Nearly thirty years after the establishment of the first PhD program in the American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona (1982), the field of Native American and Indigenous studies (NAIS)is experiencing remarkable expansion and intellectual growth in a global context. But the institutionalization of graduate training in the field has surprisingly lagged and is currently being dramatically outpaced by Canadian universities. In this talk, Jean O’Brien surveys the current state of play of graduate training in NAIS and offers her thoughts on the importance of institutionalizing Critical Indigenous Studies in the academy in light of the development of global Indigenous studies through organizations such as the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.

Jean O’Brien is Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota and is affiliated with the Departments of American Indian Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, and Heritage Studies and Public History. She has published six books and numerous articles. In addition, she is co-founder and past president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and past president of the American Society for Ethnohistory. Recipient of the 2018 CLA Dean’s Medal, O’Brien was selected for the American Indian Historian Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western History Association in 2014, and was elected to the Society of American Historians in 2016.

Questions? Contact Laura De Vos (lmdevos@uw.edu).

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