Hello Hist 281!

Welcome to HIST 281, I’m glad you’re here! This is our space to post weekly blogs using the prompts that are assigned on the schedule page. I am Jen Andrella, a historian and postdoctoral fellow of Digital Humanities at Knox. I hold a Ph.D. in U.S. and Native American history as well as a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities. I am currently working on my first book which examines post-Civil War Reconstruction as a national process that entailed both the restoration of the South and territorial expansion in the trans-Mississippi West.[1] I use Montana Territory as a case study to examine the interplay of local and federal forces on the ground, as well as how these efforts ultimately produced a more exclusionary, unstable, and violent nation.

This term, I am most looking forward to the week on Native American activism and it’s influence on art, music, film, and literature in the 1970s and beyond. I find this period of history so interesting, and I look forward to engaging with some diverse sources that week! This week also meshes well with one of our major projects, which is to write a film review.

I also hope that you will find our readings and conversations throughout the course thoughtful and engaging. We will be grappling with a variety of topics across several decades of history. While we do not have any exams/tests/quizzes in the class, I look forward to reading about your thoughts and analyses in your weekly blog posts!

Lastly, here is a photo of two alpacas, because they are fuzzy and cute.

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Footnotes

[1] This book will be adapted from my dissertation, “When the War Raged On: Montana Territory, the Politics of Authority, and National Reconstruction.” See Jennifer Andrella, “When the War Raged on: Montana Territory, the Politics of Authority, and National Reconstruction,” 2022, Michigan State University. http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/when-war-raged-on-montana-territory-politics/docview/2730324833/se-2.