C Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

C Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

C Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

Associate Professor

U.S. History: 19th-Century, Indigenous Histories, Public History, Washington D.C.

C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa received his PhD at Michigan State University.  He is the author of Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War (UNC Press, 2012), and the co-editor of Beyond Two Worlds: Critical Conversations on Language and Power in Native North America (SUNY Press, 2014).  His articles have appeared in the Journal of Women’s History, Western Historical Quarterly, and The Capitol Dome as well as several edited collections.  Professor Genetin-Pilawa’s current research examines the visual, symbolic, and lived Indigenous landscapes of Washington D.C., focusing especially upon the ways that Native visitors and residents claimed and reclaimed spaces in the city.

Currently, Professor Genetin-Pilawa is a subject matter expert for a National Parks Service Project at Historic Fort Smith in Ft. Smith, AR.  In 2014-2015, he held fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Kluge Center (Library of Congress).  He also co-organized the 2014 meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory and the 2015 meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. 

Selected Publications

The Indians’ Capital City (Under Contract, University of North Carolina Press)

Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight Over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). 

Beyond “Two Worlds”: Critical Conversations on Language and Power in Native North America, Tribal Worlds series, co-edited with James Buss (State University of New York Press, 2015). 

“Introduction: Special Forum on Indigenous Histories of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 14(4) (October 2015): 503-511. Co-written with Boyd Cothran (We were also the co-editors of the special forum).

“‘Friends’ and Fistfights: Federal Indian Policy Debates and Late-Nineteenth Century State Development,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 14(4) (October 2015): 512-520.

“A Curious Removal: Leta Myers Smart, The Rescue, and The Discovery of America,” The Capitol Dome: A Magazine of History Published by the United States Capitol Historical Society 52(1) (Spring 2015): 2-9.

“Ely Parker and the Paradox of Reconstruction Politics in Indian Country,” The World the Civil War Made (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), forthcoming 2015

 “Ely Parker and the Contentious Peace Policy,” Western Historical Quarterly 41 (Summer 2010): 197-217.  

 “’[A]ll intent on seeing the white woman married to the red man’: The Parker/Sackett Affair and the Public Spectacle of Intermarriage,” Journal of Women’s History 20(2) (June 2008): 57-85. 

Grants and Fellowships

John W. Kluge Fellowship, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, 2013-2014 (deferred to 2014-2015)

Smithsonian Institution Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2013-2014 (deferred to 2014-2015)

U.S. Capitol Historical Society Fellowship, 2011-2012

Littleton-Griswold Grant for Research in U.S. Legal History, American Historical Association, 2005 and 2006

Library Resident Research Fellowship (Supported by the Phillips Fund for Native American Research), American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA., 2006

In the Media

Guest Interview and discussion with Tara Houska, “The Road to Now,” June 9, 2016, http://www.theroadtonow.com/episodes/2016/6/8/episode-5-tara-houska-and-joe-genetin-pilawa-on-native-american-culture-and-history

“Westward Expansion and Native Americans,” Lectures in History, C-SPAN, aired March 30, 2016. 

“Native Americans in 19th-Century Washington D.C.” American History TV, C-SPAN, aired September 15, 2014.

Guest Interview, “New Books in Native American Studies,” December 13, 2012, http://newbooksnetwork.com/joseph-genetin-pilawa-crooked-paths-to-allotment-the-fight-over-federal-indian-policy-after-civil-war-unc-press-2012/

Dissertations Supervised

John Legg, “In Our Own Rightful Territory”: Dakota Mobility, Diplomacy, and Belonging in Mni Sota Makoce after the US-Dakota War (2024)

Daniel Curry, De-evolution: Individual Property Rights, Communal Property Rights, and Mexican Land Grants in California and New Mexico, 1821-1925 (2021)

Joshua Catalano, The Settler-Colonial Memory of the Gnadenhutten Massacre and the Burning of William Crawford (2019)