Local Lands and Contemporary Indigenous Issues

Dr. Elizabeth Rule (enrolled citizen, Chickasaw Nation) is entering her first year as an Assistant Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University. She is also currently a MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow and the creator of the Guide to Indigenous DC mobile application. Rule’s research on issues in the Native American community has been featured in the Washington Post, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, The Atlantic, Newsy, and NPR. She is also a published author, releasing scholarly articles in American Quarterly and the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Rule has two forthcoming monographs. The first, Reproducing Resistance: Gendered Violence and Indigenous Nationhood, analyzes the intersection of violence against Native women, reproductive justice, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women; this work received the Julien Mezey Award for best dissertation from the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities in 2020. Rule’s second monograph, Indigenous DC: Native Peoples and the Nation’s Capital, analyzes historical and contemporary sites of Indigenous importance in the District of Columbia and emphasizes that all American land is Indian land. Previously, Dr. Rule has held posts as Director of the Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy and Faculty in Residence at George Washington University, Postdoctoral Fellow at American University, Ford Foundation Fellow, and Predoctoral Fellow at MIT. Rule received her Ph.D. and M.A. in American Studies from Brown University, and her B.A. from Yale University.