Associate Professor
Indiana University Bloomington
Department: History, Native American and Indigenous Studies
I examine the motivations of territory and the intersections of representation and violence. As a citizen of Cherokee Nation, I developed a lifelong interest in studying Native identity and struggle and detailing the history of Native people’s encounters with violence and exploitation. Recently, I was featured in Perspectives on History discussing the recent surge of Native-centered television representation in Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs. Her work has appeared in more than 20 academic and non-academic outlets. In 2019, I co-edited a special edition of the American Indian Culture and Research Journal with Nick Rosenthal on Native representations of history and culture.
My research -- and interest in reaching a public audience -- has helped my audiences understand how diverse events such as representation, labor, land dispossession, and gendered violence relate to the likelihood of danger and ongoing vanquishment of Native peoples. I employ the disciplines of history, Native American studies, film studies, and gender studies to creatively combine traditional archives, oral history, storytelling, and tribal histories.
I joined the IU Bloomington Departments of History & Native American and Indigenous Studies in 2019 where I received tenure in June 2022. I have received fellowships from UCLA, the Ford Foundation, and Cherokee Nation. My current project, How to Get Away with Murder, is a transnational history of missing and murdered Indigenous women. My first book, Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941-1960, came out in 2020.
