U.S. History: Native American History, Digital and Public History, Spatial History, Refugee Studies
John R. Legg is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. His research focus includes Indigenous history, the United States and Canada, and the Civil War era. His dissertation, "In Our Own Rightful Territory": Dakota Mobility, Diplomacy, and Belonging in Mni Sota Makoce after the US-Dakota War, explores the movement and diplomatic practice of Dakota people within their homeland and how this movement challenged the colonial borders of the United States and Canada. He will defend his dissertation in March 2024.
John is dedicated to building meaningful connections between academic and public communities. With training in digital humanities, public history, and oral history, he has contributed to more than a dozen projects aimed at making history accessible to a wide audience. John also serves as an editorial assistant for the Journal of Social History and works as a book review editor for H-CivWar. He has also served as affiliate editor for the National Council of Public History's History@Work blog.
"The Myth and Memory of Chief Tamanend at Gettysburg," in E.J. Murphy, The Keystone for the Union: New Perspectives on the Civil War in Pennsylvania (forthcoming, chapter submitted to editor)
"Searching for Indigeneity in The Oregon Trail," in Patrick A. Lewis and James "Trae" Welborn III, eds, Playing at War: Identity and Memory in American Civil War Video Games (LSU Press, forthcoming 2024).
"Indigenous and Settler Violence during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Microsyllabus," The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (online and print, forthcoming Summer 2021).
“The Sioux Wars (1853-1890),” in Political Violence in America: Historical Flashpoints and Modern-Day Trends, edited by Lori Cox Han and Tomislav Han, ABC-CLIO, 2022.
"White Lies, Native Revisions: The Legacy of Violence in the American West,” Great Plains Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Fall, 2019): 331-340.
Doctoral Research Grant, Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 2023
American Philosophical Society, Phillips Fund for Native American Research, 2022
George Mason University Provost's Office, Doctoral Research Scholars Fellowship, Tier 3, 2022-2023
Newberry Library, Visiting Scholar, Chicago, Illinois, May-June, 2021.
MA, Virginia Tech (May 2020)
BA, Middle Georgia State University (Dec. 2017)
Graduate Cert. in Public History, Virginia Tech (May 2020)
“Native Americans in the Civil War,” for Dr. Molly Mersmann’s American Civil War course at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia (Virtual), November 7, 2023.
Western History Association, Los Angeles, “Remembering the Civil War in the West,” with Michael Green (chair), Kristen Phipps, and James Jewell, October 26-29, 2023.
Northern Great Plains History Conference, Sioux Falls, SD, “Complicating War’s End: The American Civil War in the West,” with Jennifer Andrella, Lindsey Peterson, and Kurt Hackemer, September 27-30, 2023.
Northern Great Plains History Conference, Sioux Falls, SD, “Remembering Bill Lass” Memorial Session, September 27-30, 2023.
Canadian Historical Association, “Contested Borderlands, Settler Colonial State Power, and Hidden Indigenous Histories of the Northern Great Plains,” with Max Hamon (chair), Scott Berthelette, and Émilie Pigeon, York University, Toronto, Canada, May 29-31, 2023.
“In Search of Refuge: Dakota Mobility, the US-Canadian Border, and Extralegal Violence after the Dakota War, 1862-1865,” for Knox College’s Fall Lecture Series, Abolition for All Time Digital Humanities Lab, Galesburg, Illinois, October 20, 2022.
"Little Six and Medicine Bottle: How U.S. Political Violence Shaped the Long U.S.-Dakota War," Reeder Symposium, Youngstown State University, October 2022.
Roundtable, "Playing at War: Identity and Memory in American Civil War Era Video Games," Western History Association, San Antonio, October 2022.
Society of Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), “The Dakota Nation Confronts American Colonialism: A Roundtable on Dakota Resistance and Perseverance in the Early American Republic,” Roundtable with Dr. Gwen Westerman, Dr. Linda M. Clemmons, and Dr. Jameson Sweet, July 16, 2021. Virtual.