Doug Kiel (Oneida Nation) is an Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. Kiel studies Indigenous histories and settler colonialism, primarily in the American Midwest, with an emphasis on law and policy.
Kiel’s first book, Unsettling Territory: Oneida Nation Resurgence and Anti-Sovereignty Backlash, is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2025. Their next book project, Power over the Land: Race, Colonialism, and the American Midwest, examines the Midwest as a battleground where settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and industrial transformation collide with grassroots struggles for sovereignty and liberation, revealing marginalized communities’ innovative spatial resistance. Kiel is also in the early stages of research for a book entitled The Outer Space of America: Challenging Manifest Destiny and Colonialism in Space Exploration.
Kiel’s work in museums has included serving as an advisor and co-curator for Indigenous Chicago at the Newberry Library (September 2024 to January 2025), and Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories, a permanent exhibition at the Field Museum that opened in 2022. Additionally, Kiel serves on the scholarly advisory committee for the new Wisconsin History Center, opening in 2026. As an advocate, Kiel has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources, submitted an expert witness report in regards to Oneida Nation v. Village of Hobart (2020), and currently serves on the Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission.
Contact Information:
Email: doug.kiel@northwestern.edu
Phone: 847-467-4821
Select Recent Work:
“Indigenous Agency and Resilience in the Midwest: Reclaiming the Narrative,” Middle West Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Spring 2024): 99–111.
“Histories of Indigenous Sovereignty in Action: What is it and Why Does it Matter?” co-authored with Christine DeLucia, Katrina Phillips, and Kiara Vigil, The American Historian, No. 27 (March 2021): 20–31.
“Nation v. Municipality: Indigenous Land Recovery, Settler Resentment, and Taxation on the Oneida Reservation,” NAIS: Native American and Indigenous Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2019): 51–73.
“Bleeding Out: Histories and Legacies of ‘Indian Blood’,” in Kathleen Ratteree and Norbert Hill, eds., The Great Vanishing Act: Blood Quantum and the Future of Native Nations (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2017), 80–97.
Indigenous Midwests, Special Issue of Middle West Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2016), co-edited with James F. Brooks, including co-authored introduction “Reframing and Reclaiming Indigenous Midwests.”
“Untaming the Mild Frontier: In Search of New Midwestern Histories,” Middle West Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Fall 2014): 9-38.
“Competing Visions of Empowerment: Oneida Progressive-Era Politics and Writing Tribal Histories,” Ethnohistory, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Summer 2014): 419–444.
“The Erosion of the Middle Ground: Native Peoples of the Great Lakes Region after 1815” in Eastern National Park and Monument Association, The War of 1812: Official National Park Service Handbook (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Company Publishers, 2013), 134–145.