Associate Professor of History
Office Phone: 928 523-4507
Office LA 205
E-mail: Jennifer.Denetdale@nau.edu
Teaching and Research Interests
Jennifer Nez Denetdale is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She received her doctoral degree in History from Northern Arizona University in 1999. After teaching in the Dept. of Humanities, Arts, and Religion at NAU, she joined the History faculty at the University of New Mexico in 2002. She teaches courses on Native American and Navajo history, Native American women, women in the U.S. West, and Indigenous feminisms. She has research interests in colonialism, nationalism and gender, and environmental and social justice. Her book, Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2007 and her book for young adults, The Long Walk: The Forced Exile of the Navajo, was published by Chelsea House in 2008. She is the author of articles and book chapters on Navajo history and women. Her current research project is a history of Navajo women.
Recent Publications
“Discontinuities, Remembrances, and Cultural Survival: History, Diné/Navajo Memory, and the Bosque Redondo Memorial,” New Mexico Historical Review 82:3 (Summer 2007): 295-316
“Remembering Our Grandmothers: Navajo Women and the Power of Oral Tradition,” in Indigenous Peoples’ Wisdom and Power: Affirming Our Knowledge Through Narratives, ed. Nomalungelo I. Goduka and Julian Kunnie (Great Britain: Ashgate Press, 2006): 78-94“Chairmen, Presidents, and Princesses: The Navajo Nation, Gender, and the Politics of Tradition,” Wicazo Sa Review 21:1 (Spring 2006): 9-44
“`Planting Seeds of Ideas and Raising Doubts About What We Believe’: An Interview with Vine Deloria,” Jr.” Journal of Social Archaeology 4: 2 (2004): 131-146
Courses Taught at University of New Mexico
HIST 683: Native American Women
WMST 379: Native Women and the Red Roots of Feminism
HIST 300: Studies in Oral History
HIST 683: Native American History/Indigenous & Black Relations in North America
HIST 466: Southwest Native American History
HIST 300: Native American Women
HIST 320: Navajo History
HIST 479: Women in the U.S. West
List of Honors and Awards
2007 Gilberto Espinosa Prize for Best Article for “Discontinuities, Remembrances, and Cultural Survival: History, Diné/Navajo Memory, and the Bosque Redondo Memorial,” New Mexico Historical Review 82:3 (Summer 2007)
John Topham and Susan Redd Butler Faculty Fellowship, Brigham Young University, Summer 2007
List of Recent Professional Service
Faculty, Presidential Academy of History, University of Northern Colorado, 2006-2008
Board member, Navajo Studies Conference
Board member, Diné Policy Institute, Diné College, Tsaile, 2007, 2008