Assistant Professor Lisa Blee
American West and Native American history
B-110 Tribble Hall, 758-6995
e-mail: bleelm@wfu.edu
BioLisa Blee grew up in Arizona, where she learned to appreciate desert landscapes, dry heat, cultural diversity, and a good burrito. She attended college at Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon, and studied abroad in Germany and Australia. After a stint at the Oregon Historical Society, she went back to school and received her PhD in American Indian history at the University of Minnesota. At Wake Forest she teaches courses in the American West, Native American history, and public history. Her research interest is in late nineteenth and twentieth century Pacific Northwest history, specifically Native American politics and culture, memory and commemorations, and the environment. She is currently writing a book about the 2004 exoneration of a Nisqually Indian leader who was tried for murder and executed in Washington Territory in 1858. The book investigates the extent to which competing historical memories can hinder reconciliation or promote social justice today.
CVEducation:
B.A. Lewis and Clark College 2002
Ph.D. University of Minnesota 2008
B.A. Lewis and Clark College 2002
Ph.D. University of Minnesota 2008
Academic Appointments
Wake Forest University. Assistant Professor 2009 – Present
Seattle University. Adjunct Instructor 2008-2009
Click here for complete CV.
Publications
- “The Quest for the Legal Enemy: Symbolic Justice during the War on Terror,” Radical History Review, Vol. 113 (Spring 2012): 55-65.
- “‘I Came Voluntarily to Work, Sing, and Dance’: Stories from the Eskimo Village at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 101, no. 3/4 (Summer/Fall 2010): 126-137.
- “Mount Rainier Narratives and Indian Economies of Place, 1850-1925,” Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter 2009): 419-443.
- Co-author (with Julie Weiskopf, Jeff Manuel, Andrew Urban, Caley Horan, and Brian Tochterman), “Engaging With Public Engagement: Public History and Graduate Pedagogy,” Radical History Review, Issue 102 (Fall 2008): 72-89.
- “The 1925 Fort Union Indian Congress: One Event, Multiple Interpretations,” American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Fall 2007): 582-612.
- “Completing Lewis and Clark’s Westward March: Exhibiting a History of Empire at the 1905 Portland World’s Fair,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Summer 2005): 232-53.
For a complete list of publications, click CV
Courses
- HST 108 Americas and the World
Thematically this course focuses on both the macrohistories of economies and societies, and the microhistories of materials and individuals. Course readings – a combination of scholarly texts, historical documents, autobiographies, and shorter first-person accounts – follow the social, cultural, economic, and political evolutions in North America, South America, and the Caribbean. Overall, the course content explores the tensions between broad historical trends and individuals’ stories; such an approach leads us to understand the diverse ways in which people viewed their world, their singular and collective power to change it, and the larger structures of power that limited or supported their actions.
- FYS 100 The American West in Popular Culture
This course focuses on a set of stories communicated through art, film, text, music, and performance that take the West as their setting or subject. From their first explorations past the Appalachian Mountains, Americans have expressed their identities, hopes, and anxieties through the West. This course explores the ways in which the West became an important myth and acted as a mirror for American culture. We collectively analyze advertisements, memorials, and artistic creations to consider why specific events, figures, and idioms held such appeal to American audiences in their particular historical moments. We seek to understand why myths were created, who benefited, and whose experiences were left out. Throughout the course, we garner a greater understanding of the ways in which popular culture both reflected and shaped the stories that Americans told about themselves over time.
- HST 254 American West to 1850
This course is the first half of a two-semester survey course of the North American West, from roughly 1500 to 1850. Topics include indigenous trade and lifeways, contact, conflict, and cooperation between natives and newcomers, exploration and migration, imperial geopolitical rivalries, and various experiences with western landscapes.
- HST 255 U.S. West from 1850
This course is the second half of a two-semester survey course of the U.S. West, from 1848 to the present. Topics include industrial expansion and urbanization, conflicts with Native Americans, national and ethnic identity formations, contests over natural resources, representations and myths of the West, and religious, cultural, and social diversity.
- HST 365 Modern Native American History
This course considers broad historical issues and debates about Native American identity, experiences with and memories of colonialism, cultural preservation and dynamism, and political sovereignty from 1830 to the present. Focuses on individual accounts, tribal case studies, and popular representations of Native people.
- HST 367 Issues in Public History
This course introduces students to the major issues involved in the practice, interpretation, and display of history for nonacademic audiences in public settings. Central themes include controversial historical interpretations, the role of history in popular culture, issues and aims in exhibiting history, and the politics of historical memory. Explores some of the many ways people create, convey, and contest history, major themes in community and local history, and the problems and possibilities of working as historians in public settings.