The deadline for the call for submission for the Railroads in Native American Gathering / Symposium (Ogden Union Station, Ogden Utah, May 19-21, 2022) is coming up in a little over two weeks. 

Please e-mail your submission to RRNativeAmerica@gmail.com by December 15, 2021. 

Designed to be inclusive, intergovernmental and interdisciplinary, the gathering is hosted by the Utah Division of Indian Affairs in cooperation with the Intermountain tribal nations of the Goshute, Paiute, Dine ́, Shoshone, and Ute peoples. The gathering’s geographical reach includes the United States and Canada. The symposium intends to bring together Native and non-Native scholars, students, artists, musicians, tribal citizens, tribal government representatives and the general public. 

To take part in this event submit: (1) a short proposal (no more than 400 words) describing how you wish to participate; (2) indicate if you will need any special equipment or set up, including whether you will require audio and visual for a presentation; (3) if any of the five stated topics below match your submission, please mention this; and (4) Include a C.V., resume, a description, or portfolio of previous work.

This gathering and symposium invites conversation about the fraught and dynamic relationships between Native peoples and railroads. The program committee encourages submissions across a wide range of mediums and diverse formats including: roundtable presentations, research paper sessions, oral histories and storytelling, dance, artwork, multimedia offerings including film, and small poster exhibits.

Contacts:  Dr. Alessandra La Rocca Link / alessandra.n.link@gmail.com and James Toledo / Utah Division of Indian Affairs / jtoledo@utah.gov

Guiding questions for conversation, scholarship, art, and performance include:

• How or why did Native communities resist and/or participate in railroad expansion (1830s to the present)?
• In what ways have Native peoples—past and present—used the mobility, marketplace access, or employment provided by railroads to survive or to protect kin and community?
• How did railroads, their corporate backers, and the government contribute to the dispossession of Indigenous peoples?
• How have Indigenous homelands and cultures evolved in response to railroad expansion?
• What are the lasting impacts from railroad expansion among Indigenous communities, worldviews, life ways, and ecosystems? 

Keep an eye out for information regarding affordable hotel accommodations, keynote speakers, vendors, field trips and a preliminary program.  To connect with the Railroads in Native America website click here. 

Regarding the 1^st RR in Native America (held in 2019):

The first “Railroads in Native America'' Symposium (Omaha, NE: Sept. 12-15, 2019) was prompted by the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. This inaugural event was hosted by the National Park Service, Lewis and Clark Historic Trail, the Union Pacific Museum (Council Bluffs, IA), the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and citizens of numerous Federally Recognized Sovereign Tribal Nations. These nations include (as self-described): Campo Kumeyaay Nation, Cochiti / Kiowa, Pomo / Paiute, Minnicoujou Lakota, Rosebud Sioux, Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Laguna, Hidatsa, Sièáŋǧu Lakota, Umonhon / Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi. The symposium was considered such a success that attendees suggested a second symposium be offered elsewhere in the country.

If you have questions concerning the submission guidelines, or to answer any other questions concerning this gathering and symposium, please reach out to any of the above contacts.

RNA Program Subcommittee Members:

• Dr. Alessandra La Rocca Link (co-chair), historian, Indiana University-Southeast, Louisville, Kentucky
• Dr. Farina King (Diné, co-chair), Assistant Professor of History, NE State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma
• Dr. Andrew Curley (Diné), School of Geography, University of Arizona (Tucson, Arizona)
• Patricia LaBounty, Curator, Union Pacific Railroad Museum (Council Bluff, Iowa)
• Jenna Valadez, past RNA board member, past officer in Union Pacific’s CONAH (Council on Native American Heritage)

The South Dakota Historical Society is accepting applications for its Emerging Scholars Research Grant.

Fellows will receive funds to access the extensive museum and archival collections of the South Dakota State Historical Society. Funds may be used for travel and lodging expenses and research-related fees. The society will distribute $3,000 among one to three individuals. Within a year of the award date, fellows must submit an article manuscript to the quarterly journal, South Dakota History, or a book proposal to the press.

