This past November, Illinois College Professor Joseph Genetin-Pilawa participated in a symposium on federal Indian affairs at the newly dedicated St. Louis branch of the National Archives. He has recently written a blog on the topic which has been posted online at the University of North Carolina Press and at First Peoples, New Directions in Indigenous Studies.

Genetin-Pilawa’s blog can be found on the UNC Press website at uncpressblog.com or at First Peoples website at www.firstpeoplesnewdirections.org.

The blog is an encapsulation of some of the topics Genetin-Pilawa discussed during the panel discussion at the National Archives, but he focusses more intensely on the exhibit itself.

“It’s really a thought piece about reconsidering how we tell indigenous and other histories in museums and archives, as well as in books,” Genetin-Pilawa says.

The panel discussion coincided with the opening of a new NARA exhibit entitled “Documented Rights” and included historians Flannery Burke and Frederick Fausz, in addition to Genetin-Pilawa. This was the second in a series of panel discussions addressing civil and human rights struggles of African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants from various parts of the world, working class activists and women as they relate to the exhibit.

Genetin-Pilawa, assistant professor of history and political science at Illinois College, has a new book due out next fall entitled Contested Characters and the Crooked Paths to Allotment. The book will be published by UNC Press.