An Evening with Maggie and Ned Blackhawk

Co-Presented with the New Mexico Military Museum and Foundation
Thursday, July 16
6:00–7:30 PM
Free Admission, advance registration suggested

What does it mean to understand the United States not just as a nation born in revolution, but as one continuously shaped by Native law, power, and resistance?

Communities across the nation are celebrating the United States' 250th anniversary this year. What can we learn though when we look beyond the Revolution and examine the deeper forces that have shaped the nation across centuries? Join SAR for a rare conversation between Ned Blackhawk and Maggie Blackhawk as they offer an expansive reframing of American history, one that situates the Revolution within a much longer arc and illuminates how Native nations have continually influenced the structures of governance, law, and political power. Drawing on their respective work in Indigenous history and in constitutional law, they will connect past to present, revealing a more complete account of American democracy and inviting us to reconsider how its systems came to be. This is not a traditional lecture, but a dialogue between two of the most influential scholars working today. Maggie Blackhawk’s research examines how marginalized communities have shaped governance beyond the courts, while Ned Blackhawk’s National Book Award-winning scholarship places Native history at the center of the national narrative. Together, they offer a rare opportunity to engage with ideas that bridge disciplines, are grounded in rigorous scholarship, and are deeply relevant to the present moment.

Maggie Blackhawk (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) is a professor of law at New York University and an award-winning scholar of federal Indian law, constitutional law, and legislation. Her work adresses the relationship between law and power, with a particular focus on how Native nations and other marginalized communities have shaped American governance and democracy. Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals, and she was awarded the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize.

She recently published Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law (2024), as an executive editor and co-author. Blackhawk also writes for broader public audiences, including in The New York Times, and has served as an academic consultant on major public history and civic education projects, including work with the Obama Presidential Center and filmmaker Ken Burns.

She is currently working on two book projects. The first, titled American Colonialism: A National Biography (Under Contract, Liveright/W.W. Norton), highlights the centrality of Native Nations, Native peoples, and American colonialism to the constitutional law and constitutional history of the United States. The second, titled Colonial Administration: Empires, Civilization, and the Making of Political Science (Rothbaum Lectures), explores the field of colonial administration as a foundational pillar of American political science, history, and sociology, and what this field can teach us about the "boomerang" effects of empire today.

Ned Blackhawk is the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History at Yale University, where he teaches Native American and United States history. A member of the Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada, he is a leading scholar of Indigenous history and the author of multiple works in the field. His recent book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction among other national awards.

His current work focuses on the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War and the role of Native nations in the era surrounding the American Revolution, continuing his work to place Indigenous history at the center of the American narrative. Portions of this new work have been featured over the last year in The Boston Globe and The Atlantic.

Photo credit: Ned Blackhawk, photo by Garret P. Vreeland. Maggie Blackhawk, photo courtesy of the scholar.

Please be advised that by entering this event, you are agreeing to being filmed and/or photographed, and the resulting assets may be used for SAR marketing or promotional purposes. Should you wish not to be photographed or recorded on video, please notify a staff member or one of the event photographers/videographers.

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Host or Publisher School for Advanced Research