Application should include:

• A resume or C.V. (no more than two pages)
• A proposal (no more than three pages, double-spaced) that answers the following questions:
• • What collections from the state archives and/or museum collections do you plan to consult? How long do you plan to be in Pierre?
  • What is the purpose/goal of your research? What historical topic or question are you investigating?
  • What contribution does your work make to the field?
  • What is the timeline of the project? What work have you accomplished, and what work do you have left to complete?
  • How will the resulting project be suitable for publication in either South Dakota History or as a Press book?

Interested applicants should send their applications to mary.andino@state.sd.us by January 15, 2022.

For more information, see here: https://www.sdhspress.com/news-and-events/news

The Organization of American Historians (OAH) is currently offering two awards that may be of interest. 

First, the Stanton-Horton Award for Excellence in National Park Service History recognizes excellence in National Park Service historical efforts and welcomes projects that encourage civic dialogue in all areas of public history. Eligible submissions include park-based interpretive work (museum exhibits, waysides, digital and print media, public programming, etc.); regionally-oriented educational and preservation programs; National Register or NHL nominations, historic resource and special resource studies which have public outreach components, and national programs and projects designed to encourage public appreciation for the complexity and richness of the American past. 

The application deadline for the Stanton-Horton Award is December 15, 2021. For more info on this award, see here: https://www.oah.org/awards/uncategorized-awards/stanton-horton-award/

Second, the Huggins-Quarles Award is given annually by the OAH to one or two graduate students of color to assist them with expenses related to travel to research collections for the completion of the Ph.D. dissertation. 

The application deadline for the Huggins-Quarles Award is January 1, 2021. For more info on this award, see here: https://www.oah.org/awards/dissertation-awards/huggins-quarles-award/

PBS aired "Imagined Wests" on Wednesday, November 10th. The hour-long documentary, which is part of the "Artbound" series, focuses on the Autry's "Spirits of the West" mural and their efforts to recontextualize it (and the museum) in light of changing interpretations of the American West. The program also places the Autry's challenges within broader discussions of monuments and civic memory. The documentary is archived on the PBS website and can be viewed here: https://www.pbs.org/video/imagined-wests-tnaggs/

The Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University invites institutions to participate in its annual Summer Internship Program. They seek partners whose work advances history in the public interest and who can demonstrate a commitment to the intellectual and professional development of Villanova undergraduate and graduate students. 

The Lepage Center will award undergraduate interns a $4000 stipend and graduate interns a $5000 stipend. Internships will require 8 weeks of full-time work (35 hours per week) and should be completed by Aug. 15, 2021. There are no geographic limitations to partner eligibility, and internship proposals may require work on-site, online, or a mix of both. 

The deadline to apply is Jan. 15, 2022. For more information: https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/lepage/students/summerinternship.html

Endowed Assistant or Associate Professor in Arts of the Americas

The Art History Program in the School of Art at the University of Arkansas invites applications for a tenure-track endowed assistant or associate professor in art history, in research areas integral to the arts of the Americas. The position is open in terms of chronological specialization, and they are especially interested in scholars of Indigenous art, Latin American and Latinx modern and contemporary art. Interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transregional approaches centering overlooked or marginalized histories are particularly welcome, such as Afro-Latinx traditions and histories of craft. 

Scholars with a passion for collaboration, program-building, and partnership-development are also encouraged to apply. This position is considered fundamental to the implementation of a new MA program in the arts of the Americas, developed in partnership with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its contemporary arts satellite, the Momentary. The University of Arkansas seeks creative thinkers who will contribute to the diversity and excellence of the intellectual community in the School of Art, Crystal Bridges, and the growing arts ecosystem of Northwest Arkansas. Endowed positions come with a significant annual research budget, the expectation of a research record appropriate to the prominence of the appointment, and the requirement of at least one community outreach effort per year. This is a nine-month faculty appointment, with a standard workload of 40% research, 40% teaching (2 courses per semester), and 20% service. Expected start date is August 15, 2022. 

