JCRT Publishes The Second of Two Special Issues from the 2023 Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery Conference

For immediate release

JCRT Publishes The Second of Two Special Issues from the 2023 Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery Conference

The second of two special issues emerging from the 2023 Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery Conference is now available in The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT). Issue 25.1, Spring 2026, is titled “Challenging the Justifications of Domination through Law: Indigenous Resistance and the Undoing of Christian Empire”.

This law-focused companion to Issue 24.2 grows out of “The Religious Origins of White Supremacy: Johnson v. M’Intosh and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery,” the conference held at Syracuse University on December 8–10, 2023, with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and Syracuse University. Where the first volume addressed the religious justifications of conquest and domination, this second volume turns directly to law, sovereignty, and the continuing effects of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.

Together, the essays in Issue 25.1 examine how federal Indian law, colonial jurisprudence, treaty interpretation, Christian supremacy, and Indigenous resistance remain entangled in the ongoing struggle to overturn domination frameworks and restore right relations.

Issue link: https://jcrt.org/archives/25.1/

Table of Contents for JCRT 25.1, Spring 2026

• Federal Anti-indian Law: Why a Challenge to “Christian Discovery” Creates a Metaphysical Crisis for the US — Peter d’Errico
• Right & Respectful Relations: A Memoir of the Road to the Historic Yakama Nation Amicus Brief Challenging ‘Christian Discovery’ in Washington State V. Cougar Den — Jode Goudy
• The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination: How It Has Been Used by United States Courts to Deny Treaty Rights & Dismiss the Haudenosaunee Land Rights Cases — Joseph J. Heath
• The International Law of Colonialism: The Doctrine of Discovery — Robert J. Miller
• My Decades-long Inquiry Into the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination — Steven T. Newcomb
• An Intergenerational and Perpetual Imperium of Domination and Subjugation of Indigenous Peoples: The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Royal Supremacy — Phillip Rodgers-Falk
• An Appeal to the American People—Overturning “Federal Indian Law” — Steven J. Schwartzberg
• Conclusion: Dismantling the Doctrine of Christian Discovery Cultivating Right Relations — Philip P. Arnold, Sandra Bigtree, and Adam DJ Brett
• A Postscript: Sovereignty is Still the Issue — Adam DJ Brett, Betty Hill (Lyons), and Nethanial Belmont

With both parts of this project now published, readers can trace the conference’s larger arc from the religious origins of white supremacy to the legal architectures that continue to shape domination in the present. We offer deep thanks to Connie Castro for the cover art, to Carl Raschke and Victor Taylor of JCRT for their flexibility and partnership in bringing these companion volumes to publication, and to all sponsors, presenters, and contributors whose work made these issues possible.