American Indian studies claimed a space to interrogate Western disciplinary epistemologies utilizing Indigenous ways of "knowing". This epistemological struggle has, not surprisingly, been that: a struggle. As the author writes in 2010, people understand that their continuing desire to bring Indigenous community-based ways of knowing into dialogue…

The field of Native American studies was invented during the 1960s, a product of the Red Power civil rights movement, which is to suggest that it shares an origin story with ethnic studies in general. The field was at the center of the ethnic studies movement, and it radically transformed how Native peoples and cultures were studied. The author…

The development of David Armitage's "white Atlantic" history parallels the Cold War origins of American studies with its mission to define and promote "American culture" or "American civilization." British scholar Paul Gilroy's "The Black Atlantic" served as a necessary corrective. Armitage's statement leads…

It is difficult to overestimate the differences between Native American studies in Europe and the United States. In Europe there are no dedicated university programs in Native American studies; instead, disciplinary units such as American studies or departments such as English, history, development studies, and anthropology house teaching and…

In this article, the author presses the virtues of insider research, suggesting that Native American studies might profit from a deeper engagement with the broader debates that have taken place in other disciplines and fields. Insider research, he suggests, can generate questions not available to those with outsider perspectives. Participating in…

In his keynote address to the Fifth Annual American Indian Studies Consortium in 2005 David Wilkins began by commenting on earlier attempts to formally organize such a gathering in ways that might help establish and accredit Indian studies programs. He said he had the sense that the thrust of earlier meetings "was really an opportunity for Native…

The academic field of Native American/American Indian studies (NAS/AIS) has been and largely remains a product of political forces at the national level and now at the tribal level. The very recognition of American Indians as a unique group by the U.S. government is a political statement of survival. In this article, the author revisits the…

American Indian studies should have a theoretical and methodological focus sufficient to organize an academic discipline. A primary focus of American Indian studies as a discipline is to conceptualize, research, and explain patterns of American Indian individual and collective community choices and strategies when confronted with relations with…

The country is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, as has been the case throughout the history of the United States, American Indians have answered the call and are serving bravely in the armed forces. As in years past, there are also a cadre of American Indian veterans returning from the battlefield, scarred and wounded in body, heart, and mind.…

Comments on recent studies on the Cherokee Nation which emphasize the profound differences of traditional Cherokee culture from White society, the deep factionalism that has plagued the Cherokees since the emergence of a mixed-blood group, and the remarkable persistence of native values and social forms despite two centuries of acculturation. (NEC)

Describes the life of a Northern Miwok couple, Lily and Pedro O'Connor, reconstructed from interviews, historical accounts, and archeological examination of their cabin site. Relates their active interest in ceremonies, Indian dances, and traditional medicine to the early twentieth century Miwok way of life. Contains 43 references. (DHP)

Assembles all primary accounts of Cherokee Ghost Dance Movement and reassesses them in the light of recent studies, particularly those by A.F.C. Wallace, Peter Worsley, and Kenelm Burridge. Evidence casts doubts on claim of a direct link between the Cherokee movement and the ghost dance religion among the Creek. (NEC)

The author mentions some of his recent works that he values and uses, without becoming a kind of academic costermonger cataloguing all the produce for sale in the shop. At the same time, he suggests some substantive things, while not falling prey to mere rant. In his books, the author discusses the characteristics of Native American Studies (NAS).…

Introduction to Native American Studies has been, paradoxically, the author's most satisfying and most challenging teaching assignment in more than two decades as a university-level faculty member. As a former coordinator of the Native American Studies Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), he has heard many other faculty air their…

A review of "Special Case 188" of the Bureau of Indian Affairs records and other ancillary archival sources suggests inferences into what prompted persons in the Bureau to respond as they did to Jack Wilson, the Ghost Dance prophet, and the Sioux rebellion in the Dakotas. (NEC)