Required Documents

• a cover letter addressing research and teaching
• curriculum vitae
• a statement describing commitment to diversity and inclusion in research and teaching
• the names and contact information of three referees 
• two scholarly writing samples (preferably published or forthcoming research, submitted in a single PDF)

Applications due by December 1, 2021. Late applications will be reviewed as necessary to fill the position.

Further details here:

https://uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UASYS/details/Endowed-Assistant-or-Associate-Professor-in-Arts-of-the-Americas_R0006948

Description

The School of Visual Arts at the University of Oklahoma invites dynamic candidates to apply for a position in Western American Art History at the rank of Associate Professor, joining the faculty of the first and still only Ph.D. program to specialize in this area of study. The successful candidate will serve, in addition, as Director of the University’s Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West. In both capacities they will play a defining role in OU’s undergraduate, M.A., and Ph.D. programs in Art History, offering courses at all levels of instruction including regular participation in our innovative, team-taught, thematically organized Introduction to Art History and the opportunity to offer seminars in Undergraduate and Graduate Methods, responsibility for which rotates among the faculty.  Through its resource center, national symposia, course offerings and related outreach programs, the Russell Center actively engages students and the public in developing a better understanding of artistic traditions of the American West.

The position, starting on 15 August 2022, comes with a competitive salary, generous start-up funding, and research support. 

OU’s School of Visual Arts is dedicated to inclusivity, seeking excellent applicants from a diversity of backgrounds in methodology and scholarly interests as well as in gender and ethnicity.

OU’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art (with which we share a building) is home to the Eugene B. Adkins Collection of Art of the American Southwest, a world-class resource for teaching and research. Other campus resources of relevance include OU’s Western History Collection and Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Important research collections in reasonable proximity include the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth), and the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa).

The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Carnegie-R1 comprehensive public research university known for excellence in teaching, research, and community engagement, serving the educational, cultural, economic and healthcare needs of the state, region, and nation from three campuses: Norman, Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City and the Schusterman Center in Tulsa.  OU enrolls over 30,000 students and has more than 2,700 full-time faculty members in 21 colleges.  

Qualifications

• Ph.D.
• university-level teaching experience
• record of innovative research

Application Instructions

Review of completed applications will begin on December 1, 2021 and continue until the position is filled.  A complete application must include: a curriculum vitae; a letter of application (cover letter); a statement of teaching experience and philosophy; one or more writing samples (books and exhibition catalogues will be returned at the conclusion of the search); and the names of three references with current contact information.

All materials should be addressed to the chair of the search committee, Kenneth Haltman, H. Russell Pitman Professor of Art History, submitted electronically through this website: https://apply.interfolio.com/97258

Call for Papers: Indigenous Borderlands in North America
Nov. 3-4, 2022  University of New Mexico

Scholars of borderlands have made important contributions to our understanding of contingent identities and encounters, the historical roles of local actors, and the ambiguous nature of power in North America. In recent years, scholarship on Indigenous sovereignty, kinship, and relationality has fostered new conversations about Native territoriality, place-making, and ways of belonging. Indigenous ideas of place and community are reframing how we understand histories of border spaces, boundaries, crossings, and border towns in North America. Together, scholars and Indigenous communities are making important interventions from the intersections of Indigenous histories, epistemologies, and politics in historical and contemporary borderlands in North America.

