
Position Title
Assistant Professor
Kathleen Whiteley (Wiyot descent) is an assistant professor in the Department of Native American Studies.
Prof. Whiteley received her Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan. Her dissertation, “The Indians of California versus The United States of America: California Dreaming in the Land of Lost Treaties, 1900-1975,” traces the history of two land claims cases brought by the Native peoples of California against the federal government. This project argues that these legal actions and the Indigenous political organizing behind them not only offered Indigenous peoples in California a path towards remuneration, but also new ways of conceiving local identities and imagining inter-tribal political coalitions. She plans to publish a revised version the dissertation as a monograph, and then to develop a second project that examines the history of the eighteen “lost” unratified treaties made in California between 1851-52. Prof. Whiteley was born and raised in Eureka, California. She is a descendant of the Wiyot Tribe.
- Ph.D. University of Michigan, Department of American Culture
- M.A. University of Michigan, Department of American Culture
- B.A. University of California, Berkeley, Department of Native American Studies
- UC Davis Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (CAMPSSAH), Fall 2020 cohort
- University of California, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 2020-2021
- Harvard University, Visiting Fellow, Department of History, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2019-2020
- NAS 1. Introduction to Native American Studies
- NAS 130B. Native American Ethno-Historical Development, 1770-1890
- NAS 130C. Native American Ethno-Historical Development, after 1890
- NAS 280. Ethnohistorical Theory and Method
- Native American History
- California History
- Gender and Women's Studies
- The Newberry Library, Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies, Faculty Liaison, 2021-present
- Western History Association (WHA)
- Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)
- American Studies Association (ASA)
- California Indian Studies and Scholars Association (CISSA)