Philip J. Deloria

Last updated
Philip J. Deloria
BornPhilip Joseph Deloria
(1959-02-27) February 27, 1959 (age 65)
United States
OccupationProfessor, Historian
LanguageEnglish
Nationality Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota, America
Alma mater University of Colorado (BME, MA)
Yale University (PhD) [1]
Subject Native American history, Native American studies
Notable works Playing Indian

Indians in Unexpected Places

Becoming Mary Sully
Relatives Vine Deloria Jr., father; Mary Sully, great-aunt

Philip Joseph Deloria is a Yankton Dakota Native American author who specializes in Native American, Western American, and environmental history. He is the son of scholar Vine Deloria, Jr., and the great nephew of ethnologist Ella Deloria. [2] Deloria is the author of the award-winning books Playing Indian (1998) and Indians in Unexpected Places (2004), among others. Deloria received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University and currently teaches in the Department of History at Harvard University. [1] In 2021 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. [3]

Contents

Family background

Deloria is an enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, [4] and the son of Barbara and Vine Deloria Jr. His father was a scholar, writer, and activist for Native American rights who earned national recognition for his 1969 book, Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto . [5] Philip J. Deloria's paternal great aunt Ella Deloria worked as an ethnologist, and Ella's sister Mary Sully was an artist. [6] Deloria's grandfather, Vine Deloria Sr. and great grandfather Philip Joseph Deloria, also known as Thípi Sápa, were Episcopal priests. [7] [8] Philip J. Deloria is also the great-great grandson of U.S Army officer and painter Alfred Sully, and the great-great-great-grandson of painter Thomas Sully. [7] [9] Growing up, his mother was a librarian at the Fairhaven Library in Bellingham, Washington. [10] After school he and his brother often read at the library until their mother's shift ended. [11]

Education and career

Deloria graduated from the University of Colorado in 1982 with a B.M.E. in music education. [12] In 1988, Deloria completed his M.A. in journalism and mass communications at the University of Colorado. [12] Deloria received his Ph.D. in American studies from Yale University in 1994. [13] Deloria worked as a professor at the University of Colorado in the Department of History from 1994 to 2000, before taking up a professorship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in both the Department of American Culture and the Department of History. [12] Deloria was the associate dean of undergraduate education in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor's College of Literature Science and the Arts and was the Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor. [13] In 2018 he was made the first tenured professor of Native American history at Harvard University. He is a trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian-Smithsonian and a former chair of the Repatriation Committee. [14] Deloria is the 2022 president of the Organization of American Historians. [15]

Published works

Deloria is the author of two non-fiction books and a number of articles and book chapters.

Deloria's 1998 text, Playing Indian, addresses the historical phenomenon of "playing Indian", whereby non-Native people in the United States construct national and personal identities through the performance of Indian dress and ritual. It was adapted from his dissertation at Yale, which he finished in 1994. [17] Playing Indian won the 1999 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Program for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America. [18]

Deloria's second book, Indians in Unexpected Places (2004), explores stereotypes of Native American people which confine them to the past and analyzes the seeming disunity between Indian people and modernity. Indians in Unexpected Places received the John C. Ewers Prize for Ethnohistorical Writing in 2006 from the Western History Association. [19]

Deloria additionally produced, directed, and edited PBS program Eyanopapi: Heart of the Sioux. [20]

List of selected works

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References

  1. 1 2 "Philip J. Deloria". U-M LSA American Culture. University of Michigan. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  2. ↑ "The Making of Philip J. Deloria | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  3. ↑ "The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2021". amphilsoc.org. May 7, 2021. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
  4. ↑ Harjo, Suzan Shown, ed. (2014). Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations. Penguin Random House. ISBN   9781588344793.
  5. ↑ "Facts on File History Database" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  6. ↑ "Native American women artists finally get their due in new Minneapolis exhibition". www.theartnewspaper.com. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  7. 1 2 "Ella Deloria Archive" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  8. ↑ "The US-Dakota War of 1862". 25 September 2012. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  9. ↑ "Journal of San Diego History" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  10. ↑ The WRITER'S STUDIO with Philip J. Deloria (2021, December ). Cambridge University Press.
  11. ↑ The WRITER'S STUDIO with Philip J. Deloria (2021, December ). Cambridge University Press.
  12. 1 2 3 "Philip Deloria, CV". Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  13. 1 2 "University of Michigan" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  14. ↑ "Philip Deloria". history.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  15. ↑ "Philip Joseph Deloria". Shekon Neechie. 2021-07-01. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  16. ↑ "Merle Curti Lecture Series".
  17. ↑ Bolotnikova, Marina N. (2018-12-06). "Native Modern". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  18. ↑ "Library Thing" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  19. ↑ "Western History Association" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  20. ↑ "UPenn Libraries" . Retrieved 8 May 2014.
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