DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  American History, Since 1900; American History, Before 1900

Thematic Field(s):  Legal and Criminal History; Environmental History; Political and Policy History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Native American History; American Midwest; Indigenous Law and Policy; U.S. Colonialism

Biography

Doug Kiel (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2012) is a citizen of the Oneida Nation and studies Indigenous histories and settler colonialism, primarily in the American Midwest, with an emphasis on law and policy. Their first book, Unsettling Territory: Oneida Nation Resurgence and Anti-Sovereignty Backlash, is forthcoming from Yale University Press.

Kiel is a recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s New Directions Fellowship (2025–2027) and is currently working on a book entitled Power over the Land: Race, Colonialism, and the American Midwest, which examines the Midwest as a battleground where settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and industrial transformation collide with grassroots struggles for sovereignty and liberation. Kiel is also in the early stages of research for The Outer Space of America: Manifest Destiny and the Cosmic Frontier.

Kiel’s work in museums has included co-curating Indigenous Chicago at the Newberry Library (September 2024 to January 2025), and Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories, a permanent exhibition at the Field Museum that opened in 2022. Additionally, they serve on the scholarly advisory committee for the new Wisconsin History Center, opening in 2026. As an advocate, Kiel has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources, submitted an expert witness report in regards to Oneida Nation v. Village of Hobart (2020), and currently serves on the Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission.

His publications are available to download. 

Affiliated Programs

• Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
• Center for Native American and Indigenous Research

Publications (Selected)

• “Indigenous Agency and Resilience in the Midwest: Reclaiming the Narrative,” Middle West Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Spring 2024): 99–111.
• “Histories of Indigenous Sovereignty in Action: What is it and Why Does it Matter?” co-authored with Christine DeLucia, Katrina Phillips, and Kiara Vigil, The American Historian, No. 27 (March 2021): 20–31.
• “Nation v. Municipality: Indigenous Land Recovery, Settler Resentment, and Taxation on the Oneida Reservation,” NAIS: Native American and Indigenous Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2019): 51–73; Reprinted in Kathleen Belew and Ramón A. Gutiérrez, A Field Guide to White Supremacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021).
• “Foreword: Queer Heartlands” in Ryan Schuessler and Kevin Whiteneir, Jr., eds., Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology from Middle America (Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2020), 13–15.
• “Bleeding Out: Histories and Legacies of ‘Indian Blood’,” in Blood Quantum and the Future of Native Nations (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2017), 80-97.
• Indigenous Midwests, Special Issue of Middle West Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2016), co-edited with James F. Brooks, including co-authored introduction “Reframing and Reclaiming Indigenous Midwests.”
• “Untaming the Mild Frontier: In Search of New Midwestern Histories,” Middle West Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2014): 9-38.
• “Competing Visions of Empowerment: Oneida Progressive-Era Politics and Writing Tribal Histories,” Ethnohistory, Vol. 61, No. 3 (2014): 419-444.
• “Rebuilding Indigenous Nations: Native American Activism and the Long Red Power Movement,” Expedition Magazine [University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology], Vol. 55, No. 3 (2013): 8-11.
• “The Erosion of the Middle Ground: Native Peoples of the Great Lakes Region after 1815,” in The War of 1812: Official National Park Service Handbook (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Company Publishers, 2013), 136-146.

In the News

• “Biden Apologies for U.S. Abuse of Indian Children, Calling It ‘a Sin on Our Soul,’” New York Times, October 25, 2024.
• “Return of the Dust Bowl? Dust Storms in Illinois are a Harbinger of Things to Come,” Chicago Tribune, May 25, 2024.
• WBEZ, Curious City, How Did Indian Boundary Park Get Its Name?
• Monument Lab, Plot of Land Series, Episode 10: We Have to Be Creative As Hell

Recent Awards and Honors

•  New Directions Fellowship, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2025–2027.
•  2020 Arrell M. Gibson Award for Best Essay on Native American History, Western History Association (WHA), “Nation v. Municipality: Indigenous Land Recovery, Settler Resentment, and Taxation on the Oneida Reservation,” NAIS: Native American and Indigenous Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2019): 51–73.
•  2015 Dorothy Schwieder Prize for Best Article in Midwestern History, Midwestern History Association (MHA), "Untaming the Mild Frontier: In Search of New Midwestern Histories,” Middle West Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2014): 9-38.