This symposium invites paper submissions to develop new borderland and border-crossing approaches that center Indigenous peoples, homelands, political concerns, and related dynamics--temporally and spatially expanding borderlands frameworks. We particularly encourage papers that approach borderlands around a broad array of themes including (but not limited to):

• Migrants and mobilities, including Indigenous peoples as migrants, exiles, and refugees engaged in expansion, relocation, and diasporas.
• Kinship and intimacy, including issues related to gender, identity, families, and other-than-human relatives.
• Shared and contested spaces, including networks and entangled spaces, protected spaces of nature (parks, national forests, marine sanctuaries), and environmental concerns (toxicity, petrochemical development, climate change).
• Sovereignty and self-determination, including spaces of plural or nested sovereignties, political and spatial boundaries, jurisdictional issues, and political organizing.
• Violence, unfreedom, and resistance, including border town violence, slavery, and the carceral state.
• Frameworks and language that move beyond the settler-Indigenous binary to include Black, Asian, Asian American, Latinx, Pacific Islander peoples, and various other communities in the borderlands.

We are particularly eager for proposals from tribal nations and Indigenous organizations or scholars working with Indigenous communities. We are also open to non-traditional proposals and formats that encourage us to think critically about Indigenous borderlands.

We plan for this conference to be the first iteration of a set of symposia around the topic of Indigenous borderlands. These will include workshop experiences for the presenters and will result in an edited volume or special issue of a journal. Additional outcomes tied to the needs of Indigenous communities and Native nations will also be pursued.

Paper abstracts of around 350 words and a two-page CV or resume (one per participant) should be submitted by November 10, 2021, to cntrsw@unm.edu. Abstracts will be reviewed and all participants notified by November 30, 2021. Accepted papers of 7,000-10,000 words should be submitted in early October 2022 and will be distributed in advance to symposium participants. They will be presented and workshopped at a scholarly colloquium at the University of New Mexico on November 3-4, 2022. Limited travel and accommodation support will be available.

Symposium Coordinating Committee
• Rani-Henrik Andersson, Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki
• Boyd Cothran, History Department, York University
• Elizabeth Ellis (Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma), History Department, New York University
• Nakia D. Parker, History Department, Michigan State University
• Joshua L. Reid (Snohomish Tribe of Indians), History and American Indians Studies Departments, Director of the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington
• Samuel Truett, History Department, Director of the Center for the Southwest, University of New Mexico

Please read below for the message from University of Washington History Department chair Glennys Young regarding the passing of Linda Nash: 

"It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that I write to let you know that our colleague Linda Nash passed away early Sunday morning [October 17, 2021]. Our caring thoughts and deepest sympathy are with her husband, Jim Hanford, their children Helen and Peter, and the rest of their family. We mourn her passing.

Linda was a brilliant historian, an outstanding teacher, and a generous colleague. She earned her Ph.D. in History in 2000 from our Department, and worked with Richard White, John Findlay, and other members of our Department. She also held a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an MS in Energy and Resources.

Her prize-winning book, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease and Knowledge, was published by the University of California Press in 2007. It was awarded the the American Historical Association's John H. Dunning Prize, the American Historical Association-Pacific Coast Branch Book Prize, and the Western Association of Women Historian's Serra-Keller Prize. She also wrote prize-winning articles.

The book project she had been working on is, as Linda put it, is "The Materials of Empire: American Engineers in the West and Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley," under contract to Oxford University Press. This book tells an environmental and postcolonial history of development,” connecting the US’s approach to the postwar world to the nation’s settler colonial history in the American West, by demonstrating how the United States’ materially intensive approach to appropriating the dry landscapes of the trans-Mississippi West in the nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries shaped American responses to dry regions across the world for several decades. Through a transnational study of two large American engineering projects, one domestic (the Columbia Basin Project in Washington State) and one foreign (the Helmand Valley Project in Afghanistan), The Materials of Empire emphasizes the centrality of natural environments and material flows to all aspects of modern life both within and beyond the borders of the US."

Her article, “The Nature of ‘Know-How’: American Engineers in Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley,” is forthcoming in Transplanting Modernity? New Histories of Poverty, Development, & Environments, ed. Thomas Robertson and Jenny Leigh Smith, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Linda's teaching of US Environmental History was legendary, and inspired her students, who included department colleagues who audited her courses. She was also an exceptionally generous departmental citizen.

