this book, the author addresses the place of silence as a communicational good, intrapersonal silence in the history of contemplative prayer, the importance of attentive silence, the reflective use of silence, the ethical dimensions of silence, and the abuses of silence. This book also delves into the layers of technological advancement that obscure perception and act as noise that poses as silence, phantom silence. Bennett offers readers an alternative to the false binaries of culture-warring that plague our relationships, institutions, and public sphere. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and media studies will find this book of particular interest.

Silence, Civility, and Sanity addresses the reclamation of civil communication and healthy public conversation at a time when people are very divided. Throughout this book, Stephanie Bennett focuses on the importance of silence to temper speech and embrace the art of listening to foster a more positive dialogue and civil society. Throughout this book, the author addresses the place of silence as a communicational good, intrapersonal silence in the history of contemplative prayer, the importance of attentive silence, the reflective use of silence, the ethical dimensions of silence, and the abuses of silence. This book also delves into the layers of technological advancement that obscure perception and act as noise that poses as silence, phantom silence. Bennett offers readers an alternative to the false binaries of culture-warring that plague our relationships, institutions, and public sphere. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and media studies will find this book of particular interest.