Jean M O'Brien
Contact Me
obrie002@umn.edu
612-624-5794
Department of History
1041 Heller Hall
271 19th Avenue South
Affiliations
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Educational Background & Specialties
Educational Background
- Ph.D.: History, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1990.
Specialties
- Native American and Indigenous Studies
- Settler Colonialism
- State and Federal Recognition
- U.S. colonial history
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Courses Taught
- HIST 1903: Memory, Commemoration, and Monuments in the U.S.
- HIST 3001: Public History
- HIST/AMIN 3872: American Indian History, 1830-Present
- HIST/AMIN 5890: Readings in American Indian and Indigenous Studies
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Research & Professional Activities
Professional Activities
- Co-founder and past president, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association:
- Editorial Collective: Reviews in American History , 2019
- American Studies Association Annual Meeting: Program Co-Chair , 2015 - 2016
- American Studies Association annual meeting: Program committee member , 2014 - 2016
- Cobell Education Scholarship Fund Board of Trustees: Appointed by the Secretary of the Interior , 2014
- Critical Indigeneities: Book series co-editor , 2014
- Native American and Indigenous Studies: Journal, founding co-editor, Minnesota Press , 2013
- Native Americans of the Northeast: Book series co-editor, University of Massachusetts Press , 2007
- American Historical Association: Program Committee member , 2011 - 2012
- President, American Society for Ethnohistory: 2012 - 2013
- Advisory Board: Five-part series on American Indian history, "We Shall Remain," PBS American Experience , 2005 - 2008
- National Council: American Studies Association , 2003 - 2006
Research
- Co-edited volume: Allotment Stories: Narrating Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege
- Book project: Memory and Mobility: Grandma’s Mahnomen, White Earth
- Public History Project: • Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice, Humanities Action Lab
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Publications
- Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies. O'Brien, Jean, Chris Andersen, Routledge, Co-Editor, 2017.
- Why You Can't Teach U.S. History without Indians. O'Brien, Jean, University of North Carolina Press, Co-Editor, 2015.
- Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles and Indigenous Rights in the United States: A Sourcebook. O'Brien, Jean, University of North Carolina Press, Co-Editor, April 2013.
- Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England. O'Brien, Jean, University of Minnesota Press, Author, 2010.
- Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790. O'Brien, Jean, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
- Building a Professional Infrastructure for Critical Indigenous Studies: A History and Prospectus for the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association: O'Brien, Jean, Critical Indigenous Studies in the First World, 2015.
- Recognition and Rebuilding: O'Brien, Jean, Routledge, The World of the Indigenous Americas, 2014.
- "'Vanishing' Indians in Nineteenth-Century New England: Local Historians' Erasure of Still-Present Indian People". O'Brien, Jean, Sergei Kan and Pauline Turner Stong, eds., New Perspectives on Native North America, 2006.
- "'Our old and valuable liberty': A Natick Indian Petition in Defense of their Fishing Rights, 1748". O'Brien, Jean, Kristina Bross and Hilary Wyss, eds., Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology, Author, 2008.
- "Why Here? Scholarly Locations for American Indian Studies". O'Brien, Jean, American Quarterly, 2003.
- Divorced from the Land: Accommodation Strategies of Indian Women in 18th Century New England. O'Brien, Jean, 1996.
- Memory and Mobility: Grandma's Mahnomen, White Earth: O'Brien, Jean, Ethnohistory, 64 345-77, 2017.
- Tracing Settler Colonialism's Eliminatory Logic in Patrick Wolfe's Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race: O'Brien, Jean, American Quarterly, 69 249-55, 2017.
- What is a Monument to Massasoit Doing in Kansas City? The Memory Work of Monuments and Place in Public Displays of History: O'Brien, Jean, Ethnohistory, 61 635-53, 2014.
- Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit. O'Brien, Jean, Lisa Blee, University of North Carolina Press, Co-Author, 2019.
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Awards
- College of Liberal Arts Dean's Medal, University of Minnesota, 2018
- Board of Trustees, Newberry Library, 2018-
- Elected Member, Society of American Historians, 2016
- McKnight Distinguished University Professor, 2015
- Best New Journal Award, Council of Editors of Learned Journals, for Native American and Indigenous Studies, 2016
- American Indian History, Lifetime Achievement Award, Western History Association, 2014
- Sara Evans Faculty Woman Scholar/Leader Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, 2014
- University of Minnesota Imagine Fund Award, 2014
- Best Subsequent Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association for Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Awarded June 2012
- Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education, 2006
- Member, Academy of Distinguished Teachers, University of Minnesota, 2006
- Member, American Antiquarian Society, 2000
- American Association of University Women's Recognition Award for Emerging Scholars, 1996
- McKnight Land Grant Professorship, 1992