It is my hope that we will soon be able to come together to remember and honor Linda's career, and life."   

With deepest sympathy,

Glennys Young
Chair, Department of History
Professor of International Studies
University of Washington

The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC) seeks a Curator (Assistant or Associate level) of the American West to build a program largely focused on, but not exclusive to, the William S. Hart ranch and collection (Hart Museum).  The program will encompass the oversight and interpretation of the collections, scholarly research on the collections and their historical context, and development of content—in collaboration with Southern California’s multi-cultural communities—for a variety of public programs. 

NHMLAC’s Hart Museum is a Spanish Colonial Revival mansion located in Newhall, a suburb of Los Angeles and home to the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.  The Hart Museum offers free year-round programming and tours to approximately 34,000 annual visitors and school groups. It is the former home of silent movie star William S. Hart (1864-1946), which he bequeathed to the County of Los Angeles for the purpose of creating a museum, and features a large collection of objects, works of art, photographs and documents, and furniture and memorabilia from his career as a star of early westerns. The Hart collection is complemented by more than 2,000,000 historical and anthropological objects and documents, with a focus on Southern California and spanning 13,000 years of human occupation, under the purview of NHMLAC’s History and Anthropology Departments. 

The current presentation of the Hart Museum focuses on an interpretation of Hart’s legacy that is not reflective of the ways in which his films misrepresented the American West’s multi-cultural past, embraced the narrative of Manifest Destiny, and did not fully engage communities whose cultural resources are a part of the Hart collection. However, decolonizing the narrative of the Hart Museum is beginning, through existing research and outreach focused on the history of Southern California and the strengthening of existing relationships with local organizations and communities. The Curator (a position within NHMLAC’s History Department) is expected to work with these communities in uplifting their stories through a reinterpretation of the complex history of the American West and its intersections with William S. Hart and early Hollywood films. The successful candidate will be paramount for the transformation of the Hart Museum into a gathering space of public conversations, critical research, timely exhibitions, and inclusive public programs focused on the unheard voices of the communities marginalized by a narrative of the American West that too often has ignored its cultural diversity. The Curator will join a community of NHMLAC’s scholars and experts on the cultural and natural history of Southern California. 

The successful candidate will have a record of outstanding research, excellent communication skills, and a demonstrated ability to engage the public and stakeholders; experience with the care, digitization, management, and operation of cultural collections is highly desirable. A Ph.D. and a strong track record of scholarly publications focusing on the American West are required. The Curator will be expected to build an active and publicly appealing research program, to oversee the management of the Hart collection including efforts for expanding accessibility through digitization, and to supervise staff and volunteers. Additionally, the successful candidate is expected to develop working relationships with local universities and cultural organizations, mentor interns and students, strengthen NHMLAC’s presence in key community and governmental networks, and maintain and sustain research through competitive grants and/or other funding from external sources. The Curator will be expected to participate actively in a broad range of museum activities, including exhibits, education, community-based programs, educator and volunteer training, public communications, media interactions, and fundraising activities. The Curator must have the vision and capability to build a scholarly program that can be integrated with NHMLAC’s ongoing efforts to understand regional history through the voices of Los Angeles’ multicultural communities, and to shape the collections and research in ways that activate their multi-cultural and public appeal. 

NHMLAC values and endeavors to support diversity, equity, inclusion, and access within its organization and communities. Candidates who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color (BIPOC), neurodiverse, a woman, a person with a disability, a veteran, and/or a part of the LGBTQAI+ community are welcome and encouraged to apply. This is a full-time position with a salary and title commensurate with experience. 

Application deadline is December 15th, 2021. Applicants should send a cover letter, vision statement, curriculum vitae, and contact information of at least three professional references as a single PDF document. NHMLAC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

To apply: https://bit.ly/3ARVskS