Call for Student Mellon Fellows
Sovereignty and Democracy in Indian Country
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Oklahoma Center for the Humanities with support from a grant from the Mellon Foundation will pursue a three-year project on Sovereignty and Democracy in Indian Country. This initiative will bring together TU faculty and students with dedicated national and community experts to explore the history, philosophy, and future of concepts like citizenship, identity, and belonging. Undergraduate and graduate students from all colleges are welcome to apply.
In the four years since the Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt ruling, Oklahoma has become a unique cultural laboratory where scholars, activists, political leaders, artists, and citizens are now exploring tense yet urgent questions about self-determination, the rights of indigenous peoples, and the nature of sovereignty itself, while opening up a new and unexpected space for rethinking the history and future of American democracy. Far from abstruse, such issues directly shape the day-to-day lives of all citizens since they go to fundamental issues of identity, the basis of law, the power of the state, the rights of individuals, and the interwoven histories of race, ethnicity, and citizenship. Among the most pressing questions we now face:
- What does it mean to live on land where sovereignty is shared and multiple rather than unitary and absolute?
- Who has the power to define citizenship and how does it continue to intersect with the regimes of race and racism that have shadowed the United States from the start?
- How have indigenous cultures influenced American democracy, from the Iroquois Confederacy (a model for the U.S. Constitution), through the re-establishment of tribal nations at the end of the Trail of Tears, to the creation of novel democratic institutions in the now sovereign lands of eastern Oklahoma?
- What social, political, and artistic futurisms have taken shape in the Oklahoma from the creation of Indian Territory to the restoration of tribal sovereignty?
- How might we think of Oklahoma and its tribal nations less as spaces of exception than as the vanguard of a larger effort to create resilient cultures of democracy?
ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP
In his award-winning book, The Rediscovery of America (2023), Ned Blackhawk urges scholars “to put down the interpretive tools of the previous century and take up new ones” in order to develop a more complex history of culture and politics in the Americas. Throughout the 2025-26 academic year, we will take up this challenge by asking not how European settlers “brought” democracy to the continent, but rather how American ideals grew out of an entangled history of contact, exchange, negotiation, and treaty-making.
We now seek applications from students across campus interested in exploring these challenging questions in a broadly interdisciplinary setting. Applicants need not be experts in indigenous studies, but should be eager to explore new and changing histories and theories of democracy, citizenship, belonging, and identity. Fellows will meet in a weekly seminar throughout the fall semester and will help design an array of public programs, including lectures, performances, exhibitions, and a national summit.
Student fellows will be eligible for course credit and will receive modest research grants to support their work in and beyond the seminar. Such funds can be used to purchase books, attend relevant cultural events, and travel to attend conference. As part of the fellowship, fellows will work collaboratively to help design ambitious public programs including an exhibition at 101 Archer and an international summit on sovereignty and democracy.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
Applications for participation in the seminar should include the following.
- A current CV or resume, including contact information.
- Full responses to the three application questions listed below.
Applications should be sent by electronic attachment to humanities@utulsa.edu.
Application Deadline: May 5, 2025
Application Questions (no more than 1,500 words total):
- How might your own work intersect key themes for the year including the history of democracy, indigenous studies, and changing concepts of sovereignty, citizenship, and identity? What are the questions that you would like to see addressed in the seminar?
- How will participation in the seminar contribute to your teaching, writing, creative, and/or other kinds of work? What kinds of projects do you envisage arising out of your participation in the seminar?
- Provide a short list of works (books, images, performances, films, articles, etc.) that you have found important or provocative in relation to the seminar’s focus.
To learn more about the grant and the larger set of projects it supports, please visit the OCH website. If you have questions about the seminar and the application process, please contact Sean Latham (sean-latham@utulsa.edu // x 2857).