Jean O'Brien

she/her

obrie002@umn.edu

612-624-5794

History

1014 Heller Hall

271 19th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Collegiate Affiliation

History

American Indian Studies

Educational Background & Specialties

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Educational Background

Ph.D.: History, University of Chicago, 1990

Specialties

Native American and Indigenous Studies
State and Federal Recogntion
Settler Colonial Studies
US Colonialism

Publications

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Publications

O'Brien, Jean, Daniel Heath Justice. Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Under Settler Seige. Minnesota, 2022.
Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit. Lisa Blee, University of North Carolina Press, O'Brien, Jean, 2019.
Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England. University of Minnesota Press, O'Brien, Jean, 2010.
Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790. Cambridge University Press, O'Brien, Jean, 1997.
Why You Can't Teach U.S. History without Indians. University of North Carolina Press, O'Brien, Jean, 2015.
Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies. Chris Andersen, Routledge, O'Brien, Jean, 2017.
Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles and Indigenous Rights in the United States: A Sourcebook. University of North Carolina Press, O'Brien, Jean, April 2013.
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.
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: Routledge, O'Brien, Jean, The World of the Indigenous Americas, 2014.
"'Our old and valuable liberty': A Natick Indian Petition in Defense of their Fishing Rights, 1748". Kristina Bross and Hilary Wyss, eds., Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology, O'Brien, Jean, 2008.
Memory and Mobility: Grandma's Mahnomen, White Earth: O'Brien, Jean, Ethnohistory, 64, 345-77, 2017.
"Why Here? Scholarly Locations for American Indian Studies": American Quarterly, O'Brien, Jean, 2003.
"'Vanishing' Indians in Nineteenth-Century New England: Local Historians' Erasure of Still-Present Indian People": Sergei Kan and Pauline Turner Stong, eds., New Perspectives on Native North America, O'Brien, Jean, 2006.
Divorced from the Land: Accommodation Strategies of Indian Women in 18th Century New England: O'Brien, Jean, Gender, Kinship, and Power, Routledge, 1996.

Activities

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Activities

Professional

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
American Studies Association annual meeting: Program committee member. 2014 - 2016
Native Americans of the Northeast: Book series co-editor, University of Massachusetts Press. 2007
American Historical Association: Program Committee member. 2011 - 2012
National Council: American Studies Association. 2003 - 2006
Advisory Board: Five-part series on American Indian history, "We Shall Remain," PBS American Experience. 2005 - 2008
Editorial Collective: Reviews in American History. 2019
Co-founder and past president, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
President, American Society for Ethnohistory 2012 - 2013
Northrop Professor 2019
American Studies Association Annual Meeting: Program Co-Chair. 2015 - 2016

Research

Public History Project: • Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice, Humanities Action Lab.
Co-edited volume: Allotment Stories: Narrating Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege.
Book project: Memory and Mobility: Grandma’s Mahnomen, White Earth.

Awards

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Awards

University of Minnesota Imagine Fund Award, 2014
Regents Professor, 2023
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2022
Richard A. Yarborough Award for Mentoring, American Studies Association, 2022, American Studies Association, 2022
Elected Member, Society of American Historians, 2016
Board of Trustees, Newberry Library, 2018
Northrop Professor, 2019
Winthrop Prize for the Outstanding Book on Seventeenth-Century New England for 2019-2020, Colonial Society of Massachusetts for Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit (with Lisa Blee) (University of North Carolina Press, 2019)., 2019
College of Liberal Arts Dean's Medal, University of Minnesota, 2018
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
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 ...
McKnight Distinguished University Professor, 2015
Member, Academy of Distinguished Teachers, University of Minnesota, 2006
Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education, 2006
Member, American Antiquarian Society, 2000
McKnight Land Grant Professorship, 1992
American Association of University Women's Recognition Award for Emerging Scholars, 1996

Courses

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Courses

HIST 3001: Public History
HIST/AMIN 3872: American Indian History, 1830-Present
HIST 1903: Memory, Commemoration, and Monuments in the U.S.
HIST/AMIN 5890: Readings in American Indian and Indigenous Studies